New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

[me1455]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

hey guys, i read that article and agree that obviousally aa has itsdownfalls but it really can be a support goup with wawys to deal with your feelings etc. i know it wil help me because im always worrying about my past and how i acted with people and they have some good advice in aa. my goal is to be able to moderate.. and right now i cannot think much of anythin as ive drinking bad recently. i just got my baclofen today. YES. i am at such a horrible place because i just lost my ( not alcohol related) job and i kind of predicted it would happen as my saturdays and sundays tended to be-drinking earlier in the day. so now since i have no job, everyday is saturday and sunday. very very bad. so i am really friggin scared, depressed. just a mess. my bf rolls his eyes when i tell him this med has a strong chance of working! i am so hoping the baflocen will start to do its thing! i just took 5mg. and i will take that two more times today. just curious, how many hrs are you supposed to spread it out again? like morning, afternoon, night?im sure its written somewhee in these forums, sorry..

oh and as far as the disease goes with alcoholism, im not exactly sure what constitues as a disease, but i know this. when i started socially drinking around 19, i would have 3 beers and leave it at that. little by little it go worse and worse. something like this

of course i dont know exactly the ages, but something like this was how my alcoholism progressed:
19 yrs-3 beers out ith friends
21 yrs-5 beers out with friends-didnt like having to stop but did because i would try to be healthy
23 yrs-more than five beers, started losing control when i told myself i only wanted to have a certain amoujnut
24 yrsblacking out every few onths
25 yrs -blacking out every weekend and loss of control once started. didnt drink at home or alone, only on average 2 per week
26 yrs-drinking more times per week at home once i had a bf who got me into drinking at home when i lived with him.
27 yrs-started with wine every night
28 yrs -lately started drinking earlier duding the day daily. mostly on weekends when off.

is this what is a disease? not sure, but id say so right? its a progressive thing that got worse and worse as thje years went by. and as far as genetics, im 100 percent convinced that is genetic. its all on my dads side and they all have it. my cousins, my aunts and uncles... in different stages obviousally. but thers no questin its genetic. obviousally life factors have to do with it as well as to whether or not you'd start to drink in the first place often.

[louise]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

billyb;658707 wrote: Here's my understanding of Clancy Martin's article:

I think his larger, more implicit point (and I hope I'm not reading too much into the article), is that all theories of alcoholism rely to some degree on self-deception. That people cling to this or that theory of alcoholism and this or that method of recovery because of their own psychological drives and unwillingness to be honest with themselves - even if, and this is crucial, they are being dishonest with themselves to a certain extent precisely by being thoroughly honest. That all "methods" are in some sense a kind of self-deception, however, doesn't mean that they are ineffective - as we well know!

Thanks for the nice analysis and summary billyb. I understood all of it except the the above and have been thinking a lot about it. How are we dishonest by being honest? I was never an firm believer in the disease theory, and figured even if it is a disease we have the responsibility to handle it, just as a diabetic does (can't continue eating old way, etc.) But I think baclofen is starting to make me a believer in disease theory.

I reread your analysis, substituting depression for alcoholism. For many years, this also was treated as a failing of will. If I exercised more and kept my negative thoughts under control, I wouldn't be depressed (I was told by at least one dr.). And there is some truth to it. Those do help a lot. But in the midst of a bad depression, it is extremely difficult to do. So medication helps. So maybe neither is really a disease, like cancer, but something that due to a lack of appropriate neurotransmitters in the brain, predisposes one and the right circumstances set a downward spiral into motion. But we never talk about depressed people not being honest or being self-deceptive. And how is having a lack of certain brain chemicals different than not enough insulin? I think everyone considers diabetes a disease, but poor eating certainly makes it worse, or may even cause it.

One of the things that has me thinking so much about this is that baclofen seems to be helping me eat right. No cravings for crackers and cheese at 10 at night. No overstuffing myself. Here is a brief summary of the struggles of my life: depression in late teens leads to bulimia. Crawl out of that hole and develop social anxiety and get addicted to cigarettes.
Get less socially anxious but mild depression comes back. Self medicate with at least 10 cups of coffee a day. Finally give up cigarettes and reduce caffine and become addicted to alcohol and start overeating again (but not bulimic). Have major depressive episode, followed by severe anxiety attacks for a year. Get out of that by moving to a better climate, getting a new job in a more supportive environment, and taking medication. Drink less, but still too much.

