Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! to everyone on the meds forum at mwo ? my friends, the regulars, lurkers and newbies, all.
This can be a tough time of year for those of us prone to drink too much but it is also a wonderful time to give thanks and to celebrate the miracle of life since there has been great progress made this year, I think, in giving life back to people cursed with the disease of alcoholism.
Here at the end of the year 2011, barely three years after the publication of Dr Olivier Ameisen?s The End of My Addiction in the United States, we are hopefully well on the way to establishing baclofen treatment as a safe and broadly effective medical cure for alcoholism. If the research and experience to date proves out, baclofen treatment is a cure which can give the miracle of renewed life to millions of alcoholics around the world.
Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done.
I came to this forum six months ago not understanding much about the consequences of regular alcohol use/abuse which affects so many people? notwithstanding the fact that regular alcohol use and abuse have colored over 40 of my 60+ years on the planet.
In the beginning I simply drank with my friends. I didn?t think much about it. Don?t we all start out that way? This Bud?s for you! I simply began to drink in college and without much foresight or analysis 30 years later I had a debilitating habit which seriously compromised my health, my job and my enjoyment of life.
Over time I grew 50 lbs overweight, I stopped exercising and I drank 6, 7 or 8 ounces of gin every night of every week of every week of the month. My heart was not particularly healthy and increasingly I withdrew from friends and associates. I looked forward to the comfort and friendship of my evening companion ? AL. As my story played out I began increasingly to make errors of judgment while inebriated. Luckily for me, nothing criminal or fatal, but errors nonetheless which would compromise my relationships with friends and family and my once excellent reputation in my field and my productivity at work. Pretty common story, huh?
With my wife?s help, four years ago I was able to see what had happened to me and I finally quit drinking --cold turkey. Then, as many of you know, I found my way here when my son collided with binge drinking and alcohol abuse in college?and all of a sudden I realized the horror of alcohol abuse and dependence. I finally realized what an enormous risk we all take when we adopt alcohol as a habit and a lifestyle?what precious little upside there is?and what terrible downside there is. When we decide to drink regularly as part of our lifestyle we are beginning to play Russian Roulette with the consequences. For 5% or 10% or 20% of us the ending will not be very happy.
I?m certainly not here to bash ?normies? or regular drinkers, but I have come to view even so-called ?normal? drinking as at best an empty promise that simply doesn?t deliver. As an abstainer today, I get far more simple and perfect joy and satisfaction in life from the regular work, sleep, diet, exercise, recreation and friendship patterns which result from abstaining than I think I did when I drank regularly or than I think I would or ever could from occasional drinking at this stage of my life. Anyway, it?s a moot point, since, like most of us; I could never drink ?occasionally?, anyway.
My first specific holiday greetings are to Drs A and L. I don?t expect either of you to be reading this board, but if you did, your ears would burn. Dr A, while I have carefully read your amazing book (several times!), I can?t imagine all of the ups and downs you have suffered in your life and I imagine that your discovery that high dose baclofen suppresses craving for alcohol in humans hasn?t solved all the issues in your (or any of our) lives. But what a difference it makes! What a difference freedom makes! Indifference gives us a chance! Thank you!
We all know alcohol addiction is an enormously pernicious and complex condition. I have debated with some on this board whether AA is a treatment or simply a support system for a voluntary effort to quit drinking. At the end of the day, it doesn?t matter which it is.
The truth is, as we see daily on these boards, that mere support usually doesn?t work to address the brain chemistry issues now known clearly to be involved in alcohol addiction.
If there is one thing of which I have become convinced over the past year, it is that alcoholism is a function of a brain chemistry imbalance which can be ameliorated not only with medications, but with exercise, diet, nutrition, support and undoubtedly in other ways as well.
This leads me to mostly reject the ?religious? aspects of AA and the 12 Steps as simply not grounded in science (although I can readily accept the benefits of group support in the overall process of extricating oneself from addiction). Like Dr A and many others I believe AA can do enormous good, but I wish it would update itself and join the 21st Century and accept the science of alcoholism and embrace medical treatment. In the coming years, I hope to see an AA which joins hands with the medical profession and the use of medications in treating alcoholism.
