While I've always been suspicious of pharmaceutical company health advisories, the recommendations against alcohol consumption with opiate type pain medications should be taken very seriously. The concurrent consumption of alcohol and pharmaceutical pain meds greatly increases the addictiveness of the pills, can increase bodily harm, and ultimately increases the risks of a fatal overdose.

Gradual methadone detoxification may not work as well as very long term methadone maintenance, and methadone recovery statistics are revealed to be inflated. Two separate San Francisco studies on methadone therapy further complicate an already contentious issue. Is methadone therapy working as it should?

Thinking about getting off of pain pills, and thinking about detox and withdrawal and all of that - can be pretty scary stuff. Watching others take the journey - watching what they do and how they do it, can help to make it a little less frightening.