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 >>

Vitamin C Fights Heart Disease

Millions die each year from heart disease and stroke, and the overwhelming evidence is that vitamin C supplementation would save many lives.

Two-time Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling estimated that the rate of heart disease would be reduced by 80 per cent if adults in the US supplemented with 2,000 to 3,000 mg of vitamin C each day. According to Dr. Pauling, "Since vitamin C deficiency is the common cause of human heart disease, vitamin C supplementation is the universal treatment for this disease."[1] Heart disease is the number one killer in the US. For those with existing heart disease Dr. Pauling said that blockage of heart arteries could actually be reversed by supplementing with 6,000 of vitamin C and 6,000 of lysine (a common amino acid) taken in divided doses throughout the day. Vitamin C supplementation both lowers serum cholesterol levels and repairs lesions of arterial walls. 1998 Nobel Prize winner Dr. Louis J. Ignarro found that supplementing with vitamin C and vitamin E significantly reduces the risk of developing arteriosclerosis.[2]

A study examined vitamin E and vitamin C supplement use in relation to mortality risk in 11,178 persons aged 67-105 who participated in the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly over a nine year period.[3] Simultaneous use of vitamins E and C was associated with a lower risk of total mortality and coronary mortality after adjusting for alcohol use, smoking history, aspirin use, and medical conditions.

A landmark study following over 85,000 nurses over a 16-year period for a total of 1,240,000 person-years found that vitamin C supplementation significantly reduced the risk of heart disease.[4] Intake of vitamin C from foods alone was insufficient to significantly effect the rate of heart disease. High quantities of vitamin C from supplements was essential to provide the protective effects. The study adjusted for age, smoking, and a variety of other coronary risk factors.

An international team pooled data from nine prospective studies of 293,000 people that included information on intakes of vitamin E, carotenoids, and vitamin C, with a 10-year follow-up to check for major incident coronary heart disease events in people without disease when the study began. Dietary intake of antioxidant vitamins was only weakly related to a reduced coronary heart disease risk. However, subjects who took as little as 700 mg of vitamin C daily in supplement form reduced their risk of heart disease events by 25 per cent compared to those who took no supplements. [5] Read the full story>>

JOURNAL OF ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE NOW ONLINE

(OMNS February 29, 2008) The archives of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine are now posted online. Past issues from 1967 through 2002 are available for downloading, at no charge, at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/index.shtml

"36 years of important material is now freely available to everyone," said Steven J. Carter, Executive Director of the Toronto-based International Schizophrenia Foundation, which publishes the Journal.

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has led the way in presenting, in advance of other medical journals, new health concerns and treatments including niacin therapy for schizophrenia and coronary disease; vitamin C for cancer; and the nutritional treatment of behavioral disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. The JOM was also the first medical journal to publish papers on the nutritional treatment of allergies, autism, and AIDS. JOM published pioneering research on candiasis in 1978, mercury amalgam toxicity in 1982, and chronic fatigue syndrome in 1988. The Journal has published over 100 papers on nutritional medicine and cancer, and over 400 articles on schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses. JOM is peer-reviewed.

The Journal was founded in 1967 as the Journal of Schizophrenia, and subsequently titled the Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry until 1986. Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling authored 9 papers in the Journal from 1970-1992. It was Pauling that gave nutritional medicine the name "orthomolecular." Says JOM Editor-in Chief Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD: "In 1968, Dr. Pauling proposed the term orthomolecular (1,2) which we recognized as the correct word to define the total interest in nutrition, clinical ecology, and the use of vitamin and mineral supplements. All the pioneers in orthomolecular medicine have reported their findings in this journal. It thus represents a unique source for these earlier and current studies which provide a basis for the increasing growth of nutritional medicine." Continue the full article >>

CURING ALCOHOLISM NATURALLY

Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND and
Elissa Meininger
November 17, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

One of the most satisfying things about the natural healing arts is that when you are thoroughly committed to its principles, you discover a contentment you can never find in modern medicine. Natural healing is about making people whole. It’s about arranging all the elements of your life to be as supportive as possible in all ways so that when you pass from this life, you do so at peace with yourself and the world around you. It’s not about fighting off the evils of disease or postponing the grim reaper no matter what the cost. And it certainly isn’t about diagnosing some disease and declaring yourself a victim of that disease, a label you must carry through life like a scarlet letter branded on your forehead.