I think Dr A?s signal achievement was in recognizing that his alcoholism was the result of a brain chemistry imbalance and that if he could find the right chemistry and the right balance, his alcoholism could be cured. And in his self-experimentation with baclofen he did just that. What an incredible accomplishment! We are enormously grateful. Again, thank you very much! (And if by some chance you read these words, please do keep us informed as new developments occur.)
For those of us in the US, Dr A?s discovery would be far less helpful if one doctor had not stood up and recognized Dr A?s achievement. I have no special knowledge of such things but I have never heard of another doctor like Dr L who has simply made himself available by telephone to patients from across the country seeking treatment on an experimental basis, and devoted himself to their treatment for virtually no compensation. He is the Mother Theresa of alcoholism! What a wonderful man! These boards resonate with similar reactions and compliments. It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that Dr L is saving lives as I write. Thank you Dr L.
I wish I could say the same about the rest of the alcohol/addiction/treatment community. At least here in our neck of the woods (suburban NYC) there is seemingly no coordinated medical treatment of alcoholism. There is seemingly no coordination between GPs and psychologists and alcohol counselors and psychiatrists. As I have reported, when I asked two GP?s who my family has seen for a referral to a medical specialist in alcoholism to treat my son, they had no strong recommendations. When I asked my very experienced and distinguished psychiatrist whether he had heard of baclofen as a treatment for alcoholism he said, ?No?, and he wouldn?t consider it, he said, ?because baclofen is a dangerous and addictive narcotic?. This, of course, is simply not true and it has seriously diminished my confidence in and respect for this doctor who I had previously admired. I gave him a copy of Dr A?s book, but I don?t know whether he has bothered to read it. It would cost me $500 to make an appointment with him to find out?
Nevertheless, slowly but surely, there is progress being made. As many of you know, an excellent comprehensive summary of baclofen research was recently published entitled Effectiveness and Safety of Baclofen in the Treatment of Alcohol Dependent Patients in the journal CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets.
The article was jointly authored by Lorenzo Leggio of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University; James C. Garbutt of the Department of Psychiatry and Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Giovanni Addolorato of the Institute of Internal Medicine of the Catholic University of Rome. Mssrs Leggio, Garbutt and Addolorato are three preeminent researchers who have published extensively over the past ten years on the efficacy of baclofen in treating alcoholism.
The article states without qualification that baclofen:
? represents a promising new pharmacotherapy for the treatment of alcohol dependence,
? reduces withdrawal symptoms as well as reduces alcohol drinking and craving, thus promoting alcohol abstinence,
? has no serious or severe side-effects and is safe, and
? is manageable, without any potential of abuse by alcoholics or other addicted persons.
To my knowledge, while other compounds, including disulfiram, acamprosate and naltrexone, have been approved by the FDA for treatment of alcoholism (and baclofen has not yet), there is no other medical treatment for alcoholism which appears to be so safe and effective.
The report goes on to recommend that additional studies involving larger number of patients should be conducted to
? confirm the findings to date,
? identify the subpopulations of alcoholics most likely to respond to baclofen treatment
? test higher doses of baclofen,
? test baclofen in combination with other medications, and
? elucidate the biobehavioral mechanisms of baclofen.
These are all sensible suggestions, since we are still in the very early stages of understanding how and why baclofen works. What is pretty certain at this point, though, is that baclofen does work.
Also in June of this year the British National Health Service published a report titled Baclofen at a Tailored Dose Reduces Alcohol Use, Craving and Adverse Consequences of Drinking in Alcoholics with Medical Disease due to Alcohol Dependence. Thanks to our own Otter for calling this report to our attention and Christmas greetings to you!
The British report concluded that tailored baclofen treatment in alcohol dependent patients reduces self reported alcohol consumption and results in significant improvement in craving and negative consequences of drinking. It went on to say that there may also be improvements in depression and anxiety but quality of life appears unaffected. The overall satisfaction with tailored baclofen treatment is high. The report concludes that Baclofen is a promising treatment option for alcohol dependency which needs further study.
At this holiday time of year, I don?t know what better present we could ask for from the research community than these positive summaries of the proof of efficacy and safety of baclofen to date, except to ask: Please get on with it!
Please do and complete the double blind clinical studies which medical protocol needs to fully endorse baclofen therapy. Do them now. There are thousands of lives to be saved and millions of dollars to be saved by bringing safe and effective medical treatment of alcoholism into the mainstream.
