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Article: Methadone alternative lauded, but it's limited; Buprenorphine fights addiction, yet few doctors can give it.(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- May 29, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Josephine Marcotty; Staff Writer
Steve Mueller feared that if he went back on methadone to break his addiction to painkillers, he'd never get off it again.
He'd tried it earlier in his 40-year struggle with drug abuse, and he knew that he was facing a lifetime of weekly visits to a methadone clinic. It seemed, he said, like an addiction of another kind.
Instead, he found something else - a new drug called buprenorphine. Two years later, Mueller is married, owns a home, has a new puppy and says he has broken free of the vicious cycle of addiction that ruled much of his life. "I'm the guy with the picket fence, just like your neighbor," he ...