Craving2
"There will be a Prozac moment, when primary-care doctors start handling functional alcoholics,"
Walter Kent, a former alcoholic who had been in the trial, told the CNN cameras how naltrexone had removed his craving for alcohol. He had tried rehab and AA before. They made sense but did not reduced his craving. He got progressive worse – until he started naltrexone. Naltrexone removes the urge to drink.
http://www.youtube.com/
Imagine what it is like to go through life with every waking moment dominated by thoughts of alcohol. And then finally to be freed from the continual harassment. Yes, Walter Kent, is a "former alcoholic". The underlying cause for his alcoholism has been removed. “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” is no longer true. Naltrexone now gives doctors...
THE CURE FOR ALCOHOLISM - TheCureForAlcoholism.com
Our new book, The Cure for Alcoholism, gives primary-care doctors the information they need to understand how naltrexone works and the guidance needed for prescribing it properly.
This is important because the use of naltrexone is not quite as simple as the CNN report would suggest. Naltrexone has to be used in a specific manner. The evidence shows conclusively that naltrexone is effective only when used in a way that allows the mechanism of extinction to function. Otherwise, naltrexone is not a cure and, in fact, tends to be worse than placebo (see the two graphs below).
The use of naltrexone may indeed take off in the near future, as Prozac did two decades ago. We hope this book will help maximize the benefits for patients.
The reported craving for alcohol by the first 210 alcoholics given naltrexone in Finland. Without prior detoxification, the patients were instructed always to take naltrexone before drinking. The progressive decrease in craving was highly significant, with the theoretical extinction curve explained 98.9% of the variation in the results. From Roy Eskapa, The Cure for Alcoholism, 2008.
