Just got prescribed Antabuse

Thanks Joanna,

It took me a long time to admit that I had a drinking problem, I talked to my friends about it, and also mentioned it to my specialist (gyn) so fronted up to my doctor today and admitted that I had a drinking problem . She seemed to think this was the answer. She didn't talk me through any other medications. I am in Australia. I really like my doctor and thought she would give me something good. Perhaps I need to find a more informed doctor about my drinking problem.  I will keep you posted, the pharmacy couldn't fill my script I have to go back tomorrow.

Love Australia!  I am in England, but I grew up in Freemantle, near Perth.  Will get back for a holiday one day.  Hope you are not in the area affected by the drought.

So, in Australia, the following 3 medications are approved to help someone deal with ongoing alcohol dependency:

1.  Antabuse - as I say, makes you severley ill if you drink, does nothing to solve the changes in the brain caused by alcohol.

2.  Campral (acamprosate)- designed to be taken 3 times a day, with abstinence.  This will help to re-write the brain so that cravings reduce, but in order for it to be effective you should remain abstinent whilst you are taking it..  This is what Vickylou and RHGB have both successfully used.

3.  Naltrexone- this is a medication also approved to be taken with abstinence, once a day, to try and help manage your cravings to drink.

These 3 are approved in Australia and should be able to go to your doctor, ask to discuss the three of these and then make a decision with your doctor about which is the most suitable for you.  (In Europe, we have a 4th one, but I won't explain what it does because you can't get it over there anyway.)

Above is how they are officically approved.  In the case of naltrexone, it is also an older medication and doesn't work too well when taken this way.  Since it was approved, clinical trials have shown that it is much more effective and re-writing the brain when taken an hour prior to drinking.  So, basically, whenever you get the urge to drink, you take the tablet then, wait an hour, and then take the drink.  The chemical reward that the brain is expecting doesn't happen and so over some months, the brain gets rewritten because it stops wanting something that isn't giving it what it expects any more.  Think of Pavlov's dog - a dog learns to salivate when a bell is rung because it gets food.  Ring the bell but don't give it the food and for a little while, it's response is to salivate because it expects the food.  Over a little while, the dog stops salivating when the bell is rung because it realises that the food won't be coming, no matter how the many times it rings the bell.  This is your brain's own learning mechanism at work.  It has learned alcohol produces a chemical reward, and if you use naltrexone to block that, it will un-learn it, too.  This is how I used naltrexone to successfully extinguish my urges to drink.  If you go onto YouTube and google Claudia Christian TEDx talk, you will find a short 15 minute talk that summarises this better.

But, to be honest, it depends on how YOU want to tackle the issue, and if a doctor establishes that either of these medications are medically suitable for you.  Some doctors will not have heard about the better way to use naltrexone, whilst others will.  If you wanted to pursue this, but your own doctor is unsure, then I know of a couple of telemedicine doctors in Australia who do understand it, and will assess you over the telephone to see if using naltrexone in this way would be suitable for you.  Let me know if you want the details of these telemedicine providers and I will PM them to you.

So, depending on how you want to go, both Campral or Naltrexone are the much more succesful than Antabuse.

Joanna,

I have recently been prescribed both Naltrexone and Antabuse, and completely agree with your statements about antabuse. I am already considering stopping for a bit in order to drink  one or two nights. I only took the naltrexone for a couple of weeks but didn't notice a difference. I have heard that taking it before drinking works better but I'm not clear how all of that works. Do you only take it on the days that you drink, or do you continue to take it daily?

I think I would really like to try that method to decrease or eliminate the cravings. 

Thanks for all of your insight! This site is extremely helpful!!

Could you pm the telemedicine doctors please. [email]mariangray@tpg.com.au[/email]

As well the PM on here, I will send a copy to your email address now.

Joanna.

You would only take naltrexone one hour prior to drinking, and not any other time.

This is medically called Pharmacological Extinction, but we refer to it as The Sinclair Method (after the doctor who spent over 20 years researching and proving this).

The easiest way to learn more is to google C3 Foundation Europe (you'll find me and my own story on there) and also One Little Pill Movie documentary.  The documentary can be watched freee on Amazon Prime.  It is 50 minutes long and gives a good explanation of this treatment.

Am I missing something? Why would you take naltrexone and Antabuse. Surely taking naltrexone is to help cut down on alcohol by taking a pill before drinking. So drinking stops you taking Antabuse. Not both!!

I have got in touch with mindonline and will wait to hear from them. Thank you for telling me about Andabuse. I will not have the prescription filled. It sounds like a horrid way to treat a patient.

Regards,

Marian

I've never heard of anyone taking both naltrexone and Antabuse, but I guess if a doctor has prescribed naltrexone the old way with abstinence, then they may think that the Antabuse will help prevent them drinking whilst the naltrexone rewrites the brain, perhaps?

In the meantime, google the documentary One Little Pill and that will tell you all about the Sinclair Method with naltrexone in 50 minutes :-)

Have just watched One Little Pill, amazing, when I went to the pharmacy today, I told the pharmacist to tear up the script for Andabuse. Thank you so much for the information.

Yes, One Little Pill is amazing, isn't it?  When the parts in England were filled, I had just started TSM myself and was reluctant to feature before I knew whether of not this treatment was as going to be effective for me.  A few months down the line, I knew it had, and I donated a lot of my own money into the post-filming, production side of it (which is why my name is featured at the end!).  C3 Foundation in the US us a charity organisation and so are C3 Foundation Europe which I set up and now run.

The issue with this treatment is two-fold.  Firstly, and most importantly, there is no money to be made in it.  Naltrexone is a very inexpensive, generic medication that was approved years and years ago.  Therefore, the big rehab centres don't want to cut off their own multi-million dollar, revolving door wage packets and not many doctors are aware of it because there are no pharma reps knocking on their doors encouraging them to prescribe it.  And secondly, the apathy that many in the medical profession have towards the fact that this isn't a moral issue.  We used to think that those struggling with depression were weak-willed and just need to 'pull their socks up'.  Slowly, but surely, scientists learned that those with depression have a chemical imbalance in their brains and that medications can be used to help rebalance them.  The same would be true of those with alcohol misuse, but those 'big' hitters of the recovery industry want to protect their incomes.

Although I am not in touch with those Americans in the documentary (except Claudia), I can tell you about Gary Bell.  Gary is the English guy in the documentary and I am in touch with him often.  What I am going to tell you helps debunk the myth that this treatment is only for those who want to moderate their drinking, and not stop completely.  This treatment is for everyone - and everyone can reach whatever their individual goal is with it, whether that be abstinence or moderate drinking.  Since reaching extinction of his alcohol problem, which took about 3-4 months for him, and that was over 5 years ago now, Gary has remained completely 100% abstinent. His choice.  Like around 40% of those using this treatment, he found that when the driving force behind the alcohol was removed, he just wanted to never drink again.

To me, Gary is the poster-boy of this treatment, for want of a better word, because he has been through the worst thing imaginable since he had success with TSM and he never felt the urge to relapse, once.  I know he won't mind me saying because he has written about it publically himself, but he suffered the tragic murder of his mother is a burglary gone wrong.  That, coupled with the year long trial of the accused would drive the majority of those with an alcohol problem to relapse.  But he didn't touch a drop!  And most importantly, he didn't feel the need to because those pathways in his brain that had been changed by alcohol, had been broken down and extinguished by this treatment.

When used correctly, that is how powerful this treatment is.