When the word “epidemic” gets used to describe opioid abuse and related overdoses, it’s not always an understatement. Opioid drugs, which include heroin, fentanyl, and many prescription pain pills, have harmed countless lives and devastated communities.
Unfortunately, it seems another, similar epidemic has slowly developed in the shade of the opioid crisis: methamphetamines.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), meth use saw a major resurgence last decade, with over 14.6 million adults reporting they used meth between the years of 2015 and 2018. With that resurgence has come an increase in overdoses – the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports overdoses involving methamphetamine climbed to an all-time high in 2019.
Given those trends, treating methamphetamine addiction is more critical than ever. What’s more, a recent study has uncovered a potential new, effective tool which could be a potential game-changer in addiction treatment.
And perhaps appropriately, there’s also a connection to the opioid crisis.
New Role For Older Medications
Methamphetamine addiction presents some unique challenges for treatment professionals. Methamphetamine itself is a powerful stimulant, causing an intense, euphoric rush in users which can become addictive very quickly. Methamphetamine itself has a particular stigma – many communities at risk for meth use often express feeling like stigma is a barrier between them and treatment.
There’s another challenge. One of the fastest-growing modalities in the treatment industry is medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. The process involves giving recovering patients medications which can help them resist cravings, the effects of drugs and manage withdrawal symptoms. Often used to treat opioid and alcohol addictions, the therapy seems to result in good outcomes for patients.
While not used to treat methamphetamine addiction, a recent study from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found a commonly used MAT medication showed positive outcomes for combating methamphetamine cravings when combined with an antidepressant.
In the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, just over 400 patients being treated at UT Southwestern were given a combination of two drugs:
- An injectable version of naltrexone, often used in opioid and alcohol addiction treatment
- Bupropion, an oral antidepressant also used to help people stop smoking
When given the combination, the researchers found nearly 14% of the patients reported positive results. Although the percentage may seem small, it’s vastly higher than the successful percentage found in the control group which did not receive the medications.
“It’s unbelievably exciting that we have the first-ever positive treatment results for this addiction. The medical field has not been able to find a treatment for people suffering from meth use disorder,” said Madhukar Trivedi, MD, lead author in a UT Southwestern news story.
Previous Study Had Similar Success Rates For Methamphetamine Abuse
This latest study is not the first time Trivedi has worked with this combination of medicines. An earlier study conducted with Columbia University, the University of California Los Angeles, and other institutions focused on moderate to heavy methamphetamine users who wanted to quit.
In that study, the users were given the same bupropion and naltrexone combination. Interestingly, the earlier tests featured the same result: nearly 14% of the participants who received the medications reported positive results. Additionally, the participants also reported decreases in cravings for methamphetamines.
There’s an additional good sign – both medications have already been approved by the Food & Drug Administration, meaning they can be used to treat methamphetamine addictions immediately.
The National Institute on Drug Addiction (NIDA), which funded the recent study, applauded the results. “The opioid crisis and resulting overdose deaths in the United States are now well known, but what is less recognized is that there is a growing crisis of overdose deaths involving methamphetamine and other stimulants,” said Nora Volkow, MD, NIDA director. “However, unlike for opioids, there are currently no approved mediations for treating methamphetamine use disorder. This advance demonstrates that medical treatment for methamphetamine use disorder can help improve patient outcomes.”
What Is Medication-Assisted Therapy (MAT)?
Treating drugs with more drugs seems counter-productive, but that’s a misunderstanding of MAT. Although far from a cure for addiction, MAT can play a potentially lifesaving role with patients for whom abstinence-based plans aren’t the ideal solution.
First, MAT can make detox easier. Far from a juice cleanse or a fad diet, detox is the critical first step of rehab in which harmful substances are allowed to leave the body. Over prolonged substance abuse, the body becomes so accustomed to addictive substances it has difficulty functioning without them.
When those substances leave, patients experience withdrawal: a series of physical and mental symptoms as the body readapts to normal function. For a patient receiving MAT, those symptoms can be more easily managed, ensuring a greater chance of a successful recovery.
Secondly, MAT can continue to help through recovery. Cravings, often one of the most intense roadblocks in treatment, can be reduced via MAT. Also, MAT helps with “treatment retention”: by decreasing the physical and mental symptoms of withdrawal, MAT frees patients to concentrate on the social and mental work of recovery … which also helps with success.
MAT Is Just One Part Of Comprehensive Drug & Alcohol Recovery
The UT Southwest study is great news – given the worrying trends around methamphetamine use, anything which potentially frees people from addiction is certainly welcome.
But MAT is just a tool – if it’s not accompanied by major life changes, all the recovery tools in the world can’t guarantee success. Here’s where sober living houses really help – sharing a roof with other people in recovery doesn’t just shield you from addiction triggers, it allows you to create new, healthy, and supportive social networks.
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