I would again call out governmental health agencies around the world (including in particular, the US National Institute On Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health), the pharmaceutical industry, the rehabilitation community (perhaps through the leading rehab centers like Betty Ford, Hazelden and Caron and perhaps through the industry trade association, the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers ) and the medical community (including the American Society of Addiction Medicine) to acknowledge publicly the positive research results obtained to date and to use their budgets and their credibility in the field to push for the conclusive tests that are necessary to bring baclofen treatment into the mainstream.
While we wait for the governments, the treatment facilities, the medical profession and the pharmaceutical companies to bring baclofen therapy into the mainstream, it seems that no one (at least in the English-speaking world) is doing more to publicize the safety and efficacy of baclofen and to support alcoholics undergoing this treatment than the members of this board. So, to the members of the meds section of My Way Out, here is a Christmas greeting and shout out to you!
Perhaps most important are the success stories reported on this board. The dozens of success stories where baclofen has been able to break the back of alcohol dependence. Ne/Neva Eva has started a thread which compiles them and they are an awesome, inspiring read, as are all of the stories on the meds forum.
Also important is the indispensable advice given freely by members here to those looking for information or just starting out on bac or another medication. It is shocking that research and experience have established that a treatment is safe and effective and yet in most parts of the world, doctors aren?t aware of it and won?t prescribe it.
The regular members of this board provide crucial support, advice and assistance to new members many of whom are able to kick alcohol with this help. I am thinking of Ne, bleep, lo0p, terryk, tiptronic, bruun, pete, rudy, isolde, red, dose, LL, space, grommet and many others who were here before I got here. I sure don?t mean to leave any one of this special community out.
And lastly, a very special part of being a part of this board is the great humor and zest for life that pervades the forum. Special thanks and holiday greetings to Murph and his various alter egos. Whatever it does to us, its pretty clear that drinking too much (or having had too much to drink over the years) doesn?t mean you can?t laugh or make another person laugh.
So here?s to the wonderful progress of 2011 and to an even better 2012 where even more people cursed with this disease find relief and a meaningful new life without alcohol.
Cassander
December 25, 2011
This can be a tough time of year for those of us prone to drink too much but it is also a wonderful time to give thanks and to celebrate the miracle of life since there has been great progress made this year, I think, in giving life back to people cursed with the disease of alcoholism.
Here at the end of the year 2011, barely three years after the publication of Dr Olivier Ameisen?s The End of My Addiction in the United States, we are hopefully well on the way to establishing baclofen treatment as a safe and broadly effective medical cure for alcoholism. If the research and experience to date proves out, baclofen treatment is a cure which can give the miracle of renewed life to millions of alcoholics around the world.
Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done.
I came to this forum six months ago not understanding much about the consequences of regular alcohol use/abuse which affects so many people? notwithstanding the fact that regular alcohol use and abuse have colored over 40 of my 60+ years on the planet.
In the beginning I simply drank with my friends. I didn?t think much about it. Don?t we all start out that way? This Bud?s for you! I simply began to drink in college and without much foresight or analysis 30 years later I had a debilitating habit which seriously compromised my health, my job and my enjoyment of life.
Over time I grew 50 lbs overweight, I stopped exercising and I drank 6, 7 or 8 ounces of gin every night of every week of every week of the month. My heart was not particularly healthy and increasingly I withdrew from friends and associates. I looked forward to the comfort and friendship of my evening companion ? AL. As my story played out I began increasingly to make errors of judgment while inebriated. Luckily for me, nothing criminal or fatal, but errors nonetheless which would compromise my relationships with friends and family and my once excellent reputation in my field and my productivity at work. Pretty common story, huh?
With my wife?s help, four years ago I was able to see what had happened to me and I finally quit drinking --cold turkey. Then, as many of you know, I found my way here when my son collided with binge drinking and alcohol abuse in college?and all of a sudden I realized the horror of alcohol abuse and dependence. I finally realized what an enormous risk we all take when we adopt alcohol as a habit and a lifestyle?what precious little upside there is?and what terrible downside there is. When we decide to drink regularly as part of our lifestyle we are beginning to play Russian Roulette with the consequences. For 5% or 10% or 20% of us the ending will not be very happy.
