Kick Opioid Dependence with Mindfulness
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Ultimately, mindfulness drives at the root of compulsive behaviors by undermining the assumption that inner experience is intolerable and therefore requires immediate relief through substance use.” – Jennifer Talley
Substance abuse and addiction is a terrible problem. It isn’t just illicit drugs but includes many prescriptions drugs especially opioid pain relievers. The over prescription of opioid painkillers in the United States has become a major problem. The number of prescriptions for opioids (like hydrocodone and oxycodone products) have increased from around 76 million in 1991 to nearly 207 million in 2013. This creates a major problem because of the strong addictive qualities of opioids. As a result, opioid addiction has become epidemic in the United States. It is estimated that over 2 million Americans abuse or are addicted on opioid painkillers. These addictions have stark economic costs. It is estimated that the abuse of prescription opioids costs around $60 billion a year, with 46% attributable to workplace costs (e.g., lost productivity), 45% to healthcare costs (e.g., abuse treatment), and 9% to criminal justice costs.
Opioid abuse, however produces even worse consequences than those created by addiction. It is deadly. It has become so bad that drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death, causing more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. This is a problem both of illegal drug use but even more so of abuse of legally obtained prescription drugs. Of the over 44,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States 52% were from prescription drugs. It would help if doctors were more judicious in prescribing opioids. But, there will still be a need to assist those who abuse or become addicted.
These statistics, although startling are only the tip of the iceberg. Drug use is associated with suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. It can render the individual ineffective at work, it tears apart families, it makes the individual dangerous both driving and not. It also reduces life expectancy by about 15-20 years from the moment of addiction. An effective treatment for addiction has been elusive. Most programs and therapies to treat addictions have poor success rates. Recent research is indicating that mindfulness and also spirituality can be quite helpful for kicking the habit. Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) was specifically developed to employ mindfulness training along with other proven methods to assist addicts in remaining off of drugs.
In today’s Research News article “Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Group Therapy Compared to the Usual Opioid Dependence Treatment.”
See below, or for full text see:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749687/
Imani and colleagues randomly assigned opioid addicts to either treatment as usual or an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) program delivered in a group setting. They found that compared to before treatment, MBRP significantly increased mindfulness and produced a significantly greater decrease in both opioid and alcohol consumption than the usual treatment alone. These are excellent results. Firstly, because the treatment could be delivered in a group format increasing efficiency and reducing costs. But, most importantly, MBRP added to the usual treatment, improved effectiveness. By combining the two, a more potent treatment program is produced.
How mindfulness helps with relapse prevention is not known. But it can be speculated that mindfulness improves emotion regulation making it easier for the addict to respond appropriately to an emotion rather than needing to self-medicate with an opioid. It is also known that mindfulness reduces the physiological and psychological responses to stress, making it easier for the addict to cope with stress and thereby reducing the need to cope by taking opioids. Regardless of the explanation it is clear that mindfulness is an important contributor to preventing relapse with opioids.
So, kick opioid dependence with mindfulness.
“The power of mindfulness is incredible. The simple meditation technique has the power to ease pain in arthritis and asthma patients, reduce anxiety and symptoms of depression, and improve heart health. It so powerful that it works better than conventional methods (medication, psychotherapy) for many of these conditions. And now, a new study finds that it can bring back happiness in people falling down the rabbit hole of opioid drug addiction.” – Anthony Rivas
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
Study Summary
Imani, S., Atef Vahid, M. K., Gharraee, B., Noroozi, A., Habibi, M., & Bowen, S. (2015). Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Group Therapy Compared to the Usual Opioid Dependence Treatment. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry, 10(3), 175–184.
Abstract
Objective: This study investigated the effectiveness of mindfulness-based group therapy (MBGT) compared to the usual opioid dependence treatment (TAU).Thirty outpatients meeting the DSM-IV-TR criteria for opioid dependence from Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS) were randomly assigned into experimental (Mindfulness-Based Group Therapy) and control groups (the Usual Treatment).The experimental group undertook eight weeks of intervention, but the control group received the usual treatment according to the INCAS program.
Methods: The Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Addiction Sevier Index (ASI) were administered at pre-treatment and post-treatment assessment periods. Thirteen patients from the experimental group and 15 from the control group completed post-test assessments.
Results: The results of MANCOVA revealed an increase in mean scores in observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, non-reacting, and decrease in mean scores of alcohol and opium in MBGT patient group.
Conclusion: The effectiveness of MBGT, compared to the usual treatment, was discussed in this paper as a selective protocol in the health care setting for substance use disorders.