Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jul 2005
Source: New York City Newsday (NY)
Source: New York City Newsday (NY)
Website: 
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/printedition/
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http://cf.newsday.com/newsdayemail/email.cfm
Copyright: 2005 Newsday, Inc.
Author: Curtis L. Taylor, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

RESEARCHERS, PATIENTS ALIKE SEE ADVANTAGES OF 'BUPE'

One recent Tuesday morning, Lorenzo Cleveland Lawson sat in an office 
of the Phoenix House drug treatment facility, tucked behind the 
Ravenswood housing development in Long Island City.

Lawson, 42, a heroin addict for 14 years, was entering his seventh 
day of withdrawal. But he was calm and smiled easily as he spoke of 
his plan to get clean and to repair his fractured relationships with 
his wife and 10-year-old daughter.

"I don't feel high," said Lawson, who credits the drug buprenorphine 
with easing his cravings for heroin. He wasn't successful in an 
earlier effort to beat the habit, dropping out of a methadone 
detoxification program.

"I feel strong enough to be around people. My mind is sharp enough 
and my body feels good," Lawson said. "I am not high and I have the 
incentive now to get better so I can help myself."

The program is one of the first in the country to use buprenorphine 
to detoxify addicts before transferring them to a drug-free 
residential rehabilitation program, said Dr. Terry Horton, medical 
director of the city's Phoenix House operation.

Historically, opiate addicts have had difficulty in successfully 
crossing the bridge from detoxification to participation in a 
drug-free residential setting, Horton said.

"Our initial goal was to open the door wider for a group of people to 
get to rehabilitation who could never get through detox," Horton 
said. "The key is, the longer they stay in treatment, the better they 
do overall."

Currently, there are 12 patients undergoing buprenorphine detox at 
the Long Island City facility at a daily cost of $134 each, Horton 
said. Most of the treatment is covered under private insurance or Medicaid.

The time it takes for detoxification using buprenorphine averages 
about 14 days, though it varies with the individual, he said.

Columbia University researchers, in a recently completed outcome 
study of the Phoenix House program, showed that buprenorphine users 
had a 90 percent completion rate in detox - with 76 percent of the 
detoxed patients later entering drug-free residential rehabilitation.

"The old model of one-size-fits-all does not work," Horton said, 
referring to existing detox methods, most of which rely on the 
also-addictive drug methadone. "It has been a useless revolving door 
and costs a lot of money, with less than half of those treated going 
back to get rehabilitation treatment after they are discharged from 
detox. And when they do go to rehabilitation treatment, they are 
still in withdrawal."

 From day one with "bupe," as it has come to be called, patients seem 
to have a clear mind and are able to function better, which helps 
them immediately proceed with counseling, Horton said.

Javier Rosario, 37, was in his 18th day of trying to kick a 
seven-bag-a-day heroin addiction - for which, at $10 a bag, he was 
shelling out about $500 a week. He said buprenorphine helped him both 
physically and mentally to prepare for the drug-free rehabilitation 
phase of his recovery.

Seated in a circle during a counseling session, Rosario told a group 
of fellow addicts how he began using drugs as a teenager to escape a 
childhood during which he was molested by an older relative and 
physically abused by his grandfather.

"I feel good, but at the same time I feel scared," Rosario said 
later. "On methadone, when you came off of it, my body didn't feel 
good. They told me to go to rehabilitation, but my body wasn't up to 
it. I was anxious and I didn't feel the same when I was off.

"With bupe, I had some cravings, but I don't have the withdrawal 
symptoms that I had before. This drug helps you come down a lot 
better," he said. "I feel like I am myself for the first time in years."
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MAP posted-by: Beth