I?m certainly not here to bash ?normies? or regular drinkers, but I have come to view even so-called ?normal? drinking as at best an empty promise that simply doesn?t deliver. As an abstainer today, I get far more simple and perfect joy and satisfaction in life from the regular work, sleep, diet, exercise, recreation and friendship patterns which result from abstaining than I think I did when I drank regularly or than I think I would or ever could from occasional drinking at this stage of my life. Anyway, it?s a moot point, since, like most of us; I could never drink ?occasionally?, anyway.
My first specific holiday greetings are to Drs A and L. I don?t expect either of you to be reading this board, but if you did, your ears would burn. Dr A, while I have carefully read your amazing book (several times!), I can?t imagine all of the ups and downs you have suffered in your life and I imagine that your discovery that high dose baclofen suppresses craving for alcohol in humans hasn?t solved all the issues in your (or any of our) lives. But what a difference it makes! What a difference freedom makes! Indifference gives us a chance! Thank you!
We all know alcohol addiction is an enormously pernicious and complex condition. I have debated with some on this board whether AA is a treatment or simply a support system for a voluntary effort to quit drinking. At the end of the day, it doesn?t matter which it is.
The truth is, as we see daily on these boards, that mere support usually doesn?t work to address the brain chemistry issues now known clearly to be involved in alcohol addiction.
If there is one thing of which I have become convinced over the past year, it is that alcoholism is a function of a brain chemistry imbalance which can be ameliorated not only with medications, but with exercise, diet, nutrition, support and undoubtedly in other ways as well.
This leads me to mostly reject the ?religious? aspects of AA and the 12 Steps as simply not grounded in science (although I can readily accept the benefits of group support in the overall process of extricating oneself from addiction). Like Dr A and many others I believe AA can do enormous good, but I wish it would update itself and join the 21st Century and accept the science of alcoholism and embrace medical treatment. In the coming years, I hope to see an AA which joins hands with the medical profession and the use of medications in treating alcoholism.
I think Dr A?s signal achievement was in recognizing that his alcoholism was the result of a brain chemistry imbalance and that if he could find the right chemistry and the right balance, his alcoholism could be cured. And in his self-experimentation with baclofen he did just that. What an incredible accomplishment! We are enormously grateful. Again, thank you very much! (And if by some chance you read these words, please do keep us informed as new developments occur.)
For those of us in the US, Dr A?s discovery would be far less helpful if one doctor had not stood up and recognized Dr A?s achievement. I have no special knowledge of such things but I have never heard of another doctor like Dr L who has simply made himself available by telephone to patients from across the country seeking treatment on an experimental basis, and devoted himself to their treatment for virtually no compensation. He is the Mother Theresa of alcoholism! What a wonderful man! These boards resonate with similar reactions and compliments. It is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that Dr L is saving lives as I write. Thank you Dr L.
I wish I could say the same about the rest of the alcohol/addiction/treatment community. At least here in our neck of the woods (suburban NYC) there is seemingly no coordinated medical treatment of alcoholism. There is seemingly no coordination between GPs and psychologists and alcohol counselors and psychiatrists. As I have reported, when I asked two GP?s who my family has seen for a referral to a medical specialist in alcoholism to treat my son, they had no strong recommendations. When I asked my very experienced and distinguished psychiatrist whether he had heard of baclofen as a treatment for alcoholism he said, ?No?, and he wouldn?t consider it, he said, ?because baclofen is a dangerous and addictive narcotic?. This, of course, is simply not true and it has seriously diminished my confidence in and respect for this doctor who I had previously admired. I gave him a copy of Dr A?s book, but I don?t know whether he has bothered to read it. It would cost me $500 to make an appointment with him to find out?
Nevertheless, slowly but surely, there is progress being made. As many of you know, an excellent comprehensive summary of baclofen research was recently published entitled Effectiveness and Safety of Baclofen in the Treatment of Alcohol Dependent Patients in the journal CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets.
The article was jointly authored by Lorenzo Leggio of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University; James C. Garbutt of the Department of Psychiatry and Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Giovanni Addolorato of the Institute of Internal Medicine of the Catholic University of Rome. Mssrs Leggio, Garbutt and Addolorato are three preeminent researchers who have published extensively over the past ten years on the efficacy of baclofen in treating alcoholism.
