Any drug to quit alcohol

[alan1]

I wanna quit this alcohol habit of mine..tried several times..but couldn't really succeed.
Can anyone tell me about any drug or any other alternative that can help me in quitting alcohol?

[Music]

Originally Posted by alan1

I wanna quit this alcohol habit of mine..tried several times..but couldn't really succeed.
Can anyone tell me about any drug or any other alternative that can help me in quitting alcohol?

Taking a drug to quit another drug is just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later you'll have to come off the drug and if you don't really want to quit drinking, you'll be right back out there. I've known people who say they want to quit smoking. They get hypnotized, chew gum, wear patches. Just temporary fixes. I had to want to quit drinking bad enough to do whatever it took to not drink. I suspect you're no different!

[tyler]

Here is some info on Antabuse, the most commonly perscribed drug to help with not drinking. Understand it does not help with urges, it just makes you sick if you drink.

Antabuse
Antabuse is also known by the name disulfiram. A very unpleasant reaction occurs when a patient under disulfiram treatment ingests alcohol. Disulfiram plus even small amounts of alcohol produces flushing, throbbing in the head and neck, respiratory difficulty, nausea, vomiting, sweating, thirst, chest pain, blurred vision, and confusion. In severe reactions, there may be acute congestive heart failure, unconsciousness, convulsions, and death. The intensity of the reaction is generally proportional to the amount of disulfiram and alcohol ingested.

Disulfiram should never be administered to a patient without his/her full knowledge or when he/she is intoxicated.

[wantneeda]

Welcome Alan.
I don't know...like Music says..just postponing the inevitable. Someone at a meeting the other said they wish they could take a pill to get rid of addiction. Isn't that a paradox?? Ironic??
Truth is, if one wants to quit bad enough, they will go to any length to stay sober.
For me i did almost 5 months worth of treatment, not everyone has to go that route or do treatment for that long...thats just how desprate i was to live.
I was introduced to AA while in treatment and its been my saving grace.
Today i'm working on day 367, one day at a time, i'm only 1 drink away form the hell i've been crawling out of.
Staying in today has been a huge thing..i can't change my past, i don't know what tomorrow will bring but when i live in today and work on not picking up the first drink/drug i find myself going to bed sober.
I wake up without that horrid hangover...and work on the next today.
Just for today, don't drink
hugs & hugs Wendy

[Chance]

Hey glad you are here.....I don't know that is like switching Budwieser for Jack Daniels, or pot for meth....I know that it is hard in early recovery but we can do this togeather. All we have to do is what we are doing right now. You are sober right now and yes it is hard, but it does get easier in time.... It doesn't happen over night D*mn it anyway. LOL I have had the oppurtunity to meet a lot of caring, compassionant, and some people that will **** you off here. But the truth always hurts, then you get mad, then you get set free. So a drug is a drug is a drug, and alcohol is a drug duh Hope and pray we all make it today.

[Peter]

Modern society seems to have invented a pill for every ailment under the sun.

Fortunately for me they have not come up with the one for alcoholism yet or I would probably be the first one out there at the front of the line.

Alcoholism is primarily a Spiritual condition.It is my thinking and my attitude that makes me what I am.......You can't take a pill to fix that.......

[CarolD]

Glad to see a new member!

I did take Antabuse.. and drank with it.
I will tell you the reactions mentioned in Tylers post are true.
Did I quit drinking then? nope...I quit the Antabuse because it made me soo darn sick!

Please stay around SR... read the post..we all have drinking experiences to share.

Again...Welcome!

[Don S]

Originally Posted by alan1

I wanna quit this alcohol habit of mine..tried several times..but couldn't really succeed.
Can anyone tell me about any drug or any other alternative that can help me in quitting alcohol?

Hi, Alan,

There are three drugs used in treatment of alcohol abuse. Antabuse works essentially by aversion; the other two (Naltrexone and Acamprosate) work on cravings. They are reasonable to discuss with your doctor, probably in conjunction with counseling, recovery groups, and other ways of dealing with the emotional or psychological reasons that you drink.

If anxiety or depression are factors in your drinking, you may wish to discuss those with your doctor as well as there are medications that might be helpful for those.

Stopping substance abuse involves dealing with the physical effects of withdrawal -- please tell your doctor honestly how much and how long you've been drinking -- and also dealing with the underlying issues. You may find your doctor can refer you to a counselor trained in substance abuse issues. My suggestion would be one using cognitive behavioral approaches. Recovery groups can also be helpful--SMART, AA, SOS, LifeRing. Private programs such as RR might be of use.
This link compares some of them: http://rrci.net/recovery_spectrum.htm


Here are some items cut from various articles about the three drugs mentioned above:

-------------------
Information about Acamprosate.

