People who have recovered from opioid use disorder for between 1 to 5 years are more likely to use addiction therapy, pharmacotherapy drugs to push back cravings, recovery support services and groups than people in recovery for alcohol. File Photo by chuck stock/Shutterstock

Aug. 5 (UPI) -- People addicted to drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone and other opioids have a harder time kicking the habit than those addicted to alcohol, a new study says.

Those who recovered from opioid use disorder for between 1 and 5 years were more likely to use addiction therapy, pharmacotherapy drugs to push back cravings, recovery support services and groups like Narcotics Anonymous than were people addicted to alcohol, according to findings published this month in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.


"Essentially, those who resolved an opioid problem in mid-recovery were four times as likely to have ever used pharmacotherapies, two-and-a-half times more likely to have used formal treatment, and about two times more likely to use recovery support services and mutual help organizations compared with individuals who reported resolving an alcohol problem and were in mid-recovery," Lauren A. Hoffman, a researcher at Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital and study author, said in a news release.

Researchers examined data collected as part of the 2017 National Recovery Survey, focusing on adults older than 18 who answered yes when asked "Did you used to have a problem with drugs or alcohol, but no longer do?"

The researchers then estimated rate of alcohol and drug recovery, the variety of treatments used to recovery and mental well-being from the first year of before the first year of recovery and the mid-recovery period ranging from 1 to 5 years.

They found people with opioid use disorder in the early-recovery stage of recovery had higher levels of self-esteem than alcoholics at the same point. However, those in the mid-recovery stage had lower levels of self-esteem.

The researchers say that people in opioid recovery were likely to remain in treatment longer and relapse more than alcoholics, which contributed to their lower esteem.

"We didn't find those differences in the first year, and this is important because taken together it suggests that individuals with an opioid problem might require additional treatment or additional resources to achieve longer and more stable recovery duration," Hoffman said.

In 2017, more than 70,000 people died of opioid overdose in the United States, according to the National Institutes on Drug Abuse.