The article states without qualification that baclofen:
? represents a promising new pharmacotherapy for the treatment of alcohol dependence,
? reduces withdrawal symptoms as well as reduces alcohol drinking and craving, thus promoting alcohol abstinence,
? has no serious or severe side-effects and is safe, and
? is manageable, without any potential of abuse by alcoholics or other addicted persons.
To my knowledge, while other compounds, including disulfiram, acamprosate and naltrexone, have been approved by the FDA for treatment of alcoholism (and baclofen has not yet), there is no other medical treatment for alcoholism which appears to be so safe and effective.
The report goes on to recommend that additional studies involving larger number of patients should be conducted to
? confirm the findings to date,
? identify the subpopulations of alcoholics most likely to respond to baclofen treatment
? test higher doses of baclofen,
? test baclofen in combination with other medications, and
? elucidate the biobehavioral mechanisms of baclofen.
These are all sensible suggestions, since we are still in the very early stages of understanding how and why baclofen works. What is pretty certain at this point, though, is that baclofen does work.
Also in June of this year the British National Health Service published a report titled Baclofen at a Tailored Dose Reduces Alcohol Use, Craving and Adverse Consequences of Drinking in Alcoholics with Medical Disease due to Alcohol Dependence. Thanks to our own Otter for calling this report to our attention and Christmas greetings to you!
The British report concluded that tailored baclofen treatment in alcohol dependent patients reduces self reported alcohol consumption and results in significant improvement in craving and negative consequences of drinking. It went on to say that there may also be improvements in depression and anxiety but quality of life appears unaffected. The overall satisfaction with tailored baclofen treatment is high. The report concludes that Baclofen is a promising treatment option for alcohol dependency which needs further study.
At this holiday time of year, I don?t know what better present we could ask for from the research community than these positive summaries of the proof of efficacy and safety of baclofen to date, except to ask: Please get on with it!
Please do and complete the double blind clinical studies which medical protocol needs to fully endorse baclofen therapy. Do them now. There are thousands of lives to be saved and millions of dollars to be saved by bringing safe and effective medical treatment of alcoholism into the mainstream.
I would again call out governmental health agencies around the world (including in particular, the US National Institute On Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health), the pharmaceutical industry, the rehabilitation community (perhaps through the leading rehab centers like Betty Ford, Hazelden and Caron and perhaps through the industry trade association, the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers ) and the medical community (including the American Society of Addiction Medicine) to acknowledge publicly the positive research results obtained to date and to use their budgets and their credibility in the field to push for the conclusive tests that are necessary to bring baclofen treatment into the mainstream.
While we wait for the governments, the treatment facilities, the medical profession and the pharmaceutical companies to bring baclofen therapy into the mainstream, it seems that no one (at least in the English-speaking world) is doing more to publicize the safety and efficacy of baclofen and to support alcoholics undergoing this treatment than the members of this board. So, to the members of the meds section of My Way Out, here is a Christmas greeting and shout out to you!
Perhaps most important are the success stories reported on this board. The dozens of success stories where baclofen has been able to break the back of alcohol dependence. Ne/Neva Eva has started a thread which compiles them and they are an awesome, inspiring read, as are all of the stories on the meds forum.
Also important is the indispensable advice given freely by members here to those looking for information or just starting out on bac or another medication. It is shocking that research and experience have established that a treatment is safe and effective and yet in most parts of the world, doctors aren?t aware of it and won?t prescribe it.
The regular members of this board provide crucial support, advice and assistance to new members many of whom are able to kick alcohol with this help. I am thinking of Ne, bleep, lo0p, terryk, tiptronic, bruun, pete, rudy, isolde, red, dose, LL, space, grommet and many others who were here before I got here. I sure don?t mean to leave any one of this special community out.
And lastly, a very special part of being a part of this board is the great humor and zest for life that pervades the forum. Special thanks and holiday greetings to Murph and his various alter egos. Whatever it does to us, its pretty clear that drinking too much (or having had too much to drink over the years) doesn?t mean you can?t laugh or make another person laugh.
So here?s to the wonderful progress of 2011 and to an even better 2012 where even more people cursed with this disease find relief and a meaningful new life without alcohol.
Cassander
December 25, 2011
In all the seriousness of our disease.......It's ok to take time to have a laugh. Ha! "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"........Tony
Comment