Outpatient medication-assisted treatment for morphine, MS Contin, Kadian, and Avinza dependence — built around patients whose use began with real pain. Cancer care, palliative care, post-surgical recovery, long-term chronic pain regimens. Four clinics across Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia, same-day appointments available.
You don’t have to stop the medication on your own to callConfidential from your first call
CARF AccreditedServing Chattanooga since 2017
CARF AccreditedLicensed in Tennessee & GeorgiaSame-day appointments availableConfidential from your first call
What Is Morphine?
Morphine is the prototype opioid. It is the naturally occurring alkaloid extracted from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), isolated by a German pharmacist in 1804, and the reference molecule against which every other opioid on the market is measured. When a clinician calculates your combined opioid exposure in morphine milligram equivalents (MME), morphine itself is the 1.0 benchmark. Every conversation about opioid risk, every prescribing guideline, every dose-response study ultimately traces back to morphine.
Clinically, morphine in 2026 looks very different from morphine in the 1990s prescribing peak. It is no longer the go-to post-surgical outpatient pill; that market shifted toward hydrocodone and oxycodone combinations two decades ago. Today’s morphine is concentrated in a narrower set of indications: severe chronic pain, cancer-related pain, palliative and hospice care, and end-of-life management. The extended-release formulations — MS Contin, Kadian, Avinza, MorphaBond, Arymo ER — provide 12 to 24 hours of steady analgesia and are typically paired with immediate-release morphine (Roxanol, MSIR) for breakthrough pain. Injectable morphine (Duramorph, Infumorph, Astramorph) remains standard in hospital and hospice settings. Morphine is a Schedule II controlled substance under federal law, and has been since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970.
The patients who arrive at our clinics with morphine use disorder are almost never the “street opioid” demographic. They are, more often than not, people in their fifties, sixties, or seventies who were prescribed morphine by an oncologist, a pain specialist, a palliative care team, or an internal medicine provider after a serious medical event. Cancer. Multiple spinal surgeries. Complex regional pain syndrome. Failed back surgery. A hospice admission they ultimately walked out of alive. Their morphine bottle has a pharmacy label on it. Their dependence developed while doing exactly what their doctor told them to do. And at some point — often years later — the medication that was meant to solve a problem quietly became a second one.
This page is written for those patients and for the families trying to help them. Morphine use disorder in the chronic-pain cohort is clinically different from opioid use disorder that started on the street. The treatment path overlaps in the medications used, but the planning, the pain coordination, and the tone of care are not the same. We treat both populations, and we know the difference.
Overdose risk by daily MME
Relative fatal overdose risk vs. <20 MME/day
1×<20 MME/day
2×50–99 MME/day
9×≥100 MME/day↑ up to 9-fold risk
Per CDC’s 2022 opioid prescribing guideline, overdose risk at least doubles at 50–99 MME/day and increases up to 9-fold at 100+ MME/day compared with under 20 MME/day. The 2022 guideline removed hard dosage thresholds but retained MME as the central risk variable. Sustained-release morphine 30 mg twice daily = 60 MME/day.
Long-term opioid users, share 65+
% of long-term opioid patients aged 65 and older
17.0%Earlier cohort
38.8%Recent cohortmore than doubled
Even as total U.S. opioid prescribing fell by more than 40% from its 2012 peak, the remaining long-term opioid population aged dramatically. The share of patients 65 and older more than doubled from 17.0% to 38.8%. Long-term morphine users are increasingly older, with slower metabolism, higher polypharmacy burden, and greater sensitivity to sedation and respiratory depression.
When the Pain Plan Becomes the Problem
Most of our morphine patients can point to a specific medical event that started it. Stage III colon cancer. A T12 vertebral fracture after a fall. A failed lumbar fusion. Pancreatitis with chronic abdominal pain. A hospice admission they unexpectedly stabilized from and were discharged home on the morphine regimen that had been carrying them.
For a while, the plan worked. Morphine controlled the pain. Quality of life came back. Work, travel, family events — things that had dropped off during the worst stretch — returned. And then, slowly, the medication’s role changed. The original pain improved but the prescription didn’t change. Or the dose crept up because tolerance outpaced the pain. Or the taper that was supposed to happen six months in never did, because every attempt triggered withdrawal the patient had no framework to recognize. Or the cancer treatment ended and the oncology team handed pain management back to primary care without a formal transition, and the morphine just kept being refilled.
