medication assisted treatment Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery

More Than Therapy

Posted on March 5, 2021 by cmarnew

As the opioid pandemic surges opioid treatment providers have begun expanding the services they offer. From case management to individual therapy to peer support, opioid treatment is evolving. But no program in Colorado has ever actually integrated treatment…until now!

CMAR is Colorado’s first program to develop a rehab program that offers on-site medication-assisted treatment to treat alcohol & opioid addiction. We built CMAR because we understand that too many opioid treatment providers just prescribe suboxone and send you on your way. That simply is not treatment.

Addiction cannot be treated with just a pill, because addiction impacts us, physically, psychologically, socially, and every other way you can imagine. So although medication is often necessary, but can never be the central guiding force. The central feature of effective treatment is therapeutic care, which provides psychoeducation, gives patients an opportunity to process emotional dysfunction, resolves trauma, reduces the impact of mental-health conditions, helps generate healthy coping mechanisms, and builds trust.

The most effective way to recovery from drug addiction, especially opioid addiction and alcoholism, is a combination of intensive outpatient treatment (IOP), medication management, family therapy and case management. That’s why at CMAR we don’t require that patients take Suboxone, Vivitrol, Sublocade or other opioid replacement or alcohol replacement medications. We simply require that patients engage in individual and group therapy, peer support and case management. We value medications so much that we are the only outpatient addiction treatment program in Colorado to carry a Controlled Substance License so that patients have immediate access to Suboxone inductions, Sublocade and Vivitrol shots and medication management. We just understand that what leads to lasting change starts with an addiction screening and addiction assessment that leads to an individualized plan that combines different amounts and approaches to the following approaches to addiction treatment: addiction therapy, mental health therapy, addiction therapy groups, alcoholism therapy groups, opioid addiction therapy, stimulant addiction therapy, mental health therapy groups, depression therapy groups, family systems therapy, family therapy to treat addiction, peer accountability, peer feedback, 12 step drug treatment, and similar treatments! Opioid Replacement Medications just don’t help resolve social, family, and peer, let alone individual problems.

How Medication-Assisted Treatment Works for Alcohol Addiction

Posted on January 30, 2021 by cmarnew

Substance abuse treatment needs to address your unique needs. For many people with alcohol addiction, a component of that therapy is medication-assisted treatment (MAT). This is a method of helping your body to overcome the addiction withdrawal and cravings you feel so you can focus on the mental health challenges present. At Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery, our treatment program is designed to support you through this process.

What Is Medication-Assisted Treatment?

MAT is one of the substance abuse treatment options our team offers to those who are committed to full recovery. It is not meant to be a replacement for therapy or for working on improving your life. Used properly, these medications can work to eliminate your withdrawal symptoms and cravings.

When a person uses alcohol over an extended period of time, it is likely they will develop dependence. This is a condition in which the way the brain and body communicate changes thanks to the way alcohol triggers the function of neurotransmitters in the brain. Your body becomes dependent on alcohol to function and craves it. As that happens, it becomes harder and harder for you not to use. Medication-assisted treatment helps to trick the brain into believing the substance is here, reducing the risk of withdrawal.

When Can MAT Be Used for Alcohol Addiction?

When you come in to see our team to learn more about our substance abuse treatment, we’ll discuss the availability of MAT for your situation. There are many situations in which it may help you, including in these situations:

Long-term alcohol use
High amounts of alcohol use
Intense withdrawal symptoms when not using
Intense cravings
Relapse or overdose risks

MAT is helpful for a short period of time as your body adjusts to the lack of alcohol in your system. This process gives you the mental health stability you need so you can start to learn how to control your addiction and overcome it.

While we offer medication-assisted treatment, it is not the only component of your therapy. Our goal is to always provide you with the resources you need to truly change your life. That means rebuilding your mental health as well as your physical health.

Because of how challenging alcohol addiction is to overcome, the use of MAT is often encouraged. We offer a range of medications that can be helpful. This may include disulfiram, acamprosate, and naltrexone. Your therapist and doctor will determine which medications are best suited for your specific needs and addiction.

How Can Medication-Assisted Treatment Help You?

Our goal in providing you with access to MAT is to help you overcome that initial withdrawal period. It allows you to gain confidence and some level of mental clarity. Then, you need to start working on the healing process. That incorporates many additional steps, including counseling with our dedicated team of professionals.

