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A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

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21–30 of 79 posts

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#21

I'm a psychiatrist and I work with an addiction population. I think many of them would be glad to have this as an option. It's certainly not perfect, but it would provide an additional layer of protection to people who struggle to maintain sobriety. I think it's sad that the first reaction to this is to think of it as something from "dystopian" science fiction. The oral medication disulfram shares a similar mechanism…

I hope you're right. I used to be a heavy smoker and even after I cut back I was still addicted to nicotine and unable to give it up completely. Eventually I was prescribed Chantix (which was still fairly new at the time) and took it in hope rather than expectation. It worked - to such an extent that it was like a time machine for my brain, unwinding it back to an earlier stage before I had overcome my dislike for the smell and taste of tobacco. Every day that I wake up without the taste of yesterday's cigarettes or draw a deep breath I feel grateful for it's availability; it was easily the best $400 I ever spent.

I hope this offers a similar benefit for people in the grip of alcohol addiction, a much heavier burden than the one I had to cope with.

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#22
post #20

The first thing that popped into my mind was a Tintin story - where Captain Haddock finds he can no longer bear the taste of whiskey. The professor had given him something akin to this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_the_Picaros Life is stranger than ...

Thundering typhoons! That's immediately what popped into my head as well.

Billions of blistering barnacles ! Another person who wasted / enlivened a childhood hiding under the bedcovers with a torch :-)

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#24
post #7

It's a pet peeve of mine when articles quote their own paragraphs in big bold headings immediately below the paragraph itself. "It's a pet peeve of mine when articles quote their own paragraphs" After all, didn't I just read that?

I agree, yet this tactic pops up all the time. I suspect it keeps those with short attention spans (who can't be bothered to get through an entire page of writing) glued in better to the article. Anyone know what this "literary device" is called?

"yet this tactic pops up all the time."

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#26

Good thing this didn't exist in the 20's.

No, bad thing.

Because this didn't exist in the 20's, the government started adding poison to alcohol not intended for drinking -- because people were drinking it, predictably, and bootleggers were reselling it to be consumed -- and killed thousands of people in the process.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

Denatured alcohol still does nasty things to people who are ignorant and/or desperate enough to try not-for-consumption alcohol... fortunately it's not so deadly nowadays (I think?).

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#27
post #7

It's a pet peeve of mine when articles quote their own paragraphs in big bold headings immediately below the paragraph itself. "It's a pet peeve of mine when articles quote their own paragraphs" After all, didn't I just read that?

I agree, yet this tactic pops up all the time. I suspect it keeps those with short attention spans (who can't be bothered to get through an entire page of writing) glued in better to the article. Anyone know what this "literary device" is called? "yet this tactic pops up all the time."

It's called a Pull Quote. It's used in newspapers and magazines to draw you into an article as you leaf through the pages, I guess it serves basically the same purpose in blogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#28

The first thing that popped into my mind was a Tintin story - where Captain Haddock finds he can no longer bear the taste of whiskey. The professor had given him something akin to this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_the_Picaros Life is stranger than ...

It made me think of a (more drastic) plot point in Neuromancer, but I guess Tintin far predates that. :)

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#29

I'm a psychiatrist and I work with an addiction population. I think many of them would be glad to have this as an option. It's certainly not perfect, but it would provide an additional layer of protection to people who struggle to maintain sobriety. I think it's sad that the first reaction to this is to think of it as something from "dystopian" science fiction. The oral medication disulfram shares a similar mechanism…

Thank you for sharing, my very first question was going to be about antabuse and how this would differ in mechanism.

From the article -- they're hoping the fully-developed vaccine would last 6 months to a year.

That's a big deal -- you decide "yes" once, and even when the going gets rough, you don't get to change your mind for many months yet... you'll have a much better chance to build better habits, etc. before you have to decide yes/no again.

Much, much better than something you have to take daily, or even weekly.

Re: A New Vaccine For Drinking Could Keep Alcoholics Sober

#30
post #12

Disulfiram has been known to cause acute sensitivity to alcohol since 1948 and has been used to treat chronic alcoholism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram Disulfiram is absorbed slowly through the digestive tract and eliminated slowly by the body the effects may last for up to two weeks after the initial intake An interesting podcast from NPR on its use in Russia: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/russia…

The vaccine will (if it works as planned) last 6 months to a year.
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