The first chart above is why this matters clinically. Morphine milligram equivalents are the standard unit clinicians use to estimate overdose risk. The dose-response is steep and non-linear. A patient on sustained-release morphine 30 mg twice daily is at 60 MME/day — already in the zone where overdose risk at least doubles compared with low-dose therapy. A patient on MS Contin 60 mg twice daily with breakthrough doses is well over 100 MME/day, where risk climbs up to nine-fold. Most patients never see these numbers until something goes wrong. They also don’t reflect risk added by other medications — benzodiazepines, sleep aids, alcohol — that are common in this cohort and multiply the hazard.
The second chart is the population story. Even as total U.S. opioid prescribing fell by more than 40% from its 2012 peak, the remaining long-term opioid patient pool got older. The share of long-term users aged 65 and older more than doubled, and those patients are now the ones most likely to be on chronic morphine. They also carry the medical features that make opioid dependence riskier: slower metabolism, impaired renal clearance, more concurrent medications, and a higher baseline risk of falls, cognitive slowing, and respiratory suppression. When a morphine plan stops being the right plan, it often doesn’t announce itself. It looks like a patient who “seems fine” but hasn’t had a day without the medication in four years.
None of this means you did something wrong. It means the medication did what opioids do over time, and the system that prescribed it didn’t always build in the off-ramp. Here, the way off morphine is switching to buprenorphine.
Sources: CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain — United States, 2022 (MMWR Recommendations and Reports); American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, 2022 CDC Opioid Prescribing Guideline Updates; American Journal of Managed Care, “Millions Are Still on Long-Term Opioids, and They’re Getting Older”; CDC U.S. Opioid Dispensing Rate Maps (2024); Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Opioids in Older Adults: Indications, Prescribing, Complications, and Alternative Therapies for Primary Care.
Recognizing it
Signs of Morphine Use Disorder
In the morphine population specifically, use disorder rarely looks like the textbook picture people imagine. There are no track marks, no missed work, no dramatic decline — at least not at first. What there is, often, is a slow drift in the relationship between the patient and the medication, where the medication quietly starts running the day instead of the other way around. Many of the most clinically significant signs are things the patient or family only name in hindsight.
Dose escalation beyond what was prescribed. Taking an extra sustained-release tablet on bad days. Using two breakthrough doses when the plan calls for one. Running 30-day supplies in 24 or 21 days. Tolerance is expected with long-term opioid therapy, but a repeating pattern of using more than prescribed is a clinical signal.
Resistance to tapering conversations. Your doctor brings up reducing the dose and you notice yourself finding reasons it’s not the right time — the pain is flaring, there’s a family event coming up, work is stressful, you’re not sleeping. Every reason is real. But if this has happened with every taper attempt for years, the pattern itself is the signal.
Using the medication for things beyond physical pain. The morphine helps you sleep. The morphine helps you tolerate a difficult visit with a family member. The morphine takes the edge off grief, anxiety, or boredom. None of these are original indications, and they’re common reasons patients describe when asked carefully about their use.
Early refill requests. Running out before the refill date. Calling the pharmacy for “vacation overrides.” Lost prescriptions that have to be replaced. The occasional legitimate early need happens; a repeating pattern is different.
Hiding use from family or prescribers. Taking an extra dose in the bathroom. Not mentioning the amount actually taken at a medical visit. Keeping the number in the bottle a private count only you know. Concealment is one of the clearest behavioral markers, and one patients often recognize in themselves before clinicians do.
Continued use after the original indication has resolved. The cancer is in remission. The surgery healed. The acute flare is over. The rehab course ended. And the morphine is still being refilled, often without a recent conversation about why.
Withdrawal symptoms between doses. Restlessness, sweating, yawning, muscle aches, anxiety, or GI upset that resolves when the next dose is taken. This is physical dependence, and in long-term morphine therapy it can exist whether or not use disorder is present — but when it’s driving use, the line has moved.
Pain that’s become harder to distinguish from withdrawal. Many long-term morphine patients develop opioid-induced hyperalgesia — a paradoxical increase in pain sensitivity from chronic opioid exposure. The symptom that feels like the original pain returning may actually be withdrawal or hyperalgesia, not tissue pain. The medication is treating something it also created.
Loss of control. Deciding to take only one breakthrough dose today and taking three. Deciding to stretch the prescription and not being able to. Making promises about dose limits to yourself or a spouse and not keeping them.
