Treatment

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) can be treated.

OUD is a chronic disease, like heart disease or diabetes. A chronic disease is a medical condition for life. Although it cannot be cured, it can be managed. A person with addiction can regain a healthy, productive life.

But if you are like most people, you cannot walk away from addiction on your own. Treatment—the care of medical professionals and substance abuse treatment providers—can help.

Treatment for OUD can help you:

• Give up the problem drug.
• Get through withdrawal and cope with cravings.
• Change addictive thinking into nonaddictive, healthful patterns.
• Move away from other harmful behaviors, such as drinking alcohol or abusing other drugs other than the problem opioid.
• Address life issues you might have that are tied to the addiction, such as feelings of low self-worth, a bad situation at work or home, or spending time with people who use drugs.

In short, treatment helps you move into a healthy, addiction-free lifestyle—into a way of living referred to as recovery.