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Recovery Centers of America provides medication assisted treatment (MAT) that includes VIVITROL® for patients who are hoping to achieve sobriety from opioid addiction, including addiction to alcohol and opioids. This medication blocks the effects of opiate drugs (including heroin) and similar drugs (opioids). However, large doses of heroin or opioids can overcome this block. Trying to overcome this block is very dangerous and may cause serious injury, loss of consciousness, and death. Make sure you completely understand and accept the risks and benefits of using this medication. This medication is also used to prevent relapse to opioid abuse, after opioid detoxification.
Alcoholics no longer receive a “reward” for drinking once they are on Naltrexone and are therefore less likely to continue consumption. Vivitrol aids in reducing heavy drinking and the encouragement of sobriety in those who continue to drink. On the other hand, its effectiveness is substantially higher in individuals who can abstain from alcohol for 4-7 days before starting treatment.
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Furthermore, treatment with such a formulation could be a stopgap measure between hospital detoxification and outpatient referral, so that a patient would still be treated with medication during that time frame. Alcohol-dependent individuals who have experienced relatively low therapeutic effects from oral naltrexone also might benefit from a long-acting formulation (Johnson 2006). Before abandoning the continued use of naltrexone for such patients, a practitioner could provide a “trial” of a depot preparation to rule out fluctuating plasma naltrexone levels as a potential cause of inefficacy. In contrast, an earlier study found that – 16 hours after administration of oral naltrexone (50 mg) – subjects had a mean serum 6-beta-naltrexol level of 24.9 ng/mL (McCaul et al 2000). The findings of King et al (1997) showed mean urinary concentrations of 29.0 μg/mg for 6-beta-naltrexol and 2.9 μg/mg for naltrexone, 3 hours after oral administration of naltrexone (50 mg) in 24 male moderate-to-heavy social drinkers.
The same result was not seen in patients who were still drinking at the start of the study. Get professional help from an online addiction and mental health counselor from BetterHelp. Naltrexone has a lengthy history of use, and its side effects are well-studied and documented. One of the reasons it has remained such a popular treatment choice for so long is that it is considered a very safe medication, with comparatively few and mild side effects.
Recovery Centers of America Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) clinic locations:
Data sources include IBM Watson Micromedex (updated 3 July 2023), Cerner Multum™ (updated 10 July 2023), ASHP (updated 10 July 2023) and others. This study was conducted at 24 US public hospitals, private and Veterans
Administration clinics, and tertiary care medical centers. Of 899 individuals
who sober house were screened, 627 were determined eligible and were randomly assigned
to receive treatment during the period of February 2002 to September 2003
(Figure 1). All patients provided written,
informed consent, which, along with the protocol, was approved by each center’s
institutional review board.