For patients who developed dependence in the context of legitimate chronic or cancer pain, the line between “appropriate long-term opioid therapy” and “opioid use disorder” can genuinely be blurry. DSM-5 criteria don’t automatically apply the way they do in a recreational-use pattern — tolerance and withdrawal, for instance, are expected consequences of medically supervised long-term therapy and are excluded from the diagnosis in that context. What remains diagnostic are the behavioral and functional criteria: loss of control, craving, use despite consequences, using in situations where it’s hazardous, and repeated unsuccessful attempts to cut down. A careful clinical interview is what sorts this out. A checklist won’t.
Morphine Withdrawal: Timeline & Symptoms
Morphine withdrawal is uncomfortable but, in otherwise healthy adults, not typically life-threatening the way alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal can be. For patients on chronic morphine therapy — especially extended-release formulations — the timeline and texture of withdrawal are distinctive. Onset is slower than with short-acting opioids: immediate-release morphine (Roxanol, MSIR) has a half-life of 2–4 hours and produces withdrawal onset similar to hydrocodone (6–12 hours after last dose), while extended-release morphine (MS Contin, Kadian, Avinza) is engineered for 12–24 hour dosing, so withdrawal typically takes 12–24 hours to begin and can be blunted for the first day as residual medication is still releasing. That makes buprenorphine induction timing different from what’s used for fentanyl or hydrocodone patients. Protracted withdrawal is also more common in patients who have been on morphine for multiple years, and the psychological component is often more prominent than in illicit-opioid withdrawal — many morphine patients have a real, grounded fear of pain returning that intensifies symptom perception, so withdrawal management in this cohort needs to address the pain-return concern as directly as the physical symptoms.
First 12–24 hours after last dose
Early symptoms
For extended-release morphine, the first wave is delayed compared with short-acting opioids. Early symptoms: anxiety, restlessness, muscle aches, yawning, watery eyes, runny nose, sweating, and craving. Patients on immediate-release morphine can start 6–12 hours after last dose.
Day 1 – Day 3 · Peak
The peak
Full symptom picture: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping, chills alternating with sweating, dilated pupils, goosebumps, muscle and bone aches, profound fatigue, intense cravings, and the return or amplification of any underlying pain. Heart rate and blood pressure rise. Sleep is severely disrupted. Most unmedicated attempts to stop fail in this window.
This is the stretch MAT is built for — buprenorphine prevents these symptoms, so most patients never go through the peak unmedicated.
Acute GI symptoms gradually subside. Appetite may start to return. Sleep remains fragmented. Cravings stay strong. Low mood and anxiety often peak here as the body begins re-regulating.
Week 2 and beyond · Post-acute
Post-acute withdrawal
For short-term morphine users, most acute symptoms have cleared. For long-term users, post-acute withdrawal can persist: low energy, difficulty concentrating, mood changes, anhedonia, sleep disturbance, and intermittent cravings over weeks to months. This is slow nervous-system re-calibration, and it doesn’t mean treatment is failing. MAT dramatically shortens it.
Don’t stop morphine on your own
If you’ve been on morphine long-term, especially at moderate or higher MME, do not stop on your own. The risk is not primarily life-threatening withdrawal — it’s relapse to high-dose use after your tolerance has dropped, which is the highest-risk moment for overdose. Starting buprenorphine treatment is dramatically safer than a cold-turkey attempt.
How We Treat Morphine Addiction
At Restoration Recovery, morphine use disorder is treated with a combination of medication and psychosocial support.
Buprenorphine + naloxone taken sublingually as a dissolving film or tablet. Buprenorphine stabilizes cravings and prevents withdrawal at the same receptors morphine was acting on — but with a ceiling effect on euphoria and respiratory depression. The naloxone component is inactive when the medication is taken correctly; it’s included to discourage misuse via injection.
A long-acting extended-release buprenorphine injection given once a month at our clinics. For morphine patients who have spent years on a daily medication ritual, the once-monthly cadence can be psychologically freeing — no pill box, no timing, no daily cue. Steady blood levels throughout the month also smooth out the mood and energy fluctuations many patients report on daily regimens. We have you take Suboxone for at least a week before your first Sublocade injection. The first injection usually comes about a month after you start.
Brixadi (weekly or monthly)
Another extended-release buprenorphine injection with flexible dosing intervals. The weekly option is useful for patients still titrating to the right maintenance dose. Like Sublocade, Brixadi is ordered per-patient and administered at a follow-up visit once the medication arrives.
