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Through a new appropriation passed by the Florida Legislature, funds are now being administered by the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association to provide medication-assisted treatment (specifically Vivitrol®) to treat alcohol and opioid-addicted offenders in community-based drug treatment programs. Vivitrol® is a non-addictive extended-release injectable form of naltrexone that blocks the effects of opioids and alcohol cravings.

Currently, very few substance use recovery programs include medication-assisted treatment (MAT). David Lawrence Centers utilizes MAT in the Crossroads residential,intensive outpatient and outpatient treatment settings to help increase sobriety and reduce relapse. This cutting-edge treatment approach is the sought after standard of best practice in substance use programming.

Our board-certified addictionologist and psychiatrist provides this highly specialized service in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies to more effectively treat substance use disorders. Now patients in need in any court ordered treatment program can get the costly medication and associated medical services for free. To date, Florida ranks second-to-last in the country for providing substance use treatment. In recent years, there were spikes in prescription pain-killer related deaths, likely the result of Florida being named the “pill mill capital” of the country with federal authorities indicating that 98 of the country’s 100 highest oxycodone-prescribing physicians working in Florida. This resulted in state and local officials being motivated to toughen laws and improve funding.

The hope is that this new treatment can help change lives, protect public safety, reunite families and result in reduced costs to taxpayers.