Confidential Medication-Assisted Treatment
If you have tried to stop using opioids or alcohol on your own and the cravings pulled you back every time, that is not a character flaw. It is brain chemistry, and addiction responds to medicine. The medication-assisted treatment program at Surfpoint Recovery pairs FDA-approved medications with real clinical care inside our OASAS-licensed, CARF-certified center on Surf Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
Our medical team starts medication during inpatient detox, adjusts it while your body stabilizes, and builds your continuing plan before you leave. We accept Medicaid and all major insurance plans.
What Medication-Assisted Treatment Looks Like Here
Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) pairs prescription medications with counseling and behavioral therapies to treat addiction to opioids and alcohol. The medications are not one drug swapped for another. They settle onto the same opioid receptors that heroin, fentanyl, and prescription pain relievers act on, or they block those receptors outright, which shuts down cravings and keeps withdrawal symptoms from running your day.
At our Brooklyn facility, MAT is not a separate clinic you drive to twice a week. It is built into the inpatient addiction treatment you are already receiving. Our medical staff evaluates you at admission, starts medication when it is clinically appropriate, and watches how you respond around the clock. Dr. Ramsey Joudeh, our Medical Director, oversees medication decisions with Assistant Medical Director Joseph Turkel, while Clinical Director Alet Coke keeps the therapy side moving in step with the medical side.
National clinical guidelines call for medication and therapy to run together, and keeping both under one roof closes the gap where patients most often fall out of addiction treatment.
Signs You Need Medication Support for Opioid Use Disorder
- You get physically sick when you stop, with sweating, cramping, nausea, and withdrawal symptoms that arrive within hours of the last dose
- Cravings come roaring back the moment those withdrawal symptoms fade
- You finished drug and alcohol detox before and were using again within a month
- You are using fentanyl or heroin now, having started with prescription pain relievers
- You have survived an overdose, or someone has used naloxone on you
- Drinking has reached the point where your hands shake in the morning, or you need alcohol to sleep
- Getting the drug has pushed you into criminal activity, into debt, or into situations your addiction would have made unthinkable a year ago
None of that means addiction treatment failed you. It means the substance rewired something and willpower alone was never going to win that fight.
The MAT Medications We Use
Three medications are FDA-approved for treating opioid addiction, and two are part of addiction treatment at Surfpoint Recovery. Which one suits you depends on how long you have used, which drug you have been using, your other medical conditions, and what your life looks like after discharge.
Suboxone
Buprenorphine is a partial agonist, so it occupies opioid receptors firmly enough to stop withdrawal and reduce cravings without the euphoric effects of heroin or other opioids. The naloxone component discourages misuse of the medication itself. Buprenorphine is usually started during inpatient drug detox as the first withdrawal symptoms appear, then held at a steady dose once the body adjusts. It dissolves under the tongue as a film or tablet, and our nursing staff administers every dose.
Vivitrol
It is an antagonist, so it blocks opioid receptors rather than activating them, and opioids produce no high while it is in your system. It also dulls the pull of alcohol, making it one of the few medications that can treat alcohol dependence and opioid dependence with the same shot. Extended-release dosing removes the daily decision to take something. Vivitrol does require a fully completed detox first, because starting it too early sets off severe withdrawal. It also lowers your tolerance while it is working, which means a missed injection leaves you at higher overdose risk than before you started. That is why the follow-up schedule is part of the plan, and why the timing belongs inside a supervised program.
Where Methadone Fits
Federal rules allow ongoing methadone maintenance only through certified opioid treatment programs, and Surfpoint Recovery is a licensed inpatient detox and rehabilitation center rather than a methadone clinic. If you arrive already stable on methadone, tell our intake team so our medical staff can plan around it. If it turns out to be the right long-term medication for you, we will say so and connect you with a program that can prescribe it. Being straight about what we do not do is part of treating substance use seriously.
What the First Week of Treatment Looks Like
- A full medical assessment on arrival, covering your substance use history, your other health conditions, and every medication you already take
- Medically supervised withdrawal, with nursing staff tracking your withdrawal symptoms and adjusting support as they shift
- Medication started when it is clinically safe, then adjusted over several days until the dose holds steady
- A psychiatric evaluation within the first 24 hours, standard practice in addiction medicine, which catches a co-occurring condition early rather than after the drug withdrawal is over
- Individual and group therapy sessions beginning as soon as you are well enough to take part
- Discharge planning that includes your medication plan, so your last day here is not the day support stops
Opioid withdrawal symptoms usually peak inside the first 72 hours. Adequate medication and round-the-clock clinical support are what carry a patient through that stretch.
How Medication and Therapy Work Together to Treat Addiction
Medication quiets the physical noise. Therapy handles what that noise was covering up. Skipping either half is a common reason MAT programs fail, which is why medication alone is not how we run this program.