Substance abuse treatment is a complex process, but it can be very successful for you in the right environment. Our trusted team of counselors is available to talk to you about how we can help you overcome your addiction. We encourage you to learn more about our therapy options in total, including:

Get the Treatment You Need – Call Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery Today

Is medication-assisted treatment right for you? You may not be sure if you need MAT or even substance abuse treatment. If alcohol is controlling your life, it’s time to change. Our team in Colorado has the tools and resources to help you. To learn more about our therapy options, call Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery at 833.448.0127 or connect with us online today.

How To Best Support Those in Medication Assisted Recovery Programs

Posted on January 5, 2021 by cmarnew

When a person starts on the path of healing from addiction, they may be given medications to support the process. Medication-assisted recovery can be very effective when properly used alongside therapy. Yet, this doesn’t mean supporting loved ones through the recovery process gets easier. It is still essential to have ongoing support in recovery and help during treatment. Our team at Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery can help you to make the best decisions for your supporting your loved one.

What Is Your Role in Medication-Assisted Recovery?

It’s a common misconception that once a person is taking medications for their addiction, they are “cured” or “better.” Rather, they are just starting out and need help during treatment. While medications are a very big component of the healing process, most people in medication-assisted recovery still need supportive loved ones who can give them reassurance and ensure they have the guidance they need.

What can you do, as a loved one, to give your friend, spouse, sibling, or other person support in recovery? There are many things you can do to help during treatment, including:

Listening, rather than telling, them about their addiction
Learning the warning signs of relapse and monitoring for them
Providing and ensuring a drug-free environment at home to live in
Recognizing high stress levels and helping a person to overcome them
Supporting their needs to go to counseling on a routine basis
Learning their triggers for relapse and help them to avoid those

It’s important to know that supporting loved ones in recovery does not mean you’ll have to do everything for them, pay their bills, and take care of them physically. A component of recovery and treatment is to learn how to do these things on their own. Yet, they still need support in recovery, which may include having someone available on an ongoing basis and ensuring they have a safe place to live.

What Happens in Medication-Assisted Recovery?

To help during treatment, be sure to understand what your loved one is going through during medication-assisted recovery. You may be able to be a part of some of their counseling sessions. During this type of treatment, medications are used to help a person to gain mental health stability and to limit the impact of withdrawal. When these medications work, you may feel as though you have your loved one back. Yet, there is a lot more to do during the recovery process.

During the recovery process, your loved one will learn about their addiction and why it happened. They may be diagnosed with a mental health disorder or find themselves learning new ways to control negative thoughts. They will need to learn how to manage stress, challenges in everyday life, and complex relationship problems. Supporting loved ones through this is vital.

Does Your Loved One Need Help During Treatment?

Perhaps you want your loved one to get help. Now is the time to encourage them before their medical or emotional needs change. To learn more about our medication-assisted recovery and how you can help during treatment, reach out to our team today. Learn about our programs and therapies, including:

Treatment Begins When You Call Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery

Do you have a loved one that needs support in recovery? Medication-assisted recovery can be very effective, but medicine alone is not enough. Supporting loves ones during the healing process and long after in recovery is critical. If your loved one needs help during treatment or is ready to start on the path towards recovery, reach out to Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery for guidance. Call our team at 833.448.0127 or connect with us online now.

Where to Find an Opioid Recovery Center in Boulder

Posted on September 5, 2020 by cmarnew

Tens of millions of people in the US abuse opioids every year, with a few million developing tolerance and dependence on the drugs. Few of those who develop an addiction go to rehab, but many people choose to self-medicate. Those who try to stop without expert help experience relapse because of the overwhelming withdrawal symptoms. At the Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery (CMAR), we agree that checking into an opioid recovery center will help you overcome opioid abuse and regain sobriety. Contact CMAR at 833.448.0127 to learn more about our opioid recovery center near Boulder, CO.

Why Do You Need an Opioid Recovery Center?

Hundreds of Americans die daily because of opioid abuse and addiction-related cases. Furthermore, the number of opioid overdose deaths in America increased considerably in 2018 from the previous year. The statistics point to the dire need for opioids abuse treatment.

If you are struggling with an opioid use disorder, your top priority should be finding an opioid treatment program that will facilitate permanent recovery. Ask yourself: What unique aspect must such a program contain to ensure the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms do not force you to relapse?

