Naltrexone, Suboxone, Methadone: How Medications Treat Opioid Addiction
episode
RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions
53 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the new paradigm for treating opioid addiction and why does willpower alone aren’t enough?
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Addiction is a high morbidity, high mortality disease. The risk of not taking MOUD for severe opioid use disorder in the most extreme is death from overdose.
Dr. Stephen Klein, who specializes in addiction medicine... joins us to discuss innovative treatments, including the role of GLP-1s in substance use disorder recovery.
I actually don't think there's anything lazy about being on buprenorphine. I use the word heroic a lot. My patients are incredibly heroic and incredibly courageous.
Welcome to Recoverable. I'm your host, Terry McGuire. Today we begin our discussion about pharmaceutical interventions for addiction recovery. In part one, we're going to take a deep dive into medications for opioid use disorders, or MOUDs. And in part two next week, we will shift focus to the frontier of science as we investigate the emerging role of GLP-1s in curbing cravings beyond just metabolic health. In It's an essential conversation about shifting the paradigm from willpower to evidence-based clinical treatment. Dr. Stephen Klein, a prominent figure in the field, is going to join us in the studio and share his expertise on the topic. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here.
Before we dive into the Internet's top questions, I would love to know a bit about you and what it is that propelled you into this field of all the things you could have chosen.
My background is actually a little bit unique for someone who practices addiction medicine. So from a medical perspective, I've had a lot of training in different areas. For example, I'm an MD and a PhD. My PhD is in human genetics. That means I did medical school and graduate school, both of which were at UCLA. My PhD is in human genetics, and I followed that to then study pediatrics and medical genetics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Cool. I was really growing that career in pediatrics and genetics, but then really had a change of heart, which I'll talk about a little bit. Because more than all of that training to that date, I was also a person in recovery during that time. So I got sober during medical school after the...
trials and tribulations of everyday life and some things that happened in my personal life really started to compete with my scholarly activities. I found myself heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol and then found sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, a few other channels in recovery. And that was happening in the background of all of that training. So I went to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, set on doing a career in pediatrics and genetics. And about six years into it, realized that something was missing in my career. And I wasn't doing everything from a place of passion. And that's where I tried to be. So the last kind of act of authenticity for me was to bring my recovery into my full-time career.
So two and a half years ago, I made a switch and started practicing addiction medicine. I did a fellowship at care and treatment centers. Now I'm there as full-time faculty, and I absolutely have loved it. So the whole field is that I'm a triple-boarded doctor in pediatrics, genetics, and now addiction medicine. And I practice addiction and recovery from addiction science all year. day. So that's what I do pretty much day in and day out at Karen Treatment Center. Specifically, I work with the young adult population and also men who have had multiple treatment episodes, what we call the return to use population.
There's nothing the field needs more than highly educated and highly passionate people. So thank you for both.
Really my honor to be of service to the people that I'm able to help.
Your lived experience helps a lot, I'm sure. Definitely. So let's clarify some of the terminology we're going to be using. We used to say MAT, or medication-assisted treatment. Now the field is shifting toward MOUD.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the new paradigm for treating opioid addiction and why does willpower alone aren’t enough?
0:00–6:26
2
How did Dr. Stephen Klein’s own recovery journey shape his approach to addiction medicine?
6:26–11:43
3
What’s the difference between traditional MAT and the newer term MOUD?
11:43–19:47
4
Which drugs belong to the opioid class and why is kratom an emerging concern?
19:47–27:00
5
Is complete abstinence the ultimate goal of MOUD treatment, or are there other success markers?
27:00–36:03
6
How do naltrexone, Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) and methadone work to block cravings and prevent relapse?
36:03–45:32
7
Can monthly long‑acting injectables reduce self‑stigma and improve treatment adherence?
45:32–53:25
8
Why does stigma persist around using medication for addiction and how can it be eliminated?
53:25–53:48
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions
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