What Addicts Need

AA absolutely does not take a stand against the use of medications to treat alcoholism .In fact, founder Bill Wilson spent his life seeking a medical solution. (He even tried LSD, which was touted as a cure for alcoholism.) My recovery involves working with a psychiatrist, taking my meds, and going to AA meetings. In a couple weeks, I'm starting cognitive behavior therapy, too.

Re: Article provides misinformation on Vivitrol. Be careful what you read from non-scientific articles. Vivitrol does not prevent a person from becoming intoxicated. It is the extended release form of Naltrexone. Naltrexone is an opiate agonist that blocks the opiate receptor site. It has been well researched for alcohol dependence. Vivitro (Naltrexone, ER) is considered an adjunct to therapy and recovery support. The reasearch shows that Naltrexone reduces cravings associated with alcohol dependence and persons on it tend to drink fewer drinks when they relapse. Naltrexone does not stop alcohol intoxication! There is no known drug that stops alcohol intoxication. The only drug that may prevent a person from becoming intoxicated in the first place is Antabuse. Antabuse stops the body from completely breaking down alcohol. It stops at the catalistic stage of formaldehyde, thus the person becomes violently ill when alcohol is ingested. In other words, the alcohol is turned to formaldehyde. Antabuse has had some success in treating persons with alcohol dependence. However, many just stop taking it and are able to return to drinking with no side effects after a few days.

In the Netherlands, people are not charged with even a misdemenor for possession or use of very small, personal-use amounts of even hard drugs like herion; they are only charged for any specific crimes they commit, such as driving under the drug's influence, theft to support one's habit, etc. Treatment is freely available to everyone, and can even include receiving small amounts of whatever you're addicted to, administered on the premisis of a clinic. They have NO GREATER addiction problem than in the USA, while successfully avoiding most drug-related crime. Not an ideal solution, but does an ideal solution really exist?

I learned a great deal from reading the article. However, its tone was very condescending and naive. I realize that Jeneen Interlandi needed a sensationalist "hook" (no pun intended) for the article just like most journalists who write about science and medicine. Instead of focusing on the promise of modern research into physical basis of addiction and the medications in the pipeline that might assist in the treatment, she passes a quick judgement on the "recovery industry" and creates a non-existing conflict between "the industry" and NIDAA/small pharmaceutical companies. She treated light-heartedly, even dismissively, an effective, time-tested, statistically validated, relatively cheap treatment of a "bio-psycho-social-spiritual disorder" that baffled the medical community. She aptly compared adult onset diabetics (type 2) to addicts, but instead of dwelling deeper into the simile, she concluded that "insulin" of addiction treatment is being withheld from the addicts by addiction therapy community. Well, adult onset diabetes (type II) is the most common type of DM. It is caused by resistance of the peripheral tissues to insulin, and to much lesser extent by pancreatic failure. Insulin resistance develops when adults engage in "compulsion" to eat beyond the physical need. It is frequent in overweight people. Just like addicts, diabetics??? bodies become tolerant and physically ill. They will die if not treated with drugs and, at later stages, insulin. However, profound weight reduction to normal and regular exercise are know to reverse this process in many if not most adult onset diabetics. Yet, most adults with DMII do not even attempt to reduce their weight and exercise. Some of the most overweight people choose to undergo drastic and risky stomach reduction surgery in order to loose weight. Medical science offered these people pills and insulin to live longer with less complications. Yet, the underlying cause of their illness ??? impulsion, dependence on food for emotional satisfaction, lack of ability to adjust their believes despite becoming ill from too much food intake are not being addressed, or rather, difficult to address by untrained physicians. In some way, insulin for DMII patients is like methadone to a heroin addict ??? it reduces complications and prolongs life, but it does heal the compulsion. So, Mrs. Interlandi, lets not create imaginary conflicts and drama for the purpose of discussion of modern medicine and science. They diminish the essence of modern evidence based medicine and minimize the successes of addiction medical science that relies on an effective, validated approach that Bill W identified in 1935. Allow current research to speak for itself through well-designed clinical studies. Do not compare apples and oranges. And please, don???t prophylactically vaccinate children against ???addictions??? when you educate about better living choices.