Some of the opioid withdrawal symptoms that require immediate rehab help at an outpatient treatment program include:

Hypertension
Body tremors and shaking
Trouble concentrating
Slurred speech
Breathing problems
Emotional numbness
Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea

An ideal recovery program offers customized opioid treatment to meet your individual needs. Different people face varied challenges that require personalized treatment plans. Those who do not access personalized care face a wide array of problems after recovery.

Where can you find a recovery center that promises you reliable aftercare and support once you complete your addiction treatment?

Opioid Addiction Treatment in Boulder, Colorado

At CMAR, we offer personalized treatment and aftercare programs to ensure that you do not experience relapse once you regain your sobriety. To enroll for a reliable opioid addiction treatment program in Boulder, reach out to our professionals today.

Our facility has a qualified and experienced team of therapists, clinical officers, and other healthcare providers who will handle your opioid abuse recovery process. The professionals will accord you the essential support, supervision, and guidance you need.

CMAR uses medication-assisted treatment and aftercare programs that are useful in achieving full recovery. We will teach you more about your condition and help you set attainable recovery goals.

Most individuals are unable to overcome substance abuse due to intense withdrawal symptoms. Having dealt with many other people in a similar situation, the therapists at CMAR understand how to offer you the much-needed help.

Why Addiction Treatment Is Vital

While you’re at our addiction treatment center, you’ll find that you have the support of our clinical treatment staff. You will work closely with your therapist to achieve set goals. Because it is an outpatient treatment center, you can go home at the end of the day’s treatment.

Once you indicate positive change and ability to manage withdrawal after leaving the opioid recovery center, our case management and aftercare programs can ensure long-term sobriety.

It is worth noting that the highly addictive nature of opioids makes aftercare programs critical in ensuring you can overcome relapse episodes as you return to the outside world.

During your treatment program, you will participate in several types of evidence-based treatment programs, such as:

Overcome Opioid Abuse at CMAR

Do not struggle with opioid abuse any longer. Reach out to the Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery for information on how to overcome addiction at our opioid recovery center. Contact CMAR today at 833.448.0127 to schedule an appointment.

Why Supporting Families Leads to Better Outcomes for Opiate-Addiction Recovery

Posted on July 26, 2020 by cmarnew

Families aren’t just groups of people who live together, they are ecosystems. Our personal development is completely effected by, and often hinges on, the support, love, laughter, neglect, loss & abuse we experience at home. It is where we learn to love, laugh, and cry, where attachments are formed, and detachment is taught healthily or otherwise. Yet when addiction happens to a member of a family, treatment is usually totally focused on them.

Family therapy, couples counseling, self-help support groups for the loved ones of addicts, these are all fantastic forms of help to heal the wounds addiction has caused. So too is attachment & family constellation work for the addicted individual. But without addressing all three sides, the needs of the identified patient (the addict), the needs of the family, and the reintegration of all parties into an evolved state of being, things will never be truly as good as they could be. Not to mention, not doing the “family work” could lead to relapse of the patient, or feelings of resentment on behalf of the family, the patient, or both. This is as true for couples as it is for larger nuclear families.

At CMAR, we support the healing of entire family systems, because it is in healing the system as a whole, that the individual recovers and the system can become and stay whole. It rarely looks the same way twice, but unless the family system is tended to, systemic healing is often impossible. We provide updates to patients’ families weekly (when the proper releases are signed), family therapy weekly (just the family or the family and the patient), provide referrals for more intensive family work, and referrals to high-quality self-help support groups as well. We do all of this because we recognize the crucial role families play in the recovery of a loved one.

If a loved one needs help for an opioid addiction, CMAR is Colorado’s most comprehensive opioid-specific addiction treatment program statewide. We will provide more care for less than any other private organization. This includes support and works with the families and other loved ones in a patient’s life. We do this because we care…

Learn More at www.Colorado-Recovery.com or call (720) 778-2627

Prescriptions Alone Don’t Work: The Need for Complete Medication Assisted Treatment to Effectively Treat Opioid Dependence

Posted on July 25, 2020 by cmarnew

According to the NIH, there are “…4 important components of MAT models of care” but in Colorado, over 90% of patients only receive 1 one of them. CMAR was developed to change that, by integrating all 4 components of effective Medication-Assisted Treatment into a single program. So how and why does our groundbreaking treatment approach matter so much? In 2018, research found that in Colorado, nearly every person in the state on “MAT”, only receives 1 of the 4 components of effective MAT. of the services. The causes are many, and the impact is clear: Coloradans on Medication-Assisted Treatment have been woefully and systematically underserved…until CMAR.

