I was inspired by reading of Godwhacker's just found indifference this week -- as I have been by all of the stories that precede his.
I just want to say that I find some (most, in fact) of the thinking and writing about alcohol, alcoholism, anxiety, baclofen and recovery which is put up on this board to be the most thoughtful and lucid and convincing writing on the subject that I have seen anywhere. To this reader, there is no question that alcoholics who are responsive to baclofen and not confounded by side effects find incredible and indisputable relief.
I have read what AA has to say in the Big Book and elsewhere and I have read alot of what is put out by Hazelden and Betty Ford and Caron and other treatment centers. I have read what is available on the website of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. I have scoured the internet.
I come away convinced that nobody really gets it like you guys do and that much of the alcohol treatment establishment is living in an unreal, alternate universe. I read the Big Book and I can't help but feel like AA would treat cancer with the Bible. (And, like OA, I have nothing but admiration for the support AA provides to alcoholics).
It may be an overstatement, but its kind of like watching the Scopes trial in the present day. At the time nobody was quite sure whether the scientists or the believers would win out. In hindsight there can be no question.
Having said all that, its a bit saddening when some on the board take detours into unhelpful intramural arguments, like when one poster complains that naltrexone doesn't get enough attention or when there is a somewhat silly (I think) debate over whether this forum is for blogs or for information.
Friends: please don't sweat these small matters. You are amazing and you are on to something way bigger than the small stuff.
You are in the process of validating one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Right up there with penicillin and insulin and prednisone. Way bigger in its potential to save lives than Valium or Prozac.
Dr. Olivier Ameisen has made an incredible discovery. The medical establishment, the pharmaceutical companies, the governments and the rehab community are all stupidly standing by in some kind of catatonic paralysis and you guys are filling in. In this respect, thank god for the Internet. This kind of community and the kind of evidence you are developing couldn't have happened even 15 years ago.
For many patients suffering from alcoholism, baclofen is -essentially- a total cure. It leaves the patient indifferent to alcohol. It leaves patients who were gripped in the throes of a terrible, debilitating, often life-destructive, if not fatal, disease: essentially cured. It gives the alcoholic who is responsive to high dose baclofen and can tolerate it his life back. It has already recovered, if not actually saved, hundreds, if not thousands of lives. I am standing on the outside looking in. I can see this.
It is a miracle.
I agree with the constructive posts of, I think, Otter, and many others. Let's get the word out. Let's help our families and our friends and colleagues struggling with alcohol and alcoholism find this cure. Let's call up and write letters to and email our health agencies and politicians. Let's demand that the pharmaceutical companies and government health agencies do everything they can to follow up on Dr Ameisen's incredible discovery.
In 2005 the cost of alcohol dependence and abuse was estimated to cost the USA economy approximately 220 billion dollars per year, more than cancer and obesity. In the United Kingdom, the number of 'dependent drinkers' was calculated as over 2.8 million in 2001. The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million people throughout the world suffer from alcohol dependence. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people die every day from one or another of the consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.
Let's not stop until there isn't a single person in the world who could find relief with baclofen who doesn't know of its availability and who can't find a doctor to work with. Let's do everything we can to make sure that alcoholics can easily find treatment by physicians who are aware of all of the weapons that can be brought to bear in treating this terrible disease. Let's do whatever it takes to end the stigma of alcoholism as some kind of moral failing.
Let's shout it from the rooftops.
I just want to say that I find some (most, in fact) of the thinking and writing about alcohol, alcoholism, anxiety, baclofen and recovery which is put up on this board to be the most thoughtful and lucid and convincing writing on the subject that I have seen anywhere. To this reader, there is no question that alcoholics who are responsive to baclofen and not confounded by side effects find incredible and indisputable relief.
I have read what AA has to say in the Big Book and elsewhere and I have read alot of what is put out by Hazelden and Betty Ford and Caron and other treatment centers. I have read what is available on the website of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. I have scoured the internet.
I come away convinced that nobody really gets it like you guys do and that much of the alcohol treatment establishment is living in an unreal, alternate universe. I read the Big Book and I can't help but feel like AA would treat cancer with the Bible. (And, like OA, I have nothing but admiration for the support AA provides to alcoholics).
It may be an overstatement, but its kind of like watching the Scopes trial in the present day. At the time nobody was quite sure whether the scientists or the believers would win out. In hindsight there can be no question.
Having said all that, its a bit saddening when some on the board take detours into unhelpful intramural arguments, like when one poster complains that naltrexone doesn't get enough attention or when there is a somewhat silly (I think) debate over whether this forum is for blogs or for information.
Friends: please don't sweat these small matters. You are amazing and you are on to something way bigger than the small stuff.
You are in the process of validating one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Right up there with penicillin and insulin and prednisone. Way bigger in its potential to save lives than Valium or Prozac.
Dr. Olivier Ameisen has made an incredible discovery. The medical establishment, the pharmaceutical companies, the governments and the rehab community are all stupidly standing by in some kind of catatonic paralysis and you guys are filling in. In this respect, thank god for the Internet. This kind of community and the kind of evidence you are developing couldn't have happened even 15 years ago.
For many patients suffering from alcoholism, baclofen is -essentially- a total cure. It leaves the patient indifferent to alcohol. It leaves patients who were gripped in the throes of a terrible, debilitating, often life-destructive, if not fatal, disease: essentially cured. It gives the alcoholic who is responsive to high dose baclofen and can tolerate it his life back. It has already recovered, if not actually saved, hundreds, if not thousands of lives. I am standing on the outside looking in. I can see this.
It is a miracle.
I agree with the constructive posts of, I think, Otter, and many others. Let's get the word out. Let's help our families and our friends and colleagues struggling with alcohol and alcoholism find this cure. Let's call up and write letters to and email our health agencies and politicians. Let's demand that the pharmaceutical companies and government health agencies do everything they can to follow up on Dr Ameisen's incredible discovery.
In 2005 the cost of alcohol dependence and abuse was estimated to cost the USA economy approximately 220 billion dollars per year, more than cancer and obesity. In the United Kingdom, the number of 'dependent drinkers' was calculated as over 2.8 million in 2001. The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million people throughout the world suffer from alcohol dependence. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people die every day from one or another of the consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.
Let's not stop until there isn't a single person in the world who could find relief with baclofen who doesn't know of its availability and who can't find a doctor to work with. Let's do everything we can to make sure that alcoholics can easily find treatment by physicians who are aware of all of the weapons that can be brought to bear in treating this terrible disease. Let's do whatever it takes to end the stigma of alcoholism as some kind of moral failing.
Let's shout it from the rooftops.
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