Is there a Good Alcohol Medication Treatment Available that Really Helps?

Well now there are a couple of alcohol medication treatments available on the market right now but most of them do not really amount to much.  Sure there are some clinical trials out there that prove at least some effectiveness, but in most cases there is a greater problem involved with the medication seeker that is more of an issue.

For example, there are medications such as Campral that can help with cravings, but let me warn you about this much:

The person who seeks out the Campral as a means to help them are already setting themselves up for failure in some cases.  Now what do I mean by that?

I am not saying that anyone who takes alcoholism medication is destined to relapse.  What I am saying is that those who seek out medications to help with cravings often times have the wrong attitude toward recovery, and that attitude is basically this:

“Medical science can help cure my addiction with a pill.”

Now I realize that most people are not foolish enough to believe that a pill can CURE them.  But many of them are secretly hoping that the pill that they take will basically work magic on them, and so they are hoping for a cure, deep down.  Even if they don’t admit it, what they want the pill to do is closer to a real “cure” than what they will admit.

In other words, the people who seek relief from anti-craving medication are setting themselves up for failure because they have the wrong attitude. Their attitude is “pills can help me.”  Their real attitude should be “I have to take the right actions to overcome my alcoholism and it is all up to me.”

The reality is that recovery from alcoholism is 100 percent your responsibility, and no pill is going to make much of a difference.  Of course the drug companies are always doing research and developing new products, and they are always testing new pills that can help reduce cravings for alcohol and other drugs as well.  They would love to “cure” addiction with a new pill that solves everything.

Why am I so negative about these sort of anti craving medicines?  I will tell you why.  Because I worked in a drug rehab for so long, and I watched the distribution of these medications, and I watched how the effects played out.  It went like this:

Lots and lots of clients came into rehab and I got to know many of them.  The reason I got to know them so well was because many of them would leave, relapse, and come back.  This is quite common in the rehab industry and most people would never realize how much of it is repeat business.

Now here is the thing: clients at my rehab could request sample packages of a medication that would help with alcohol cravings.  In fact, they were given a large enough sample pack to take them through the entire course of treatment with the drug, to the point where they did not even have to go get their own prescription.  Anyone who asked and promised to go talk with their doc was given a full course of sample medication for this.

Now the kicker here is that I watched who came back to treatment and who did not. Nearly every single person who asked for the medication came back.  Every single one of them.  It was almost shocking in how poorly it worked, in my opinion.

Was it because the medication did not help?  No.  That was not the issue.

It was because the person who requested the medicine was looking for an easy path to sobriety.  And that is the full issue right there.

If you are seeking the easy path to recovery, you are probably setting yourself up for relapse.

If you are seeking a pill to make your addiction go away, you are probably not quite ready for recovery.

Now obviously these are just my opinions based on what I saw when working at rehab, but I still think they are valid observations, because I almost never saw any exceptions to them.  Those who sought out medical help for their addictions seemed to do the most poorly.  They almost always came back to rehab later for more treatment.

Recommended Reading

• Overcoming Addiction
• Holistic Addiction Treatment Center