The 1^st of the 4 main components of MAT, is pharmacological therapy, which is a fancy term referring to the prescription and administration of medications. This includes Buprenorphine (i.e. Suboxone) and Naltrexone (i.e. Vivitrol) based medications. Crucial and central to MAT, it’s the only part that Coloradans routinely have access to. At CMAR, we don’t just assess, diagnose, prescribe, and administer these meds, we carry them too. This creates unprecedented access to the medications that patients need consistently in order to avoid relapse and overdose.

The 2^nd component of MAT is “provider & community educational interventions”. This involves engaging members of the community, particularly stakeholders in addiction treatment, on the value and importance of using & having access to MAT. This has the effect of increasing the number of opiate addicts that get onto MAT (therefore reducing overdoses), and it significantly reduces stigma. Although this component does exist in Colorado, it is almost entirely done not by the MAT providers, but rather by public health officials & organizations. As helpful as that is, this keeps the core elements of MAT fractured, and keeps the message of those who provide MAT faceless. People often need a smiling, trustable face to combine with service to fully let their guards down and destigmatize something completely. At CMAR, we integrate these services through our community engagement department.

The 3^rd element of MAT is the integration of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. In the context of MAT, this can be in either a residential or outpatient addiction treatment setting. Yet only a few residential facilities in the state provide both, and none of these programs provide continuing support. SUD treatment, at both intensive and standard outpatient levels, is central at CMAR. In fact, we’re Colorado’s only licensed Medication-Assisted Treatment Facility (OMAT) that is even licensed as an outpatient and intensive outpatient addiction treatment provider.

The 4^th and final necessary component of MAT is called “psychosocial services”. These services focus on healthy social integration and the resolution of familial issues like marriage and other close relationships. Support within a community of recovering individuals is perhaps the most common form of case management, and one of, if not the most beneficial to many. Many MAT programs do offer these services in the form of case management, but they are unfortunately provided in lieu of, not in concert with, SUD treatment. Except, of course, at CMAR. Here we offer family support services as well as peer-based support groups and case management services.

Medication-Assisted Treatment is all about medication assisting actual, evidence-based treatment. It isn’t about merely prescribing medications and offering some case management, but about wrap-around opioid-dependence treatment. At CMAR, it is our mission to ensure that each of our patients receives the benefits of each element of MAT, and in so doing, change their lives for the better.

Learn More at www.Colorado-Recovery.com or call (720) 778-2627

The End of Cookie Cutters: Truly Individualized Opioid Recovery

Posted on July 12, 2020 by cmarnew

At CMAR, Colorado’s first recovery-oriented and clinically driven opioid recovery program, we work with our patients to identify the most appropriate course for them, while still ensuring that they receive all of the clinical care and social support necessary for recovery.

Medication-assisted treatment, pure harm-reduction, and abstinence-based care are the three primary “umbrellas” of treatment for opioid dependence. There are certainly other methods, but these are the most common and researched approaches offered in the US.

Any program that claims to be individualized, and then offers only one “path” to achieving abstinence, by definition is only partially individualized. At CMAR, we recognize those limitations, so despite a somewhat misleading name, we offer treatment for opioid dependence (and co-occurring disorders) using abstinence, medication-assisted, and harm reduction. Our goal is to meet our patients where they’re at and treat their needs. If those needs call for a patient to remain abstinent or achieve abstinence after a Suboxone taper, we support that. If a patient just wants Vivitrol and clinical care, we will proudly offer them that care. At CMAR, medication-assisted treatment is option, but therapy and community are not. We recognize that there is no alternative to the processing and learning of new “tools” derived from therapy and that there is no replacement for the support and love of one’s peers.

Recovery is a personal, ongoing process of personal development, yet one-size-fits-all programs cannot honor that truth. For that very reason, we built our program with the intention of guiding patients through the format of care that they seek, and that is clinically and medically indicated. We are proud to provide medication-assisted treatment, yet we fully recognize that this “MAT” is not the only way.

Learn More at www.Colorado-Recovery.com or call (720) 778 2627.