The worst part of having a drinking problem is giving the behavior a name with the implication that once you have been branded an alcoholic, the next unspoken thought is “always an alcoholic”. Softening this branding by claiming those who have stopped drinking are “recovering” alcoholics, is just sliding into another form of discrimination, believing that we are nothing more the diseases we suffer and are life-long victims.

The plain fact of the matter is that all of us have issues that involve emotional, spiritual and physical components. We all need to establish the parameters of how we shall live out our lives. Those of us who want to maximize our lives learn to wrestle with, in a positive manner, those issues which make life less than perfect. To claim that we are all victims of disease or victims of situations that scar us for life is about feeling sorry for ourselves and not embracing life to the fullest.

A good example of how not to fall into this trap is something my NewsWithViews.com writing partner, Elissa, experienced. She was so poisoned by mercury from her dental amalgams, she was in pain for months on end, trying to detox it from her system. Pain killers were out of the question, and when her spirits were particularly low, she’d muster what little sense of humor she had, call her naturopath and say, “Skip the rest of the herbs, send the hemlock”. In return, knowing that she was at the end of her rope emotionally, he, being a true blue naturopath of the best kind, would ask her, “What is the gift?” This was a signal for her to embrace her suffering so she could fully examine the lessons pain and suffering could teach her about the value of life, the learning of patience, and other deeply spiritual issues, so that when the suffering was over, she would be a much wiser person, more ready to really live life to the fullest.

How many of us have known people who have suffered a great deal and have become incredibly wonderful people? How many of us have taken the trouble to surround ourselves with a positive support system and how many of us have arranged to have good things come our way because we have become positive thinkers and doers? These are all important issues that when we are caught in the throws of suffering, might be worth thinking about.

When I suggested to Elissa that we provide information from my colleagues in Orthomolecular Medicine about how they successfully treat alcoholism through nutrition, Elissa quickly pointed out that having been trained in Transactional Analysis back in the 1970’s, she was well aware that TA practitioners were not into naming diseases, either, and, in fact, didn’t consider alcoholism a disease at all.

Created by Eric Berne, MD, Transactional Analysis is a system of analyzing people’s patterns of behavior. It became the first of several therapeutic models that is particularly adaptable to self-help by lay people. Central to its core philosophy is that the client has the capacity to change and that the teacher-therapist is largely there to assist the client in taking charge of his/her own healing. In allopathic psychiatry and similar therapies, the therapist’s role is to diagnose a “disease” and be the authority figure who helps the “patient” become more well adjusted, though rarely healed.

When it was introduced in the 1960’s, TA revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. Best selling books such as “Games People Play”, “I’m OK, You’re OK”, “Success Through Transactional Analysis”, and “Born to Win” were on everyone’s coffee tables and the concepts of TA was quickly adopted into common usage. Everyone was analyzing “games”, discussing “life-scripts”, giving and receiving positive “strokes” and making jokes about who was more “OK” than somebody else.

Back then Elissa would have been delighted to add to her TA knowledge information about nutritional approaches that support the health of people who’d been trashed out by too much alcohol. She pointed out that to a TA counselor, the goal is to teach the client about the principles and practical methods of clarifying true emotions, develop useful information about how to run you own life, clean up old baggage from the past without going on what she calls an archeological expedition to rehash how much you hate your mother or other old anger that has yet to be resolved. Establishing a good diet to improve and maintain better health would certainly be a major part of such a health-promoting plan of action. In addition, it can improve a person’s state of mind, as malnourishment can lead to depression and other emotional imbalances, not to mention muddled thinking.

Sorting out the various elements of how a person came to have problems with alcohol is something TA counselors have had a great deal of success with because so many of the issues involved, are basically reviewing all the elements of a person’s life that may need to be updated. In fact, most people, once they understand TA, go over a checklist every now and again to keep on target to make sure they are maximizing their lives based on constantly updated information.

