Clyde Davis battled a methamphetamine and heroin addiction for over nine years. He tried various treatment programs, but none worked for him before he reached his insurance maximum and was forced to discharge.
“I was trying to die; just putting myself through torture because I didn’t feel like I deserved to live and be happy,” Davis said.
Then three years ago, he became one of the first participants in a new contingency management program at the Rimrock Foundation, Montana’s oldest nonprofit addiction treatment center.
Contingency management uses positive reinforcement as a behavioral treatment for stimulant addiction. People are rewarded with small-value gift cards or vouchers for submitting urine drug tests negative for stimulants.
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Decades of research show that it is the most effective treatment for stimulant addiction, but it has not been widely implemented due to policy barriers and stigma.
The program changed the game for Davis. He said that the rewards and counseling gave him hope and made him more willing to accept help.
“I was able to get myself some clothes, something to eat,” he said. “It really motivated me to want to keep showing up and keep having clean [drug tests].”
Davis graduated from the 12-week program successfully and has abstained from drugs ever since. He now works as a rehabilitation technologist at the Rimrock Foundation, alongside the people who he says helped save his life.
“I am living a life that I never thought I would ever dream of living. It’s beautiful,” he said.
Stimulants are a class of drugs that speed up the body’s systems and can lead to increased alertness, energy and feelings of euphoria. These drugs can be very addicting because they flood the brain with dopamine, hijacking reward pathways, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Prescription stimulants are used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. Other stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are considered drugs of abuse, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency. Misuse of these drugs is associated with agitation, hostility, panic, aggression, and suicidal or homicidal tendencies.
Illegal stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are playing an increasingly large role in the national overdose crisis. Experts have called it the “fourth wave” of the opioid epidemic. While the first wave of opioid overdose deaths was driven by prescription opioids, the second wave by heroin, the third wave by synthetic opioids, this “fourth wave” is characterized by extremely potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl and concurrent stimulant use.