[The following was posted by Dr. Eskapa in another area of the forum. We thought it would be a good start for this area of the forum]

A reader's spouse sent me a distressed email: she was worried that her husband who had tried abstinence based treatment without success had begun to drink again. She was not aware that drinking together with naltrexone is an entirely different proposition from drinking without the medication or taking the medication together with abstinence. In other words she was unfamiliar with the data confirming the formula that Naltrexone + Drinking (over 4 months) = Cure and that Naltrexone + No Drinking Allowed = Failure. I tried to explain what the craving it is like for those addicted to alcohol and how the Sinclair Method heralds new hope for so many of those battling the bottle:

" It is very difficult - close to impossible - for non-addicts to appreciate
the overpowering craving experienced by those addicted to alcohol and drugs. To put
this in perspective, imagine you were deprived of water for 24 hours and
were in the desert. The thirst and craving for water would become stronger.
After 48 hours it would be unbearable. Now imagine if someone were to place
a bottle of water in front of you. Virtually impossible to resist drinking
it.

Alcoholism is at base a learned biological addiction caused by genetic
predisposition and many drinking sessions over months and years. Once the
addiction is installed into the brain and nervous system it becomes permanent and
reflexive; it is not conscious and the craving (drive) to quench the thirst is
overwhelming. Dr David Sinclair of the National Public Health Institute in
Helsinki, Finland discovered the Alcohol Deprivation Effect about forty
years ago. This means that the more an alcoholic is deprived of alcohol the
more he craves it. When they finally succumb to the craving it is usually
accompanied by drinking in a dangerous binge-like manner - this is when
accidents and fatalities are likely to occur. An alcoholic may consciously
not want to drink but the wiring or mechanism (known as the
opiodergic system in the brain) driving the addiction takes over and he
relapses. This happens to
about 85 % of all alcoholics who attempt to abstain. Their intentions are
good and at first the conscious will to abstain may keep them dry. However
as time moves on the craving increases and the flood-gates open for the
majority: they slip off the wagon. This can also be likened to dieting: if
one loves peanut butter and honey sandwiches and is on a diet it may be easy
to avoid slipping on the first of even fifth occasion the image pops into
one's mind. However, on the twenty-fifth time the image of that sandwich (or
ice-cream or chocolate) pops into the mind many of us collapse and slip off
the diet.

Up until now medical science has had little to offer alcoholics save for
techniques that attempt to encourage abstinence through conscious will - or surrender or surrender to a Higher Power.
However, The Sinclair Method offers the first scientific way to reverse the
biology of addiction. But this requires blocking reinforcement (similar to
reward) in the brain. Each time we drink alcohol there is a release of
reinforcing (rewarding) endorphins (the body's own morphine-like substances)
and these hormones (neuro-transmitters) cause and maintain the addiction.
Currently, the only way to block reinforcement from the endorphins is to
use a medication which locks down the opioid (endorphin) receptors (nerve
cells) in the brain. Gradually - not immediately - the biology of addiction
diminishes, is reversed, and removed from the brain so that the individual
begins to crave and drink less alcohol. After about 4 months of drinking
together with the medication the patient has an 80 % chance of bringing the
drinking back under control: either in a position to choose abstinence or
drinking within safe limits. No treatment is 100 % effective outside the
laboratory - this includes heart medications, antidepressants, or
antibiotics for example.

The American Medical Association made a clear statement in May, 2006 that
naltrexone should be offered to patients who would otherwise be left
untreated. Of course, naltrexone - at least in the US - requires a doctor's
prescription. But it is an especially safe medication, so much so that
having it on one's person without a prescription is not an offence. It is
better to be under the supervision of a physician but when this is not
possible it is best for a relapsing alcoholic to at least be taking
naltrexone (which cannot make one high or addicted - so not abusable). The
clinical trials show that each drink taken together with naltrexone is in
fact medicinal - i.e. that it gradually removes the addiction from the brain. Of course
this does not happen overnight but the results can be seen within two months
and in most case (at least 80%) within four months.

My feeling is that your husband is doing this for you and his family. He
does not want to be controlled by alcohol but is like that person in the
desert - with a great thirst. He may have perfectly good reasons to go the
route of self-treatment. However, it is of course best to be under a
doctor's care.

Finally, tens of thousands of people like your husband have been successful
with the Sinclair Method - --- so there is real hope that he can be one of
the success stories.

Dear friends,

I can testify to the effectiveness of The Sinclair Method. We are on it, and will be on it for the rest of our lives. We were saved by it.
Please read our story at the section "Concerned Spouse"

Yours

Gyorgy

Well, I have obviously been hanging around this site for too long tonight! Have been in and out between dinner and wrapping Christmas presents and reading and responding to posts. I just finished writing a post to the person this post was directed towards, but because these posts are public, it doesn't really matter.

Aside from my involvement with alcohol, I have been involved in the fitness and mind, body, spirit field for some time. There is a lot of research going on about the brain and how it functions. It's almost a fad....most of the practical research has to do with the pathways that are formed through development and are strengthened with use, lost with disuse and/or old age or lost through stoke or other injury (and may or may not be built again). No doubt some bad or dysfunctional behaviors are reinforced but a lot of good or functional behaviors are reinforced or we would not succeed as a species. So for some reason, some people have alcohol related behaviors that become more reinforced and others have shopping related behaviors and chocolate behaviors and sports team winning behaviors and on and on. The research points to behaviors that produce endorphins as being ones that become reinforced. So, if one thinks about the most basic needs in life- I think they all produce endorphins- eating, drinking, sex, creativity (this can be expansive) running, playing, hunting and even killing. The old, wise cultures knew this and set up codes about these things. They usually limited sex and drinking alcohol and creativity in some ways because these must be the most troublesome in terms of societal problems. So this has been known to man for a long time. Living in a society that glamorizes and accepts alcohol assumption we, the alcohol positive endorphin people have thrived. Remember, survival of the fittest? In this case we struck the jackpot. Things aren't necessarily balanced in the world even though we seek balance and a person who gets used to an endorphin release from alcohol or chocolate or french fries or buying shoes or electronic gadgets or houses or pushing themselves over the next hill will seek the next greatest endorphin rush to insure the survival of their love. It sounds silly but I think our brains are programed this way to insure our survival but everything isn't balanced in a body or in a culture, so people go astray or off the deep end. (Now, I am on my third glass of wine and am starting to feel smart and want a cigarette- I love to picture myself in Paris, being smart and gay- like in F. Scott Fitzgerald's day. ) Feeling smart and wise under the shining veil of alcohol has gotten me in some good places and some really bad ones. Being in the afterglow of love.....something like that has been written...you know how you feel when you are in love or infatuated and its the way I feel when I have drunk a few glasses of wine and played some wonderful music or watched a wonderful sunset. Feel as if I am rambling.

Point is, I think that "alcoholics" have a super responsive endorphin response to alcohol. There are probably people who have a super endorphin response to doughnuts and creme pies and fried candy bars and probably this is a little bit related to alcohol because the consumption of these things produces a big spike in blood sugar. The big societal problem is that people don't get into the same problems with over consumption of fried candy bars as they do with overconsumption of alcohol. Anyway could go one about that one because if you are a thin alcoholic you are probably at less risk of being ostracized than a nonalcoholic fried candy bar fat person. Anyway, it's all a bad scene. If Naltrexone can without terrible symptoms redirect or extinct (better said) the endorphin directed attraction to alcohol or even certain drugs and coffee cakes- that's a great thing.

Enough for tonight

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