A drug that cures alcoholism may be the next anti-anxiety medication

> Advocating for people to switch from alcohol to xanax to quit drinking… this is utter madness and I strongly advise anyone who reads this to completely disregard this advice.

Yeah, absolutely.

This recently happened to someone I knew who was addicted to alcohol, 9 months later they died from a combo of alcohol, Xanax and Fentanyl.

Let me preface this with I'm not a doctor, I also never tried Xanax / Fentanyl and I don't "really" drink alcohol. The air quotes mean I drink about a handful of beers a year at assorted family events and occasionally when socializing. I'm not saying that to brag or be like "look at me, I'm above that!", I just want to paint the picture here that I don't have first hand experience on how easily it is to get addicted to this stuff, know what it feels like or how hard it must be to quit.

Anyways, here's 1 potential formula for how someone ends up dying after being prescribed Xanax when a doctor knows the patient has addictive behaviors and drinks a lot:

1. They're addicted to alcohol to the point where they feel compelled to drink very often. Not just a beer a day, but more like lots and lots of Vodka.

2. They try going to rehab multiple times and it fails every time within a month or 2 after returning.

3. They get prescribed Xanax by a doctor.

4. They have an addictive personality in general and get addicted to Xanax.

5. This helps for a brief amount of time (weeks or months perhaps).

6. They end up drinking again.

7. They very quickly discover drinking while taking Xanax has a whole new effect.

8. They run out of prescribed Xanax.

9. They attempt to find it on the street and do.

10. They enter a world of street drugs and now Xanax turns into Xanax plus Fentanyl (intentional or not, I don't know how it becomes laced, etc.).

11. They do this combo for a bit and one day they go-to sleep and never wake up from heart failure.

The question I ask myself all the time now is if step 3 didn't happen, would the outcome have been the same? My gut tells me no way, being introduced to Xanax started the chain of events that lead to death.

Thank you.

This kind of easy to follow step-by-step breakdown of the method section should be included as an obligatory abstract of its own if one really is willing about improving the readability for people outside of the field. It actually takes a lot of time (most people don't have) in identifying all the technical terms and then to recognize what their actual experiments/basis were so that one can actually follow their arguments.

Informative post, but I have one minor correction:

Gabapentin(and pregabalin), while a GABA analogue, doesn't actually interact with GABA receptors og GABA itself at all. It acts on voltage-gated calcium channels, which is in part similar to the downstream signalling effects of GABA, and hence gives the effects you describe.

My Dad was not an alcoholic but he had anxiety due to a long illness. Anxiety is terrifying to the person who has it but also to those around them. It starts silently and even people close to them may not even notice.

Looking back when I was with my Dad little things now stand out more quirks as to why small things now upset him. As Dad's illness got worse I could see the anxiety but still I wasn't sure what I was seeing. My Dad a blue collar worker arms the size of my legs, impervious to anything, stoic. But to see the affects of anxiety on him was terrifying.

Thank god for these types of drugs it made my Dad's life bearable. It's not perfect but living in terror versus being a bit drowsy is the better choice. I wouldn't wish anxiety on my worst enemy.

How? By upping the pain medication?