Since discussions about Transactional Analysis, and how to use it to deal with alcohol issues can get complicated in a short column like ours, Elissa suggests that readers interested in learning more about it, might like to read two books by TA’s premier alcohol treatment expert, Claude Steiner. Even though written in the 1970’s they are

1, Games Alcoholics Play: The Analysis of Life Scripts – (Random House, 1974)
2, Healing Alcoholism – originally published by Grove Press in 1971 – Now available as a free download

A book that I recommend about the nutritional approach to alcoholism is Food and Behavior by Barbara Reed Stitt. Barbara was one of the first parole officers in the country who put her charges on a good diet and saved most of them from further jail time. Knowing that diet can change criminal behavior should give you some indication of the power of good nutrition. It should also prepare you for the following Treatment Protocol for Alcoholism from Dr. Abram Hoffer, who, along with Linus Pauling is the father of orthomolecular medicine.

We include the full press release of July 1, 2005 from the Orthomolecular News Service.

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.

"Orthomolecular treatment is the treatment of choice. The following protocol for alcoholism outlines the importance of the nutritional factors that have been shown to be very successful on treating this condition. The treatment can be used alone but is best combined with dietary advice and additional nutrients."

The late Dr. Roger Williams, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas and former president of the American Chemical Society, also wrote extensively on the alcoholism.[1] Dr. Williams recommended large doses of vitamins and an amino acid called L-glutamine.
What should the alcoholic do to help stop drinking and return his or her body to normal functioning? Supply the following nutrients to the body:

* Vitamin C to saturation (on the order of 10,000 to 20,000 mg per day and more). High doses of vitamin C chemically neutralize the toxic breakdown products of alcohol metabolism. Vitamin C also increases the liver's ability to reverse the fatty build-up so common in alcoholics.

* To titrate to saturation, take 1000 mg of vitamin C every hour. When saturation is reached, there will be a single episode of diarrhea; then reduce the dosage to 1000 mg every four hours.
* A B50-complex tablet (comprising 50 mg of each of the major B-vitamins, 6 times daily).

* L-Glutamine (2000 or 3000 mg). L-Glutamine is an amino acid that decreases physiological cravings for alcohol. It is one the two primary energy providers that burn glycogen to provide fuel to the brain and stimulates many neurofunctions. L- Glutamine is naturally produced in the liver and kidneys. Alcohol harms the kidneys and liver, thus supplementation is vital (concurrently reducing cravings for sugar and alcohol).

* Lecithin (2 to 4 tablespoons daily). Provides inositol and choline, related to the B-complex. Lecithin also helps mobilize fats out of the liver.

* Chromium (at least 200 to perhaps 400 mcg chromium polynicotinate daily). Chromium greatly reduces carbohydrate mis-metabolism, and greatly helps control blood sugar levels. Many, if not most, alcoholics are hypoglycemic.

* A good high-potency multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement as well, containing magnesium (400 mg) and the antioxidants carotene and d-alpha tocopherol.

In summary, the alcoholic’s body needs the proper nutrients in adequate quantities to return to normal metabolic functioning. The above nutrients are safe, effective, inexpensive and available from discount stores or health food stores without prescription. There is not even one death per year from vitamins. Pharmaceutical drugs, properly prescribed and taken as directed, kill over 100,000 Americans annually. Hospital errors kill still more. Most illness is due fundamentally to malnutrition. This not only includes the chronic diseases, but also viral and bacterial acute illness, which are greatly aggravated by inadequate nutrition. Supplements are not the problem; they are the solution. Malnutrition is the problem.

Editorial Review Board:
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D. Harold D. Foster, Ph.D. Bradford Weeks, M.D. Carolyn Dean, M.D. N.D. Eric Patterson, M.D.Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D.

References;
1, Williams, RJ, Roach, MK, "Impaired and inadequate glucose metabolism in the brain as an underlying cause of alcoholism--an hypothesis.", Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 August; 56(2): 566-571.

ACT FOR HEALTH FREEDOM NOW: Go to http://www.friendsoffreedominternational.org/ and purchase "Death by Modern Medicine" and view and purchase the new movie on Codex and Free Trade called "We Become Silent" by Kevin Miller. Proceeds from the sale of these products are crucial to help fund our health freedom action. For state action go to:

http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/ . To support HR 4282, the new Health Freedom Protection Act bill that we talked about in our November 7, 2005 article in News With Views “A Call to Action to Protect Free Speech” go to: www.stopfdacensorship.org and send a letter to Congress.