By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

CHELSEA—William Wainscott understands the devastating impact opiate dependency can have. His Chelsea-based business, the Kolbe Clinic, seeks to help people break the cycle of opiate dependency through a combination of suboxone treatment and counseling.

“It’s important to understand the needs of the patient and do what’s best for them,” Wainscott said, explaining treatment begins when a patient walks through the doors of the clinic.

Patients are screened to determine what opiates may be in their system and meet with one of the Kolbe Clinic’s certified psychiatrists to determine a plan of action.

Wainscott explained the Kolbe Clinic uses soboxone to help the patient break their addiction to opiates, at the same time, the patient must regularly see one of the clinic’s psychiatrists for “routine counseling, long-term counseling.”

“We see suboxone in the medical community as a tool in the treatment of addiction,” Kolbe Clinic psychiatrist Dr. Erin Hanover explained.

Unlike methadone, also used to treat opiate addiction, Hanover explained that suboxone is a “partial opiate agonist,” meaning it fills an addict’s opiate receptors, but does not have the same euphoric effect as an opiate.

Hanover said suboxone is used to break drug use, prevent withdrawal symptoms and maintain the patient in a “steady state” so the patient can focus on the mental aspect of recovery.

“You are no longer in withdrawal, you are no longer craving those drugs,” Hanover said. “The goal of the treatment is that while they’re taking the medication, they’re working on recovery.”

The long-term goal of treatment is to break a patient’s opiate addiction and eventually “taper patients, over time, off the suboxone itself,” Hanover said, noting many patients also work through a 12-step program in addition to counseling at the Kolbe Clinic.

“For so many patients (12-step programs) give a good framework for recovery,” Hanover said.

In just the several months the Kolbe Clinic has been open, Wainscott said he has seen a high success rate in helping patients break addictions and return to a normal life.

“If they have someone who believes in them a little bit, they can do anything,” Wainscott said. “If they’re a productive member of society, that automatically helps the community.”