Maintenance medication is a treatment that many of us are familiar with but do not use this term.

People who are trying to quit smoking often use patches or gum that still provide the nicotine their bodies are addicted to, but the idea is to slowly decrease the bodies dependence on nicotine until they do not feel cravings anymore. Methadone maintenance treatment follows this same idea and it has been very successful in decreasing opioid use and helping a person avoid returning to previous substance abuse patterns. Another major benefit is that methadone does not harm the body, even if it is used for long periods of time such as twenty or thirty years.

Methadone also provides other benefits linked to reducing drug use. One of these is reduced risk of getting HIV or AIDS. By reducing a patients craving for opiate drugs needle sharing or injecting is also reduced. Criminal behavior also decreases because the addiction no longer drives a person to buy illegal drugs, or commit crimes to get the money to pay for drugs. Methadone treatment also helps people maintain steady work. For communities in general methadone treatment is also cost effective. A patient on methadone treatment is estimated to cost society about $4,000 per year while untreated opiate addicts cost society $49,000 per year.

Studies show that using methadone maintenance treatment for longer periods of time is actually more beneficial for opiate addicts. One study published in Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people who were in methadone treatment for fourteen months followed by a two-month detoxification period had fewer relapses than people who were in a six-month program. However, ideally doctors usually want to phase out using methadone within two years.