The dismissive tone in this article concerning AA and other Twelve Step groups--which it snidely labels "imitators"--is astonishing. The reason the great bulk of the "recovery industry" relies on Twelve Step methodology is that it works. And furthermore Twelve Step recovery, unlike the recovery offered by the commercial treatment industry or the new alternative drugs author Jeneen Interlandi is promoting, is absolutely free. We may know more about the biochemistry of addiction now than in earlier times, but lthe experience of addiction itself is the same old thing--there is just an ever-expanding panoply of drugs to become addicted to. And the suggestion thatphysicians might recommend that parents arrange for their adolescent children to be "vaccinated" against cocaine addiction is positively monstrous.

Why does the causes of addiction have to be so black and white? Why does it have to be either an illness or a matter of self control? Why cannot it be both. A malfunctioning of the brain that can be addressed with programs/medicines et al along with the individual taking responsibility for his illness and actively working on him or herself also
I am an addict and that is how I stay sober and happy.

THE TRUE PROBLEM LIES WITHIN EACH AND EVRY HUMAN BEING ON THE FACE OF THIS PLANET!!!!
TAKE LIFE A DAY AT A TIME!!!!!

So truely spoken ,one does not understand unless they have walked a mile in those shoes of understanding

Just 33 milliseconds of the sight of a crack pipe is enough to trigger cravings in an addict. If you like coffee, the scent of a cup is enough to make you want one. If you like sex, the sight of a naked body is enough to arouse you. The same goes for food and many other addictions. Until we understand that that word, addiction is not tabu, that we all suffer from one kind of addiction or another, we will not be able to treat it, much less face it. As the father of a teenage addict, I tried to make the schools aware of the problem in a manner that was not judgmental or accusatory. I hit a wall, but we cannot give up. I have turned to institutions that treat addicts with firmness and respect, such as the Hazelden organization in Minnessota. There and in other similar places around the country, dedicated people are working to help us win the war against drugs where it is really happening, in the room next door in our own houses, and not in a faraway tropical forest as some like to believe. The casualties of this war are not only the soldiers or agents who fall in the line of duty fighting the drug lords, the casualties are in the homefront and they are our own kids. The paramedics trying to keep the "troops" alive are the researchers mentioned in this article as well as the peopl who treat the addicts in all the recovery places disseminated in the country. It is there where we should put the bulk of our resources in the war against drugs.

I think this is a good article, but from experience I think life style choices and developing inner resistance to things that harm you just isn't really taught in our society. My personal experience is peolple lack a sense of inner discipline and inner strength and rely on too many outside things to change behavior when it is an inner process. There is too little support for each other in this cold, cruel world and people are really sensitive and turn to drugs because there is nothing out there that helps them. Change the way we think about ourselves as human beings and you can change everything.

There will never be a pill thats going to take away the alcoholic/ addict thought of "its going to be different this time or "i can control it" and sorry, but there is one part of the bio-psycho-social-SPIRITUAL illness that medicine will never be able to conquer. there is no medication that will EVER give someone spirituality...Addiction will never be cured by medicine or anything else. this article is a joke.
me that

Ok i meant to say im 23 years clean and pretty open-minded and really folks I would like to see addiction never be a problem again but that isnt reality..Almost a billion dollar budget last year for the NIDA is that what I read. Dayumm Gina.

Well I would love to see addiction be cured but i dont believe it is gonna happen.I'm 23 clean and pretty open minded to stuff but it sounds like NIDA just needs millions more to screw off.How about a cure for AIDS or diabetes

Ok i love the idea of medication curing addiction but it isnt gonna happen.Sounds like NIDA just would like some more money.How about a cure for AIDS or diabetes Rick in Texas

it is obvious by your comments JAK that you are as ignorant about addiction as a disease as you are about spelling and diction itself. Apparently you didn't read the article - if you did, you would understand what is common knowledge regarding the biology of addiction. Many people who are otherwise functional citizens struggle with addiction in private, and could benefit medically. I guess you have never had a health problem?

Questions for the author, Jeneen Interlandi: The 5th paragraph of your article said that NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) is investigating more than 200 compounds to block the effects of drugs. Is there any page on their site (http://www.nida.nih.gov/) that lists all of these drugs?

Also in the 5th paragraph, you mentioned other compounds that can intervene in the cortex in the last milliseconds before the impulse to reach for a glass translates into action (as you described it, "willpower in a pill"). What are the names of these compounds? Where can I find out more information about them?

It will ake a lot more then the talk form the AMA to convince me that addicts are caues by an "illness'.
So much ofr smoking and chewing gum..
SHow me the $ trail and I will show you a cure! Thes addits, including smokers should be taken off of the street. They alone have the where-with-all to stop the criminal acts that hey impse on innocents. Either they should control themselves of society should mandate a permanent "cure" for them.
JAK