mistycshore

Anyone heard about or used this? "The End of My Addiction" by Ameisen is the original book. Since then, several docs, including a Nobel laureate, have jumped on the Baclofen bandwagon. I'm always skeptical, but it's an old drug and has been available as generic for many years - so nobody in pharma is making a killing on it.

Thoughts?

CarolD

No ... I have not read the book or tried the drug.

In one of my failed attempts at solid recovery...
I did use Antabuse.
Other than that......I did do my sobriety without drugs.

Dee74

I was prescribed it for other reasons as a child, but not for my alcoholism no, Misty.

D

mistycshore

Thanks Carol and Dee. The part about this is that I'm not comfortable with is that it is being touted as a "cure," by some pretty dang big touters! I guess it's been introduced to the big 6 recovery centers.

For anyone interested, here's the website of the guy who started it all:

Olivier Ameisen, MD

mistycshore

And here we are several months later.

For people who are having great (and I do mean great) difficulty getting sober (I did), you might want to ask your doc about baclofen. It’s a potent drug that’s no fun at all. It is frankly miserable to be on at very high dosage (you could not pay me to go high-dose on this stuff), and you cannot come off it suddenly without risking withdrawal. That said, for me even at smaller doses (60 mg) the stuff works amazingly well. It is contraindicated by a bunch of conditions and other meds, and really needs to be supervised medically.

I spent two+ decades trying every form of recovery known to man. This is the only one that has actually worked for me. I got a virus about a month ago and was astonished to realize that I used to walk around that sick all the time from hangovers! In the months previous to that, I didn’t even remember what a hangover felt like.

I plan to get a year of solid sobriety and then consider whether I really need it or not. I’d rather do life without it, but if my choice is alcoholism or baclofen, I’ll keep taking the stupid pill.

If there is anything else that works for you, don’t try this. I’m not kidding about the misery - the side effects really suck. But if you are like me and nothing else has helped, you might want to give it a go – with a medical professional. Ignore my post about Dr. Ameisen though. The guy has issues and is not respected even by high-level addiction specialists who are excited about baclofen.

I guess this would be a good time to apologize to SR for all my drunken posts, which no doubt were pretty much all of them! I know that I was obsessed on certain issues and not very nice much of the time (maybe all of the time). Sorry.

Peace out.

Latte

I had it prescribed when I through out my back, that is the only time I've ever taken it. It supposedly is a smooth muscle relaxant from what I understand. It was not sedating but it was most helpful in those first 24 hours after my back went out.

I had no idea it was used to help with alcoholism.

mistycshore

I found the somnolence to be pretty awful. It's not common knowledge yet but becoming so.

Here's an article on that (but please ignore the word "cure." Journalists can be very dense):

The little pill that could cure alcoholism | Society | The Observer

Here's another from Forbes that nominates baclofen as a "Name You Need to Know" in 2011. It also uses the word "cure," because people are just really dense sometimes:

Names You Need To Know In 2011: Addiction ‘Cure’ Baclofen - Caroline Howard - Social Medea - Forbes

But it is NO cure. If it was, I could go off it tomorrow and be just dandy. It's no more a cure for me than insulin would be a "cure" if I was diabetic. It's just another treatment, another approach.

OklaBH

That is awesome! Thanks for the info!

ImReadyToQuit

Not interested.

Latte

Well, the two I took the day I threw my back out (as directed) didn't have that affect on me. I'll steer clear of it for anything but urgent use.

Dee74

Please remember our SR rules and policies gang -

Please do check out anything you may read about with your Dr.
What might have worked for others may not work, or may not be suitable, for you.

D

Dee74

welcome back Misty

D

mistycshore

Yep! Definitely want a med person involved here. Like if I was gonna get an appendectomy, I would not expect that hiring someone online to do that for me would turn out well. It would not. Baclofen is a central nervous system suppressant. It's a major thing. Med people are good for those major kinds of things, IMO.

Thanks, Dee. I hope it is a sincere welcome, but I would not blame you if it was not. Won't be around much anyway. Life is very busy, but mostly in a good way. I'm bored out of my mind because I'm home sick and only thought to pass this on here because I was doing a Google for something and this site came up.

But, fear not, I shall not haunt you or taunt you (or anyone else) or make any trouble of any kind.

Peace out (again).