While you are with us, medication management runs alongside the clinical schedule our 28-day inpatient program is built around. That means one-on-one counseling, group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, family sessions, peer support, and 12-step meetings. Program Director Vincent Marchese holds an Advanced CASAC credential and a Master of Social Work from Fordham University. He leads a team that treats substance use disorders and co-occurring conditions at the same time rather than one after the other.
Plenty of people struggling with opioid addiction or alcohol use disorder are also carrying depression, anxiety, PTSD, or bipolar disorder under the substance abuse. Medicate the addiction, ignore the mental health condition, and relapse is the predictable result. Our dual diagnosis treatment addresses both at once, which is a core principle of modern addiction medicine.
Addiction is a chronic health condition, and chronic conditions get managed rather than cured. Nobody expects one course of treatment to settle diabetes permanently, and addiction behaves the same way. MAT hands you a medical tool for the long stretch, which is why we build your medication plan and ongoing support around your recovery rather than our discharge date.
Why Medication Matters More Than It Used To
The drug supply changed. Counterfeit pills sold on the street in New York routinely contain fentanyl, and nobody buying those drugs is choosing a dose. That is the practical reason medication moved to the center of addiction treatment. A patient stabilized on buprenorphine who slips has a blunted response and a lower chance of a fatal overdose than the same patient with nothing in their system.
It is also why the medication plan matters more than the promise. A return to drug use is information about that plan rather than a verdict on the patient, and the response is to look at what happened and adjust the treatment. People recovering from substance use disorders rarely travel in a straight line, and treatment that assumes otherwise gives up early.
Addiction Treatment You Can Verify
Surfpoint Recovery is an OASAS-licensed and CARF-certified Center of Excellence at 2316 Surf Ave, Entrance on West 24th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11224. CARF first accredited this facility in 2023 and granted a three year accreditation for residential substance use disorder treatment. That means an outside surveyor reviewed our clinical and safety standards instead of taking our word for it. You can check the record yourself under CARF provider number 367286. As of August 2026, our patients rate us 4.8 stars across 136 Google reviews.
The facility also holds DEA registration, which is the baseline requirement in addiction medicine for prescribing and administering the controlled medications MAT depends on. Our medical and nursing staff cover the building 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so a patient whose dose needs adjusting at 3 am gets it adjusted at 3 am.
We admit patients from across Brooklyn and the wider Kings County area, and our facility sits in Coney Island, a short walk from the boardwalk. Getting drug and alcohol addiction treatment close to home means family can attend a session without crossing three boroughs.
Insurance and Getting Started
All major insurance plans are accepted, including Medicaid, and for many patients both the medications and the program itself are covered in full. Addiction treatment also falls under federal and New York parity rules for most plans, meaning your substance abuse benefits cannot be more restrictive than your medical benefits.
Our admissions team at Surfpoint Recovery verifies your plan at no cost before treatment begins.
Where MAT Fits Among Our Treatment Programs
Medication-Assisted Treatment Questions We Hear Most
What is considered medication-assisted treatment?
It is any plan that pairs an FDA-approved medication for addiction with structured therapy and counseling. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration applies the term to opioid and alcohol treatment specifically. Medication by itself is not MAT, and talk therapy by itself is not MAT. Both halves must be present.
Is MAT the same as Suboxone?
No. Suboxone is one medication used within MAT. MAT is the whole approach, including Vivitrol, methadone, the therapy attached to them, and the medical monitoring around every dose. Someone can be handed a prescription with no support and no follow-up, which is not a MAT program at all.
What is the success rate of MAT?
Published research shows patients on medication stay in treatment longer, use fewer illicit drugs, and have lower rates of overdose than patients given talk therapy alone. We do not advertise a single percentage, because a success rate depends entirely on how the facility chooses to define success. The more useful question is whether a patient completes the program and leaves with a medication plan and a follow-up appointment in place.
What medications are used in medication-assisted treatment?
For opioids, the three are buprenorphine, naltrexone, and methadone. Buprenorphine most often appears as Suboxone. Naltrexone comes as a monthly Vivitrol injection or a daily tablet. For alcohol use disorder, naltrexone, acamprosate, and disulfiram are the usual choices. The MAT medications we work with here are Suboxone and Vivitrol.
How much does MAT cost?
Your cost depends on your coverage, not a price list. Medicaid is accepted here, along with every major commercial plan, and our team checks your benefits for free before admission and tells you what your share would be, if anything. Call Surfpoint Recovery and ask before you decide anything, because the verification itself costs nothing.
Start Medication-Assisted Treatment in Brooklyn
Opioid and alcohol dependence rarely resolves on its own, and cravings do not negotiate. If you or someone in your family needs medication support for drug or alcohol addiction, call the Surfpoint Recovery intake team at (646) 347-1893. Our admissions line is answered at any hour, including weekends. We verify your insurance at no cost on that first call, and we will tell you honestly whether our medication-assisted treatment program is the right fit.
