xcaret

Does anyone take Antabuse ? I just googled it to see if its still around .Its a drug you take and you get sick if you try to drink any alchol.. Being an outsider ( valium adict) it sounds like a perfect cure .. remember I said I'm a valium adict not a drinker..

Dee74

I've never taken it...but I have seen people here, many in fact, who've drunk on it, or simply not taken it and drank.

I'm sure you'll hear from them.

It's by no means a cure, as far as I can see?

D

paul99

My parents tried to stop me from biting my nails as a kid by putting a foul tasting polish on my fingernails. It was pretty nasty. But I really wanted to bit my nails - it was an anxiety thing I guess. So I just went at it, putting aside the flavour of the varnish with some Coke and eventually I got used to it.

I haven't taken it, but I can almost guarantee I would have plowed through the antabuse with the same ease and determination as best I could to get what I wanted and needed. But in the end it's like the nail varnish - a very surface way to treat something that has it's roots in something much deeper and complex.

Antabuse isn't a cure pill. If it were, the guy who invented it would be richer than God.

TSDD

I got pretty damn sick when I drank without any of that.

xcaret

Yeah I guess where theres a will theres a way . A friend stoped drinking after taking it back in the 70's, he started shaking and everything turned black and white . He evenually drank him self to death so I guess if it worked it wasnt for long..

Elisabeth888

I was on it and just stopped taking it so I could drink. In my humble opinion, there is no "cure". You have to want to stop drinking more than you want to drink.

Plus, there are life threatening consequences if you drink on it.

2granddaughters

Your friend didn't STOP drinking, he just "paused" drinking then likely played catch-up when he picked up again. That's what I used to do before AA.

All the best.

Bob R

RockerChick

I was looking to see if anyone else was on it. I'm on it now and I hate to be sick so it has really compelled me not to drink. I was having some cravings last night, but the antabuse made me not go through with it. My family will not trust me again if they see me sick. Plus it takes five days to get out of your system and by then the craving is gone and I see more clearly. It has really helped me but I'm in new recovery. one and a half months sober. I was so pathetic last night I actually drank an energy drink in a wine glass just to "feel" the glass. I'm hanging in there though.

newman23

Be careful with that way of thinking.

I wanted to try that. The outpatient program I was in recently actually wouldn't prescribe it to me and saw it as a "last resort option". They recommended other roots with trying Campral and Naltrexone(in addition to lots of AA meetings and working a program which I didn't do). Those pills didn't 'work'(from experience I know this is faulty thinking) for me and I usually stopped taking them. I then found out about Vivitrol, an injectable form of Naltrxone that stays in your system for 30 days and blocks the euphoria from drinking and opiates. I remember thinking about how that would be my "magic cure" and once I was on it, all my problems would be solved. Nope....I still drank. In fact, even more so to try to get some effect. I often thought of taking antabuse as another "cure" but looking back at my history with with these things, I know how it would turn out.

They are definitely 'helping agents', but a lot more has to be done in addition to taking any meds for addiction...especially to treat the psychological aspect of it.

sugarbear1

The efficacy for all three pills, including placebos is really close to nil.....

Which means to me that if a placebo is as effective as a pill which has little to no effect then it's in the brain---thinking something will help and staying away from drinking....

Grab some sweet-tarts and pretend they will help you to stay stopped and they will, as long as you believe those things work and you don't imbibe....

choublak

I wouldn't call it that.

tomb

I have drank while taking it. Came close to having a heart attack.

Dakota05

I found some info. on the drug Antabuse, and have posted the link
Antabuse Information from Drugs.com
Sounds like you have to be careful when taking it.

Fernaceman

The thing with antabuse is you can just NOT take it if you want to drink...

nycguy83

That's not true, search disulfiram (antabuse) on pubmed (the NIH medical research clearinghouse) and you will find numerous recent studies supporting disulfiram as far more effective than placebo, as long as patient continues to take the medication.

If you stop taking it in order to drink, you can't really blame the med... but in my case, my relapses have been sudden in the moment and quickly regretted... if I'd taken antabuse those mornings, I wouldn't have drank.

I start it tomorrow, a low dose. I have 8 months sober now, planning on staying on the antabuse for at least another year or 2.

redneckrecovery

As a drunk I would see taking antibuse and drinking as a challenge.

Im pretty horrible that way. But at least today im sober.

Fernaceman

Definitely not a cure and generally more of a hassle than simple complete abstinence...not worth it in my opinion. If I wanted to drink if simply not take it.

Taking5

In the midst of my worst drinking, here is how I would handle Ant-abuse (disulfiram): Not take it so I could drink. Here is how I would handle Campral or any drug designed to take the "high" away from drinking: I'd drink more, I'd show them I could enjoy my whiskey even though I took their drug.

Not a good solution for this alcoholic. AA and changing my way of thinking was far more important. AA is not the only way, but I do not know of a single recovered alcoholic that has not gone through a severe change in their thinking. JMHO.

Good luck and keep us posted.

nycguy83

You can't just stop taking antabuse and drink.

You would have to wait at least a few days to be able to drink without getting sick, and usually the urge will have passed by then.

Antabuse won't work for someone who is willing to wait through 3 days of not taking the medication in order to drink without getting sick. It works best for people with a strong motivation to stay sober, but who have had relapses in the past.

And as for the danger of drinking on antabuse and getting sick, for most of us that pales in comparison to the danger of an unmitigated relapse. For me the antabuse helps- if I take it every morning, it removes any possible incentive to drink for at least 2 or 3 days, by which point the urge is long long gone.

I do find that some traditional 12-steppers and 12-step based counselors are suspicious or hostile to medications aimed to help people stop drinking.

But Dr. Bob was a physician certainly open to medicine, and Bill was a proponent of science, he strongly advocated vitamins to help with sobriety.

Neither of the founders would have wanted potentially life-saving new medicines to be ignored in the name of keeping recovery exactly the same as it was 80 years ago.