Individual counseling
Licensed therapists experienced in substance use disorder. For the chronic-pain origin cohort, counseling often surfaces material specific to this pathway — grief over the health events that triggered the prescription, fear of pain returning, shame about needing medication to function, complicated feelings about the original prescriber, and for cancer survivors specifically, the unresolved emotional weight of the illness itself.
Intensive outpatient (IOP)
IOP for patients who benefit from a more structured treatment schedule — delivered in a group format by design. IOP is the only group-setting service we offer, and it’s a separate, structured program rather than an informal group activity.
Integrated behavioral health
Integrated care for co-occurring conditions, including anxiety, depression, trauma, and hepatitis C. Anxiety and depression are particularly common in long-term morphine patients — often predating the opioid therapy and worsening through it. Behavioral health visits are at our Chattanooga clinic; the first is in person, and later ones can be by telehealth.
Your Pain Care
For patients whose morphine use began in a legitimate pain context, the pain doesn’t automatically resolve when the morphine stops. The injury, the cancer history, the degenerative condition, the post-surgical nerve damage — whatever was treated with opioids originally is often still there, in some reduced form. We treat the opioid use disorder, and your pain care stays with your own doctor or pain provider; we never prescribe Suboxone for pain.
Coordination with Pain Providers
Many morphine patients arrive with an active pain management relationship elsewhere — a pain clinic, a long-standing primary care provider, an oncologist, a palliative care team. We coordinate with those providers. The goal is one unified plan among our clinic, your pain provider, and you — not two parallel medication lists that contradict each other. In practice, coordination usually means: a release of information from you allowing direct provider-to-provider communication; a conversation about the opioid transition plan so your pain provider knows what we’re doing and when; and clear agreement about who is prescribing what going forward. Your pain provider keeps handling your pain care, including non-opioid treatment, while we manage the buprenorphine. If your pain provider has concerns about the transition, we’ll talk with them directly.
For most patients with morphine use disorder, treatment can start right in our outpatient clinics. You leave your first visit with a Suboxone prescription, and your provider explains when to take your first dose at home. Some situations do need medical stabilization first; get those evaluated urgently, and we’ll get you started on MAT as soon as you’re medically cleared.
Not sure where to start?
You don’t have to have the plan figured out, and you don’t have to stop the medication on your own. Call and we’ll walk you through the first visit and coordinate with your pain provider or oncology team if that’s part of your picture.
Your first visit typically lasts 2 to 3 hours and follows a four-step clinical flow. For the chronic-pain / palliative / cancer-survivor cohort, the intake emphasis is different from a street-opioid intake — you leave the same day with a Suboxone prescription.
01
Intake
Paperwork plus a DSM-5 assessment — adapted for patients on supervised chronic opioid therapy, where tolerance and withdrawal are expected and don’t count toward the diagnosis — and a COWS score to measure your current withdrawal state. We also capture the original pain indication, your prescribers and medications, and any prior taper attempts.
02
Counseling
You meet a counselor to discuss your use history, the original clinical context, prior treatment, your goals, and concerns about the transition. For patients in active cancer survivorship, recent loss, or ongoing chronic pain, this is where the emotional picture gets mapped alongside the medical one — and where we document any active pain-management relationship so coordination can begin.
03
Doctor evaluation
A medical provider reviews your intake, COWS score, medication list, and counselor notes, and walks you through Suboxone, Sublocade, and Brixadi. For long-term morphine patients — especially those on extended-release formulations or high MME — the induction-timing discussion is more detailed: we’re often looking at a longer pre-induction interval to avoid precipitated withdrawal.
04
Prescription
You leave the same day with a Suboxone prescription. If you prefer the extended-release route, your provider orders Sublocade or Brixadi during this visit — we don’t stock injections on-site — and you continue on Suboxone as a bridge until your injection appointment.
About 2–3 hours.You leave the same day with a Suboxone prescription.Bring a photo ID, insurance card, and your full medication list.
What each step covers in detail+
Intake. A DSM-5 assessment — adapted for patients on supervised chronic opioid therapy, where tolerance and withdrawal are expected features of treatment and don’t count toward the diagnosis — and a COWS (Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale) score to measure your current withdrawal state. For morphine patients, intake also captures: the original pain indication and its current status, your complete list of current prescribers and medications, previous taper attempts and outcomes, and any co-occurring conditions (chronic pain, anxiety, depression, cancer history) that shape the treatment plan.
