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What Is Medication Assisted Treatment?
Medication assisted treatment (or MAT) is the use of medications, often combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies, to treat addiction. It provides a holistic, “total body” approach towards the treatment of addiction and substance abuse disorders. It’s not only key in assisting those with an addiction in treating their disorders, it can also be crucial to sustaining recovery and preventing overdoses as well. This is because each plan is tailored to meet each patient’s specific needs.
While MAT is most often used to assist with the treatment of opioid addiction, it can also be used to combat alcohol dependency as well. The medication normalizes brain chemistry and blocks the euphoric effects of alcohol and opioids. It also helps relieve cravings and helps get your body back to normal. All this without the negative and euphoric effects of the substance used. The most commonly prescribed medications for opioid addiction are methadone, naltrexone, or buprenorphine. Alcohol use disorders are usually treated with either disulfiram, naltrexone, or acamprosate.
All medications used in MAT have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That means that there’s never any worry about experimental or untested medications for treatment. All MAT plans are clinically driven and are the result of rigorous testing before they’re approved.
When a MAT plan is followed correctly, patients often see:
- Improved survival rates
- Increased retention in treatment
- Decreased opiate and substance use/abuse
- Increased ability to gain and maintain employment
- Improved birth outcomes among women who have substance use disorders and are pregnant
