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SAMHSA Voice Awards Honor Walter Ginter’s MARS™ Project [thefix.com]

 

Many people on MAT feel unwelcome at meetings, and this sense of alienation and rejection often leads to relapse. That's where MARS™ comes in. We want people on MAT to be embraced and accepted in recovery.

Held at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus in Westwood, the 13thannual SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration) Voice Awards recognized an essential figure in the national battle against the opioid epidemic. As the founder of the Medicated Assisted Recovery Support (MARS™) Project, Walter Ginter was honored with a Special Recognition Award for his efforts in combating the opioid epidemic and helping people who use Medicated-Assisted Treatment (MAT) stick to the path of recovery. In the greater recovery community-- ranging from treatment centers across the country to 12-step groups—many people have a negative view of MAT which has led to a lack of support for people trying to overcome opioid addiction. 

SAMHSA has been at the helm of national efforts to destigmatize the medications typically used in MAT such as buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone. Beyond supporting physicians and researchers, SAMHSA has tried to reduce the negativity associated with traditional perspectives on opioid recovery. According to many loud voices in Narcotics Anonymous (NA), if a person is on medication that has been prescribed to help them overcome opioid withdrawal symptoms or to refrain from using heroin or other illicit opioids, then they are not really clean. In contrast to this judgmental perspective, the SAMHSA website states: “Medicated-Assisted Treatment (MAT) is the use of FDA- approved medications, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to provide a ‘whole-patient’ approach to the treatment of substance use disorders.”

[For more on this story by John Lavitt, go to https://www.thefix.com/samhsa-...inter-s-mars-project]

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The brain takes a while to re-set oppositional tolerance for opiates. Ie, if you have dumped a ton of opiates on the brain for a while, the brain needs time to slowly reset the receptors to higher sensitivity.   Medication-assisted treatment works better than cold turkey for coming off opioids and opiates because it gives the brain time to reset back to higher sensitivity levels. 

This is the same reason that people sometimes need years to taper off psych drugs. Some neurotransmitter systems re-set much slower than others. Dopamine receptors can re-set in about a month. BUT It takes years and years for GABA (hit by benzos), opioid, and serotonin receptors to re-set.

It's ironic that society will promote tapering advice for opioids since they have a pharma-sponsored tapering drug. But our society will bully and hide and nay-say the same advice tapering advice when psych survivors try to explain psych drug tapers to get off pharma-sponsored drugs. 

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