Treatment of alcoholism

No need to talk about alcoholism: this disease cripples the life of a person and its friends and relatives. According to reasearch, there about nine million individuals in the U.S. confirmed "addicted to alcohol", including those who desperately need treatment. However, there are only few effective treatments, which can suppress a person's addiction to alcohol. One of the well known drugs is disulfiram (Antabuse), which interferes the liver ferment system and causes accumulation of acetaldehyde. This substance causes severe headaches, nausea and vomiting, the memories of which cause a person to refrain from drinking. Clearly, this drug does not treat addition to alcohol, but only causes a disgust to alcohol.



Another drug treatment is naltrexone (ReVia), which was initially developed to treat certain forms of drug addition caused by opioids, such as morphine and heroin. However, this drug, a so-called opioid-antagonist, is not effective against non-opiodic drugs, such as cocaine. Under the treatment by naltrexone, receptors in brain cells, which influence drug perception, are blocked. Though the mechanism of naltrexone effect on treatment of alcoholism has not been fully confirmed by studies, it is still used to treat patients suffering from this addiction. The drug comes in form of pills, and has been widely applied for treatment of alcoholism in the U.S. since 1994. While this drug causes as unpleasant effects as does the disulfiram, it is not effective for all patients. One of the reasons for ineffectiveness of this drug is the "individual factor" - alcohol addicted people often miss the drug intake not only because of forgetfulness but also in order to give themselves "a break." In order to eliminate such "individual factor," the drug now is available in the form of injection.



The new form of neltrexone, which has just been approved by the FDA in April, is called vivitrol. The mechanism of vivitrol acts to block a special class brain neurotransmitters, which are responsible for alcohol addiction. The developers consider this drug to be more effective treatment, which is accompanied by physician's consultations and group therapy. The injection form of the drug is produced by Alkermes Inc. company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Only one injection per month of Vivitrol is needed, so the patient avoids having to chose daily whether to take the drug or not. The injection is done once a month in our office, accompanied by the usual procedures of alcohol addiction treatment, including individual or group therapy.