You haven't switched addictions by transitioning from another opiate to suboxone or subutex, but rather physical DEPENDENCY. As for adopting a psychological dependency, that's likely something that varies from individual to individual. I was on suboxone for over a year, but was never "addicted" to it. I never took it to get high (can an opiate dependent person get high from it?), never craved it and only a few times took a higher dose to try to sleep better. Yeah, I'm sure there are some people taking it on the street, maybe mixing it with benzos, And some are abusing their prescriptions. But to make a blanket statement that you're switching addictions is just buying into the whole hardline NA line that any drugtaking is an addiction (including taking opiates to treat pain, since so much of the pain experience has an emotional component).
BTW, there seems to be a lot of confusion on this forum about suboxone and subutext. They are different drugs. Subutext is straight buprenorphine; suboxone has naloxone--an opiate antagonist, the stuff paramedics give you to reverse an OD--added to it in a 4 to one ratio. Supposedly the formulation prevents the absorption of the naloxone when taken correctly (not injected, and I'm not sure about what happens when you snort a crushed pill), but that's BS, even my doctor copped to the fact that some of the naloxone gets absorbed by your digestive system.
In NYC, the original addiction treatment protocol specified that doctors are supposed to start you on subutext in their office for a week, and then switch you to suboxone once you're stabilized and getting take home prescriptions. Mine was ignorant of the original regs and started me on suboxone, so I never got to try subutext (it's possible they'd been changed by the time I got on--spring of 08). I suspect that in other states the Fed protocol is followed; whatever that is it's likely looser than the one's adopted by states or local authorities. I once read an article on-line somewhere suggesting that the addition of small amounts of naloxone to an opiate might increase the opiate's effect. I've once wondered if that's the reason so many people on this forum say it's so hard to get off of suboxone, but after reading the posts here more carefully and seeing how people confuse the 2 drugs, now I'm not so sure there's any merit to that theory (since half the people who say they're on suboxone seem to be on subutext--straight buprenorphine--instead).
PS I do think you're right about using it's being best used as a short term detox. However, after being on it for over a year and finally quitting, I don't know what else to attrubute my lack of cravings to. Does taking it for less than a month have the same affect?
