Suboxone is an unfortunate temporary distraction that eventually gives way to your desire to use heroin over the long haul. It provides a false sense of security and the illusion that you are “doing something about your heroin problem”, when in fact it’s simply a temporary distraction. However, if you want to stop doing heroin then there really isn’t any need for a substitute. Look at the analogy that is used in The Freedom Model for Addictions below. It demonstrates the farce that is Suboxone into stark clarity in less than a page:

“Medication assisted therapies work the same way a restrictor plate in a race car works. Now, you might not know what that is, so let us explain.

Years ago in NASCAR racing, the executives of NASCAR wanted to make racing safer by limiting the speeds of the race cars. They did this by making a rule that all the cars were now required to have a small metal plate in the car’s engine that restricts the flow of fuel, which forces all the cars to have a limited top speed of around 200 miles per hour. But here’s the issue. If NASCAR officials would let them, the drivers would happily remove those restrictor plates because they want to win races and are willing to take on the risks of the higher speeds. Currently, even with the restrictor plates in place, all the drivers on the racecourse have their gas pedals mashed to the floorboards to wring out every bit of speed they can from the restricted engine.

And here is the parallel to pharmacological therapies: The restrictor plates did not stop race car drivers from wanting (craving) to go faster. They simply made race car drivers, who once enjoyed going extremely fast, frustrated race car drivers who are now forced to go slower. That isn’t unlike the frustrated and deprived former heroin users who are now getting the Vivitrol shot and still wanting desperately to get high but are now frustrated. Essentially, they have self-administered restrictor plates in their brains that do not allow them to enjoy what they really want to do, which is to feel high. The effect is that they crave even more. They want, they desire, and they dream of getting high. Like the drivers and mechanics who are motivated to go faster and are willing to cheat on the racetrack by secretly bypassing the restrictor plates in their cars, we see thousands of people every day who continue to use heroin while taking naltrexone, Suboxone, or methadone. Pharmacology does not change a person’s likes and dislikes, motives, or desires and cravings any more than a restrictor plate makes a race car driver a lover of driving more slowly.”