Methadone can help you get off other, usually more dangerous, drugs, but it's not often a complete solution for an addict, since it's so addictive itself. As you proceed down your road to recovery, you'll likely find you need more than a daily dose of some "safer" or "supervised" substance. For most addicts, the thing that can help them the most is professional addiction counseling and the reasons why are universal.

1. You Need More Than Medicine

Methadone may help you control cravings for other drugs, but it can't address any underlying issues you may be grappling with, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. Methadone can't help you sort abuse from childhood or stifle the pain of loss. Counseling, on the other hand, opens the door to the problems inside you—some or all of which may have driven you to addiction in the first place.

2. Your Family And Friends Need To Know How To Support You

An addiction counselor doesn't simply talk to addicted, recovering or formerly addicted patients, rather, they work with entire families to aid the addict in repairing the past and building a bridge to a more successful, fulfilling and healthy future. Your friends and family have gone through a lot, right along side you, and may not know exactly how to support your efforts to get better and stay better. A counselor can help everyone come together, work on the same page, for the same goals and, hopefully, to the same successful end.

3. You Need A Plan For A Possible (But Hopefully Not) Relapse

Although you'd rather not think about a relapse, you should prepare for the possibility of one occurring. A professional can teach you the signs to watch out for and triggers to remain wary of. If you have an addictive personality, where you tend to submit to impulses and compulsions, you'll need to be aware of how your behavior can set you up for failure with substance abuse. Methadone is something you should have a plan to wean off of, while at the same time you may be fighting urges to return to your original substance of choice, which makes for a confusing scenario that's likely riddled with temptation.

Your counselor will provide you with phone numbers you can call if you feel the urge to pick up your addiction again or even if you feel hopeless in some other way, like being lonely, being too detached from others or not being able to focus on your job and other responsibilities. If you do relapse, there needs to be a plan in place to get you right back on the road to recovery, with as little damage (including the guilt you'll feel) as possible.

4. Your Long-Term Addiction Recovery Means Understanding And Helping Your Inner Self

Some addicts become dependent on drugs or alcohol because they're addictive substances, but many are driven to it through abuse over past issues, present difficulties and, unfortunately, the pressures of life in general. If you need help becoming stronger, from the inside out, without the assistance of drugs (including the methadone, eventually), alcohol and other obstacles, pour your heart out to a counselor. Learn that you can depend on them and tell them anything and that you can trust them to help you become who you want to be, without compromise to your sobriety.

Methadone is a tool for recovery, yet far too many addicts find themselves reliant on it, just as they were to some other substance. Come completely clean and enjoy the sanctity that comes with resolving the issues that drove or facilitated your addiction in the first place. Without counseling, methadone may just turn into another addiction, another thing standing between you and a life well lived.

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