Why is this medication prescribed?
Acamprosate is used along with counseling and social support to help people who have stopped drinking large amounts of alcohol to avoid drinking alcohol again.
Drinking alcohol for a long time changes the way the brain works. Acamprosate works by helping the brains of people who have drunk large amounts of alcohol to work normally again.
Acamprosate does not prevent the withdrawal symptoms that people may experience when they stop drinking alcohol.
Acamprosate has not been shown to work in people who have not stopped drinking alcohol or in people who drink large amounts of alcohol and also overuse or abuse other substances such as street drugs or prescription medications.
Acamprosate will not cause you to have an unpleasant reaction if you drink alcohol during treatment.
----------------
Comparing the three alcohol-abuse treatment drugs:

Antabuse: "Alcohol is broken down in a stepwise fashion by enzymes in the liver. Antabuse blocks one of these enzyme steps. This causes a build up of a compound called acetaldehyde. Antabuse has very few side effects as long as you do not drink alcohol. If people who take Antabuse drink, they will usually experience flushing, nausea, vomiting, thirst, heart palpitations, and low blood pressure. So, Antabuse does not alter cravings but it produces a rather nasty set of side effects if you drink.

Naltrexone, on the other hand, works to reduce cravings for alcohol. Naltrexone blocks special receptors in the brain called opiate receptors. ....Naltrexone blocks these receptors and reduces the craving for alcohol. Like Antabuse, naltrexone has very few side effects on its own. Because it blocks opiate receptors it does interact with narcotic pain relievers and reduces their effectiveness. Naltrexone can also produce withdrawal symptoms in people who are taking narcotic drugs for a long period of time. Unfortunately, naltrexone does not look like it works for everyone.

Acamprosate works by blocking yet another pathway in the brain and reduces the pleasure of drinking. The combination of naltrexone and acamprosate looks like it is better in reducing alcohol cravings and drinking relapse than either drug alone."
------------------
"Acamprosate works by stabilizing a brain chemical system called the glutamate system," explains Ray Anton, M.D., Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina.
"The glutamate system is one of the most strongly affected by chronic alcohol use," Dr. Anton said, adding: "Following the initiation of abstinence, it takes considerable time for the brain chemistry of this system to become `normal' again. It is thought that acamprosate helps speed this process so that the person has a greater chance of staying abstinent by not ‘turning to the bottle’ to feel normal. Acamprosate is well tolerated but needs to be taken a few times per day, unlike disulfiram and naltrexone, which can be taken once per day."
--------------------
Acamprosate works by stimulating the production of the brain chemical, gaba. The irritability and dysphoria that often occurs in early recovery is partially the result of gaba depletion. Since one of the factors that contributes to alcohol relapse in early recovery is negative mood states, it is believed that acamprosate will reduce the severity of these relapse triggers and will contribute to achievement and maintenance of alcohol abstinence in the early weeks and months of recovery.
http://www.counselormagazine.com/pf... Treatment.asp

This article begins with an interesting editorial:

It may be impossible to believe today, but for decades, many professionals vehemently opposed the use of medications for the treatment of schizophrenia. They'd assert, 'You can't undo bad parenting with a pill.' ....

In many ways, the substance-abuse treatment field is where the schizophrenia field was 50 years ago. The understanding of alcoholism and addiction as diseases of the brain is rapidly gaining great acceptance.....

For many years, there was considerable resistance to the use of medications to help alcoholics through alcohol withdrawal. Some thought that if withdrawal were made too easy and comfortable, there would be no deterrent to returning to alcohol use.

However, in the past 50 years, this 'let them suffer, it's good for them' attitude has been deemed medically unsafe, ethically barbaric and grounds for malpractice. It is likely that as science continues to produce medications that have clearly demonstrated efficacy in reducing relapse to alcohol use, these medications will gain increasing application.

Don S

[BaBa OReiley]

Can anyone tell me about any drug or any other alternative that can help me in quitting alcohol.................

i can so relate to that, only because i'm an alcoholic and always wanted to take the easy way out.

never worked for me al, antibuse would make me sick? big deal, so did hang-overs, there wasn't a man on the earth bad enough to stop me from drinking if i wanted to drink, nor a jail sentence stiff enough. i would have drank on the antibuse and died, hmmmm, i guess in that sense it would have stopped me from drinking, huh?

the other drugs work on the physical cravings, but what about my mental cravings, and spiritual? they were the real reasons for my drinking. as mentioned above, the is no pill for that!

for this alcoholic the only thing that seems to be working, and i've been at this for 14 years now, is abstinence and spiritual growth through the 12 steps of AA.

and the best part is...... IT'S FREE!

