Alcoholism

After smoking, alcohol kills more people in Britain than any other drug. Many people drink socially but the problem is when that balance gets skewed and tips over into alcohol dependency. A report in the British Medical Journal stated that the incidence of liver disease is higher in doctors than in the general population. Often a feature in news, it is a cause for concern with many people stating it is the basis of social decay in society. So what is that drives people to drink in such excess? Many people state anxiety or depression as the cause and how hard it is to regain control again. But is there miraculous cure out there for people with alcohol dependency issues?

I was reading an article about a US cardiologist; Dr Olivier Ameisen who spent a decade addicted to alcohol but managed to ‘cure’ himself by taking the pharmaceutical drug, Baclofen commonly used as a muscle relaxant. By self prescribing, he initially started off on low dose and found that the drug relived his anxiety and stopped his craving for alcohol. He gradually upped his dosage and once he felt that he was stable, started decreasing the dosage and is now stable at 50mg a day – with no relapse. Dr Ameisen bravely admitted his problems and his findings in a medical paper back in 2004 and now trials for Baclofen are being conducted in the US, France, Glasgow and Switzerland.

How it works –
Dr Ameisen’s hypothesis states that alcoholism is linked to deficiencies in GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate) - an equivalent of the brain’s natural Valium. GHB relaxes the system but a lack of GHB can cause anxiety, insomnia, muscular tension and depression. To relieve these symptoms people turn to drugs and alcohol but end up becoming addicted to them.

Mechanism of action - GABA receptors

When a person is deficient in GHB, the alcohol or drugs taken will block the GABA receptors thus alleviating the symptoms by copying the relaxant effects of GABA. Once the drug or alcohol clears the system, the symptoms return and so people become addicted in an effort to prevent the symptoms from reoccurring. GABA has two receptors that it can bind to GABA A and GABA B. Baclofen works by stimulating the GABA B receptor, which only GHB can do and not the drugs/alcohol. Most medications work on GABA A receptors, but it seems that it is the GABA B receptor that holds the key for curing alcohol dependency.

Many clinical trials will be required to prove the effects of Baclofen, but in my mind there are some questions that remain unanswered. Is it right to substitute a person’s dependency on alcohol to them becoming dependent on a drug instead? Furthermore will alcoholics see Baclofen as a miracle cure to solve all their problems rather than working through their issues?