Prescription and injection ordering. You leave the same day with a Suboxone prescription. If you prefer the extended-release route, your provider will order Sublocade or Brixadi during this visit — we don’t stock injections on-site — and you’ll continue on Suboxone as a bridge. Your injection appointment is scheduled for a follow-up once the medication arrives, typically after a stabilization period on Suboxone. For Sublocade, that’s at least a week, and the first injection usually comes about a month after you start.
What to bring. A valid photo ID, your insurance card if applicable, and a complete list of current medications — including the specific morphine product (MS Contin, Kadian, Avinza, immediate-release), dose, dosing interval, and any breakthrough medication. Also bring contact information for other active prescribers (pain specialist, oncologist, primary care) so coordination can start right away. If you’d like to see the full process walked through step by step before your visit, our guide on what to expect at your first Suboxone appointment covers it in more detail.
Why Medication-Assisted Treatment Works for Morphine
For many patients, the fear of withdrawal is what keeps them stuck. MAT removes that barrier: buprenorphine prevents withdrawal, so patients do not have to push through it. MAT is endorsed as the standard of care for opioid use disorder by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and the World Health Organization. Large-scale evidence shows that patients with opioid use disorder who receive buprenorphine-based MAT:
Experience more than a 50 percent reduction in the risk of fatal opioid overdose
Stay in treatment significantly longer than those receiving counseling alone
Report fewer cravings and lower rates of continued opioid use
Are more likely to maintain employment and stable living situations during recovery
There is a specific clinical point worth naming for this cohort. Buprenorphine’s partial-agonist pharmacology gives it a ceiling effect on euphoria and respiratory depression that full agonists like morphine, oxycodone, and fentanyl do not have. For older patients — the demographic that now makes up the fastest-growing share of long-term opioid users — that ceiling is a significant safety feature. Respiratory depression in sleep, sedation-related falls, and interactions with benzodiazepines or alcohol are all softer on buprenorphine than on morphine. MAT is a pharmacologic upgrade to a medication with a materially safer profile in the exact risk categories this population cares about.
Evidence base: Sordo et al., 2017 (BMJ) mortality meta-analysis; SAMHSA, NIDA, ASAM, and WHO treatment guidelines for opioid use disorder; and 20+ years of buprenorphine cohort and trial data.
Why Restoration Recovery
Choosing where to start treatment matters, and for the chronic-pain / cancer-survivor / long-term-prescription cohort, the clinical feel of the clinic matters as much as the medication list. Restoration Recovery was built around both.
Serving Chattanooga since 2017. Our providers have decades of experience treating opioid and substance use disorders in Southeast Tennessee — including the full arc from the pre-2012 prescribing peak, through the prescribing-rate collapse, into the current era where the remaining long-term opioid population is increasingly older and medically complex. We have seen every version of this.
Non-shaming clinical culture. For morphine patients whose dependence developed while following provider instructions, the tone of care matters. We do not lecture. We do not moralize. Physical dependence after years of clinically indicated opioid therapy is a medical reality, not a character finding. The conversation at our clinic is about the plan forward, not who did what wrong.
CARF accredited. The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities is an independent, nonprofit accreditor that reviews treatment programs on-site against its published standards.
One integrated team. Medical providers and counselors at every clinic, with psychiatric care at our Chattanooga clinic. If you also have anxiety, depression, or hepatitis C, your providers coordinate that care with each other.
Four clinic locations across Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia, with telehealth follow-up for established patients. Several locations are convenient for patients coordinating care with oncology, pain management, or primary care elsewhere in the region.
Most major insurance accepted — TennCare, Georgia Medicaid, commercial plans, Medicare, and supplemental Medicare. Medicare coverage is especially relevant for this population; we verify your benefits before your first visit.
Same-day Suboxone appointments. You don’t have to wait weeks to start.
Licensed in both states. Tennessee and Georgia, HIPAA compliant, 42 CFR Part 2 compliant — confidential from the first phone call, which matters especially for patients with active relationships with other prescribers and employers.
CARF-accredited outpatient addiction care
TennCare, BlueCare, BCBS, UHC, Medicare & most commercial insurance accepted. We verify your benefits before your first visit — no surprises. Licensed in TN & GA · HIPAA · 42 CFR Part 2.
Restoration Recovery accepts most major insurance plans, including TennCare, Georgia Medicaid, a broad range of commercial plans, and Medicare (plus supplemental Medicare plans). For the morphine patient population — which skews toward older adults on Medicare or Medicare Advantage plans, and toward cancer survivors with established commercial coverage — our patient services team can verify your benefits before your first appointment so you know exactly what to expect in terms of cost.
