The End of My Addiction by Olivier Ameisen M.D. Read Free Book Online Page B

for alcohol. Either I was seriously lacking in willpower and/or spirituality, or my alcoholism had a fundamental biological component that would have to be addressed medically.
    Determined to miss nothing that might help, I maintained a regular exercise regimen and did yoga to promote relaxation and reduce anxiety. I got real benefit from both and in the big scheme of things they supported my overall health, but they could not themselves resolve my lifelong chronic anxiety or my more recent heavy drinking.
    When I was not in the midst of a binge, the effort to avoid drinking consumed all my time and energy. Every day I went to AA at least once, did self-hypnosis several times, and spent hours on the phone with AA contacts and friends. I saw my primary psychiatrist and an acupuncturist three or four times a week each, visited the CBT therapist once a week, and went to the psychopharmacologist once every two weeks.
    I confided my drinking problem to a good friend and colleague at New York Hospital, Boris Pasche, a talented young cancer researcher from Switzerland with M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and postdoctoral training at Harvard. Boris, who has since joined the faculty of Northwestern University Medical School, where he directs the university’s Cancer Genetics Program, is also an expert in homeopathy. He treated me without charge, and we experimented with various herbs and minerals alleged to bolster mood, support liver function, moderate craving for alcohol, and so on. There were no positive results apart from the substantial benefit of Boris’s friendship and support.
    Boris told me that a medicine to reduce craving for alcohol had recently come on the market in Europe. It was called acamprosate, and based on what he’d read, he said, “it sounds like exactly what you need.” Acamprosate (sold under the brand name Campral) was already available in France, and I asked my mother to send me some. Alcohol withdrawal triggers the release of excitatory neurotransmitters, especially glutamate, and acamprosate was thought to hold promise because it blocks glutamate receptors in the brain. I took acamprosate in accordance with the manufacturer’s directions for its use, and found that it had no effect on my symptoms.
     
    My experience with acamprosate, like that with Antabuse, turns out not to have been atypical. Later on in rehab, I learned to say, “I am a good person with a bad disease,” but lying in New York Hospital in August 1997, I felt confused by the failures of the treatments, and I was inclined to blame myself for them. Although John Schaefer buoyed my sagging spirits when he was adamant that alcoholism is a disease, not a flaw, I still could not shake a sense of shame. And it was dismaying, to say the least, to learn from John and from Elizabeth Khuri that there was no proven protocol for recovery from alcoholism. Medications, twelve-step programs, and rehab simply did not offer definite solutions either in themselves or in combination with one another. There seemed to be no way out.
    Still, I knew I was in the best hands. I had complete trust in Liz Khuri’s world-class expertise as an addiction researcher at Rockefeller University, and her warmth and compassion were an especial help during terrible times.
    “I am a good person with a bad disease.” That is exactly how Liz and John acted toward me. They always greeted me with a smile and looked me in the eye when we spoke. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with most of the other physicians I saw during this thirteen-day hospital stay, including those I knew and had a good rapport with. Although I’d try to speak to them—about my drinking, or any other topics—they resisted the contact. Certainly they never looked me in the eye, which is what they would have done had my medical problems resulted from any other form of illness. It was striking how strained their manner was. In addition, none of my close working