Call 800-580-9104 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

Monthly Shot Helps Alcoholics From Drinking

A new monthly injection could help keep holiday drinkers on the wagon.

David Rosenbloom, a specialist in substance abuse at Boston University School of Public Health, said for people battling alcoholism, holidays pose a strong danger of relapse.

“For some it’s the stress of being lonely, for others it’s the stress of being with people,” he said.

The pressure can be too much for some teetotalers, particularly during Christmas and New Years when social pressure and opportunities to drink are particularly high.

Many recovering alcoholics take pills containing naltrexone, a substance that reduces the desire to drink by blocking the receptors in the brain responsible for the high that drinking brings.

“During the holiday season, pressures often drive alcoholics to stop taking the tablets,“ said Sandra Lapham at the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Now there is a new slow-release formulation of naltrexone, where the drug is injected into muscle once a month and researchers believe it could be a saving grace for recovering alcoholics who give into holiday pressures and stop taking their pills.

The Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment published a small study of 28 patients who received full-dose naltrexone shots, compared with another 28 given placebos. For heavy drinkers (five or more drinks a day for men, and four for women) the shots reduced the frequency of drinking days, the number of drinks and the percentage of days classed as heavy drinking sessions.

And researchers say the drug was just as effective during the holidays as it was for the rest of the year.

Rosenbloom said the injections could be hugely significant for public health, especially during the hectic holiday season when 40 percent of road deaths over Christmas and the New Year involve at least one driver impaired by alcohol. He said he would like to see courts offer naltrexone shots to repeat drunk-driving offenders.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the naltrexone injections in 2006. However, naltrexone injections must be given with care, because they can cause abscesses if the drug is deposited into fatty tissue, Lapham warned.

source: redOrbit

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Chronic Drinking Causes More Liver Damage Than Binge Drinking

A new study conducted on rodents has shown the extreme harm caused by chronic drinking on the liver, much more than the injury caused by binge drinking. Although alcohol consumption is known to cause liver damage, still the degree of liver damage can differ according to the pattern of drinking “Different patterns of drinking can]….

Paris fights binge-drinking

A new campaign by Mayor Bertrand Delanoe tries to persuade young Parisians to shun the fashion for drinking themselves to oblivion at weekends. France used to look down on the British habit of getting smashed and staggering in a stupor through the streets but now it is happening here. For the past couple of years,….

My endless battle with the bottle

Mike (not his real name) started drinking as a teen and found himself drawn into alcoholism. “I started drinking when I was about 15 or 16, but it wasn’t a regular occurrence,” he said. “At university it became more regular, but I didn’t think I had an alcohol problem, and at that point I was….

Life with a 12-year-old alcoholic

Jane (not her real name) was faced with the shock discovery that her young son was drinking heavily when somebody knocked on her door to tell her he had collapsed in the street. At the age of 12, Alan, (not his real name) had drunk himself unconscious and was being revived by paramedics after attending….

Insurance Coverage For Drug Treatment

Most people who are seeking a drug rehab center and are fortunate enough to have health insurance want to know if it will by for the treatment. While there isn’t really a simple answer to this, there are some basic guidelines here that can help you understand the process a bit more and how it….