Did Medication Help?

[justontime]

Have any of you had any experience of Antabuse, the medication that is sometimes prescribed to recovering alcoholics. It makes them physically ill if they drink alcohol and it can be potentially dangerous. I guess it can be helpful to some people, I was just interested to hear if people have had good experiences with it.

[tater03]

I posted this same question yesterday. I to am curious as to whether it helps with addiction or not? Hopefully someone will be familiar with it.

[justontime]

I'm sorry, I don't know how I overlooked your post, I did not intentionally duplicate your question. I have only seen Antabuse used two or three times and in those cases it was unsuccessful. I think perhaps it was being used as a last hope in these cases and the commitment/ability of the people involved to abstain from alcohol was not sufficient. In each of these case they had other serious health problems which were caused or exacerbated by alcohol and this may have made the treatment less successful. It is a costly treatment because of the monitoring and support necessary, and because of the potential health costs if the person drinks while taking it. It would be good to hear of some good outcomes.

[Serenity]

My ex husband took Antabuse and it was a miserable failure. It was not the drug's fault in any way though. While the medication itself did what it was supposed to, which was make him violently sick if he touched alcohol, he just got around it by stopping taking it. If however someone took it as they were meant to be taking it, I think it'd be a good deterrent.

[justjoy]

My brother-in-law took Antabuse during his recovery and was successful. He's been alcohol free for years and years now. But, I think you're right in saying it's got more to do with the person recovering than the medication itself.