 Dr. Amit Vijapura is a psychiatrist and addiction specialist who's been treating people for substance abuse for more than two decades. Over that time, he says the science behind addiction has progressed dramatically. For example, if somebody comes to me and says I'm very depressed, but I'm also drinking alcohol every day, we were not equipped to help them. We were asking them to stop drinking alcohol, then come back to psychiatric treatment so we can help you. He says recent medical advances have made it possible to treat both the psychological and physiological components of addiction at the same time. New tools have been shown to block the brain's addiction centers. Every drug of abuse has a place in the brain. Just imagine that alcohol, opioid, cocaine, marijuana, they all have a place in the brain we call a receptor. And those drugs will bind to the receptors and stimulates the dopamine release. And that stimulation of dopamine release is the driving force of a person who wants to do it again and again. A substance called buprenephrine acts like an archonic pain pill. It can treat chronic pain, but it also blocks those addiction receptors. With one injection, Dr. Vijapura says a patient won't feel compelled to use opioids for weeks. Some of his patients are participating in an FDA trial for a buprenephrine implant that slowly releases the medication over six months. Still, many in the medical and law enforcement communities are skeptical. Patients using buprenephrine can be kicked out of drug court programs in Clay and Duval counties. It's considered a controlled substance. And the Florida legislature limits how many patients doctors can treat with the new drug. When our mother went down to the town for the day. But for patient Sarah Wilson, the benefit far outweighs the fear of the unknown. It means that I'm still here, that I survived, that my kids have a mom. That, you know, that I made it, basically. After a car accident, debilitating pain left her no choice but to take prescription painkillers. When she realized she was addicted, she believed nothing would help her. But after the first treatment with Dr. Vijapura, she says her dependency melted away. Medication assisted treatment isn't a negative thing. It's a positive thing that it works percentage wise, much more than treatment without medication does. For people that are in a position that have, that are addicted, that have tried detox over and over again without success and feel like their failures to know that medication assisted treatment is out there and that they can be successful even if they failed a hundred times. Wilson says she'll probably be medicated for life. But being free of opioids and getting closely monitored treatment means she'll never go back to being hopeless. For Community Thread, I'm Ryan Bank.