Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Treatment Protocol for Alcoholism

A Message from Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.:

"Ever since I met Bill W, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous and we became close friends, I have had a personal interest in the treatment of alcoholism.

Bill taught that there were three components to the treatment of alcoholism: spiritual, mental and medical. AA provided a spiritual home for alcoholics that many could not find anywhere else and helped them sustain abstinence. But for many AA alone was not enough; not everyone in AA had achieved a comfortable sobriety. Bill recognized that the other two components were important. When he heard of our use of niacin for treating alcoholics, he became very enthusiastic about it because niacin gave these unfortunate patients immense relief from their chronic depression and other physical and mental complaints.

"Niacin is the most important single treatment for alcoholism, and it is one of the most reliable treatments. And it is safe, much safer than any of the modern psychiatric drugs. Niacin does not work as well when alcoholics are still drinking but in a few cases it has decreased the intake of alcohol until they were abstinent. This conclusion is based on the work my colleagues and I have done since 1953.

"I know of many alcoholics who did not want to stop drinking, but did agree to take niacin. Over the years, they gradually were able to reduce their intake until they brought it under control. Some alcoholics can even become social drinkers on a very small scale. I have not found many who could. But I think that if started on the program very early, many more could achieve normalcy. I suspect that treatment centers using those ideas will be made available one day, and will be much more successful than the standard treatment today. This all too often still consists of dumping them into hospitals and letting them dry out, with severe pain and suffering. When they are discharged, most go right back to the alcohol, the most dangerous and widely used street drug available without a prescription. Continue reading >>

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