Naltrexone and Meech's experiences

[Meech]

I am about to start Naltrexone tomorrow and have been reading up a lot on this medication. Has anyone heard of or tried the Sinclair Method approach when taking Nal?

They claim 90% success rate when taking it a certain way (Sinclair Method) instead of taking it daily when you are abstaining. Over the past 15 years I binge drink typically once or twice a week, sometimes more sometimes less.

Since January when I joined MWO I have been much more successful will building up more AF days (18, 42, some 7 dayers) but still haven't beaten the AL Beast.

I am thinking of trying the Sinclair Method. On the days when I know I might cave in, i'll take it an hour before. I know many drink everyday so you would be taking Nal everyday. just wondering about the weekend bingers or once a week bingers out there. I don't drink everyday....rather stock pile all those daily drinks into one disgusting binge. Yuck.

Interesting on the other thread some have said they think Nal might be more effective for beer drinkers and bingers. Well I am only a beer drinker and I only binge so I shall let you know!. Next post below will be the article on the Sinclair Method.

[Meech]

Naltrexone and Meech's experiences

Article on the Sinclair Method to taking Nal

What is The Sinclair Method?

According to the Sinclair Method patients should only take naltrexone when they intend to drink alcohol and should never take naltrexone when they intend to abstain from alcohol. This is in sharp contrast with the FDA's recommendation that naltrexone should only be given to patients who promise to abstain from alcohol and that it should be administered daily. Moreover, when naltrexone is taken according to the recommendations of the FDA it is only slightly more effective than a placebo--a sharp contrast with the 90% success rate of The Sinclair Method of using naltrexone. In addition, some research suggests that the only patients who benefit by taking naltrexone as prescribed by FDA guidelines are those who cheat and drink on the naltrexone, and that those who abstain while taking the naltrexone not only have greater alcohol cravings than those who get a placebo--but are also more likely to relapse into severe drinking problems in the long term.

The Sinclair method says to take 50 mg of naltrexone one hour before drinking every time that you drink for the rest of your life. Naltrexone taken according to The Sinclair method is safe even for drinkers who are heavily physically dependent on alcohol since the naltrexone causes them to gradually drink less and less per day and thus taper off of the alcohol with no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever.

How does The Sinclair Method work?

According to David Sinclair, alcohol addiction is a conditioned response. People become conditioned to drink alcohol because of alcohol's actions in the brain in much the same way that Pavlov's dogs became conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. This is because every time that one drinks alcohol, endorphins are released in the brain. Endorphins are chemicals which are responsible for learning new conditioned responses. Normally this is a good thing because the conditioned responses which we learn help us to survive. However, in the case of alcohol addiction, the conditioned response leads people to perpetuate a bad habit. The endorphins which are released into the brain when people drink alcohol reinforce the drinking behavior, and this can lead to addiction to alcohol.

Naltrexone totally blocks the effects of endorphins in the brain. If you take naltrexone before drinking alcohol then the drinking behavior will not be reinforced. When a behavior is not reinforced it eventually disappears. Psychologists refer to this process as "extinction". Since naltrexone is a pharmaceutical, using naltrexone to extinguish drinking behavior is referred to as "pharmacological extinction". Pharmacological extinction of problem drinking by using naltrexone is The Sinclair Method.

When we understand that problem drinking is a conditioned response and that this conditioned response can be extinguished by using naltrexone according to The Sinclair Method, it becomes very obvious why the FDA's method of using naltrexone is not effective. If a person takes naltrexone every day then the naltrexone will tend to extinguish every pleasurable behavior which results in the release of endorphins, not just drinking behavior. This includes everything pleasurable from reading to jogging to sex. Moreover, if one abstains while taking the naltrexone, then drinking will be the only behavior which is NOT extinguished by the naltrexone.