Don’t have insurance? Contact us anyway. Self-pay for medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is a flat $250 a month, and our team will go over the cost with you before you start. For a full list of accepted carriers and the verification process, visit our insurance page.
Four Clinic Locations
We operate four outpatient clinics across Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia. All four offer morphine addiction treatment, with same-day appointments on the days each is open.
Telehealth follow-up visits are available for established patients who have completed their initial in-person evaluation — a particularly useful option for older patients, mobility-limited patients, or patients coordinating care across multiple specialists. Phones are answered Monday through Friday, 9am to 4:30pm Eastern. After hours? The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and the free, confidential SAMHSA National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) are available 24/7.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
I have real pain. Can you still treat my morphine dependence?+
Yes. We treat the opioid use disorder. We do not treat chronic pain or prescribe Suboxone for it, so your pain care stays with your own doctor or pain provider. If you have a pain provider, we coordinate with them so there is one consistent plan instead of two medication lists.
I’ve been on morphine for years since my cancer treatment. Do I really have an “addiction”?+
Physical dependence is not the same as moral failing, and the word “addiction” is often not the most useful clinical framing for this cohort. Morphine produces dependence in any patient taking it long-term, regardless of why they started — that’s pharmacology, not character. If your cancer treatment ended months or years ago and the morphine is still running your schedule, that’s worth a clinical conversation. Use disorder exists on a spectrum, from mild to severe, and many long-term cancer survivors fall somewhere on it. The goal isn’t to apply a label; it’s to build a plan for transitioning off morphine safely, and buprenorphine is often well-suited for that. Your pain care stays with your own doctor or pain provider.
Can I keep my pain doctor if I start treatment here?+
Yes. Your pain care, including any non-opioid treatment, stays with your pain provider while we manage the buprenorphine. If your pain provider has questions or concerns about the transition, we’ll talk with them directly.
What is MME and why does my doctor keep mentioning it?+
MME stands for morphine milligram equivalents. It’s the unit clinicians use to compare doses across different opioids by converting them to the equivalent dose of morphine. Morphine itself is the reference: 1 mg of oral morphine = 1 MME. Oxycodone converts at 1.5 MME per mg, hydrocodone at 1.0, and transdermal fentanyl is much higher per microgram. The 2022 CDC opioid prescribing guideline identifies 50 MME/day as the threshold where overdose risk roughly doubles, and 90+ MME/day as the range where risk climbs to up to nine times the rate at under 20 MME/day. If your provider is discussing your MME, they are reading the combined opioid risk from your entire medication list, not just one prescription.
Can I just taper morphine slowly instead of switching to Suboxone?+
Sometimes. A slow taper directed by the doctor who prescribes your morphine is a legitimate option for some patients — particularly those on moderate doses, for a short to medium duration, with no features of opioid use disorder and stable pain control. It is not a good option for everyone. For patients with significant physical dependence, escalating use, concealed use, or DSM-5 features of use disorder, buprenorphine-based MAT has substantially stronger evidence: it stabilizes cravings, prevents withdrawal cycling, and is much easier to sustain long-term than a prolonged taper. At your first visit we go over your dose, duration, pain picture, and any past tapers. Your provider uses that to plan your Suboxone start.
I’m older and on morphine for back pain. Am I the right fit for this clinic?+
Yes. A meaningful share of our opioid caseload is older adults — patients in their 60s, 70s, and beyond — who started morphine for legitimate chronic pain and stayed on it longer than originally planned. The clinical picture in older patients is different from the illicit-opioid cohort: slower metabolism, more polypharmacy, more sensitivity to sedation and respiratory depression, greater fall risk, and often real residual pain, which your own doctor or pain provider keeps treating. We take all of that into account. Transitioning to buprenorphine in older adults is well-studied and generally well-tolerated, and many patients report meaningful improvement in day-to-day function — clearer thinking, better sleep architecture, more even mood — once the morphine peak-and-trough cycle ends. The clinic is set up for this population.
4 clinics across Tennessee & North Georgia
Ready to start morphine addiction treatment?
Same-day appointments available, and most major insurance is accepted. Morphine dependence is treatable — including after years of legitimate chronic-pain therapy, and after taper attempts that didn’t last. You don’t need all the answers before you call, and you don’t need to stop the medication on your own first — in fact, please don’t. Our team will walk you through every step, from your first call to your first visit and every follow-up after, and we’ll coordinate directly with your pain provider or oncology team if that’s part of your picture.