[Imagine]

Huggs out to you Alan. Forget about the drug cure, it does not work. Get into a program of recovery, AA is my recovery program. I have not had a drink in 9 years, and I have not had a drug in 6 years. If you really want to quit drinking you can, it's as simple as not taking that first drink.

[2dayzmuse]

I searched for the magic pill to help me stop drinking. I went to my Doctor and fessed up about how much I drank. I knew I needed to come clean and wanted to quit drinking desperately. I honestly thought the best solution would be to take Naltrexone. He told me to go to AA. I balked and kept pleading for the drug. It ended up that my insurance co. wouldn't cover the cost of the drug. I accepted the fact that the solution wasn't in any pill. It had to come from deep within me. I haven't had a drink in nearly a year. I did it with the help of AA, not from any pill. I can truly understand how you feel. It would be so much easier to stop in that way, but now I know how it needs to be done. You can quit if you truly want to. It takes work and faith and the need for sobriety. I need sobriety today to survive. I am a survivor. I hope you are too.

[Don S]

"New research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in conjunction with 23 other sites nationwide, has found that long-acting injections of the drug naltrexone, when used in conjunction with counselling, significantly reduces heavy drinking in patients being treated for alcohol dependence.

The research found that the median number of heavy-drinking days was reduced from 19 days in the month prior to the study to three days per month over the six months of treatment....

...long-acting naltrexone represents a promising new development in the treatment of alcohol dependence..."

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=9059

"At the present time, clinical research indicates that the best treatment results are achieved with a combination of pharmacotherapy and skilled counseling. Research is underway to determine how alcoholism treatment medications work (the mechanism of action), the potential therapeutic value of using pharmacotherapy over a longer period of time, and which subsets of patients are most likely to benefit from new pharmacological treatments. The prospects for improved alcoholism treatment have never been better."
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa33.htm
-----------------------
Some of these drugs can be effective under some circumstances. Statistically they have at least as good, probably better, success rates than recovery programs. What will work for one individual is not something any of us can predict.

Nobody is saying that these drugs are some kind of miracle, or 'the' solution. Notice that both articles mention coupling their use with counseling. Anything which reduces the physical cravings would tend to reduce the mental cravings. Recovery programs could provide additional support.

These are tools, folks, not cure-alls.
Nor are they to be dismissed as 'easier', less effective, or somehow less virtuous than using recovery programs. Alan didn't come here asking for a magic solution, he asked about 'any drug...that can help'.
Don S

[BaBa OReiley]

i was just sharing what it was for me don, and what is proven to work

[Chy]

Welcome Alan, I'd be fighting Peter to be first in line if there was some easy way to combat my drinking. I knew antabuse wouldn't work because honestly I would avoid taking it and eventually would have to "test" it. So with determination, courage, support and a honest willingness to succeed I'm grateful to stay sober one day at a time. Good luck we're here for you!

[tina2]

Hi alan...why don't you try Campral? My father tried it and it helped him a lot in quitting.
You may check this http://www.drugdelivery.ca/s31006-s-CAMPRAL.aspx for more information on this drug.

[NoMoBeer]

hey Alan -- my name is Ken, I'm an alcoholic and a triathlete. I mention that because your post made me think....

If there was a pill to help me quit drinking would I take it? Probably not, only because alcohol was a SYMPTOM of my real problem -- which is my living and my thinking. AA helped me with that, and still does every day...

You got me thinking though -- wouldn't it be great if there was a pill I could take and (((POOF!))) I'd be an elite triathlete? Sorry, same thing -- I've got to do the work to get to where I want to be. It may not be "elite" status, but it will be progress (thanks, by the way -- I needed to hear this message this morning after a less than stellar run).... I may never be an "elite" human being, but just being sober and learning to accept life on life's terms makes me happy right where I am....

I think I can really relate to Carol -- if I had taken Antabuse, I would have drunk anyway and gotten violently ill, only to quit the damn antabuse! MY real problem lies in my MIND, telling me it's OK to drink, rather than my body, which ensures that I cannot drink due to my alcoholism.

Just my thoughts...

Ken