That bacoflen is positively helping me control both eating and drinking, without switching back to cigarettes or massive amounts of coffee, makes me believe that if I had had enough of whatever baclofen provides in my brain, I would not have just kept leaping from one self-calming/stimulating behavior to another. And I guess I'm now more convinced that it is just a much of a disease as type II diabetes and depression.
Which of course does not absolve us of responsibility to do all we can to control all those things (eat right, exercise, think correctly). But for me it takes away any moral failing of self deception or lack of honesty.

And it is great that you got in touch with the author!

P.S. Yes Zen, I think maybe it will make it easier for you to quit smoking. Hope so anyway!

[billyb]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

Louise, those are some really great points!

I'm beginning to rethink that notion about honesty and self-deception. It seemed to me at one point he was saying that AA's emphasis on honesty led to a kind of self-deception, but I think it is more that it leads to serious doubts about one's fundamental ability to be honest - that, by doing what AA says and admitting your faults to others, you might also be projecting a kind of image of yourself that easily lends itself to a kind of falsity. Or, that there is at least always that inherent risk. This is the passage I'm thinking of:

"I find it depressing, and telling, that the meetings begin with this little meditation on failure and self-deception. When I first heard these lines, I thought: what if I am lying to myself about the fact that I am capable of being honest with myself? After all, isn’t that precisely how it feels, that at the very moment you think you are being honest with yourself you discover a new layer of your own fraudulence? The problem gets worse still when you have to be honest with others, and particularly when you have to be honest with others about yourself, the source of the problem of dishonesty in the first place."

But, this is also his impression when he "first heard these lines," and later on he realizes that "there is something about the hard work of AA that has the pain of truthfulness about it." So, I guess the point is more that AA fosters a kind of self-honesty, even though there is always the problem that you can never be certain the work of being honest is done - that you are never quite sure whether you are, in fact, being completely honest. I guess that's where the continual, process-oriented "hard work" comes in.

So I think you're right, and this kind of uncertainty about whether one is really being honest is not quite the same as self-deception. I don't know, it's some complex stuff, and I'm certainly no philosopher of self-deception....

One of the points, however, and something that you really highlighted in your post, is that really committing yourself to one or another theory of addiction can often be counter-productive. That fully embracing either the moral failing theory or the disease theory can lead to unhealthy relationships with your addiction, and that the more pragmatic approach of "whatever works," which seems to often be a combination of both approaches, can be more successful in the long run.

Your experiences with depression are similar to some of my own. I needed medication to pull myself out of it eventually, but once I was able to get myself in a different place with the meds, I was eventually able to leave them behind. So again it is a hard thing to subscribe to one or the other theory, when it seems to be a much more complex situation. It's tempting to embrace an easy theory that seems to provide all the answers, but such emotional attachment to an idea can sometimes be an impediment to the "hard work" of getting better.

[Evie.Lou]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

I can't find it in my heart to be overly critical of AA because after all in many cases that that is about the only group meeting in many peoples areas that offers any kind of support and countless people are sober today because of their existence.
Having said that........I found another recovery group that was much more to my way of thinking.
It is called "Woman for Sobriety" ...there is now a "Men for Sobriety" as well.

The first time I got sober (lasted 17 yrs.) that's where I went.
They open their meetings with the statement
I have a DISEASE.......that ONCE had ME !!!....how can you not love that ???
Goggle them... Jean Fitzpatrick is the founder and I LOVE her dearly !!!

[beatle]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

Zenstyle;661159 wrote: One simple way of looking at it... If you take Baclofen and it resolves the issues you have with alcohol (i.e. taking medication alleviates the symptoms) then it's a disease! LOL...

Zen, that's really true-- it's a model many forward-looking, open-minded doctors are starting to embrace... that is, striving to cure the symptoms rather than relying on preconceptions of how to treat a sickness nobody really understands. Of course, this only applies to diseases/sicknesses for which the causes are still not very well understood.

[beatle]

New article on Baclofen in the London Review of Books

p.s. The logical conclusion being, it doesn't really matter if doctors/scientists understand exactly how/why Baclofen works -- it works, so use it to treat those who need it. (Act now, ask questions later! lol)