Can Naltrexone fix alcoholism I mean really a medication can you fix alcoholism with a pill
how about opiate addiction can you can you use Naltrexone to fix opioid addiction
well the answer to that is maybe sort of kind of
and if you want to find out how all that works then you're in the right place
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naltrexone I'm going to tell you what it does in a second but I do want you
to know it comes in two forms you can take it as like a medicine like a pill
or you can take it in a once a month injection and there are pros and cons of doing it either
way the pros of taking it in pill form it's a lot easier to get that way and a lot less
the pros of taking it and then once a month injection are kind of obvious right
you only have to do it once a month you don't have to remember to do it
you don't have to keep doing it over and over you've done it it's done it's there for
at least a month but it is a little bit more difficult to get ahold of
you have to have a special prescription and they have to ship it from like the special
pharmacy in Florida but it's definitely doable so let's talk about what it does
what naltrexone does is it by it's a medication it binds to
endorphin receptors in your brain which essentially blocks those receptors
now these are the same receptors that an opioid acts on you know like a pain pill or
heroin so if you're taking Naltrexone or if you are taking Vivitrol
and you try to use pain pills or heroin it's going to block the effects of that
drug meaning you can't get high from that drug when you're on naltrexone or Vivitrol
so it's used sort of like as a deterrent because if
you're not going to get high it's not going to do anything to you
you're not going to waste your money on it because anybody knows anything about opioid
addiction knows it is ridiculous expensive to get a hold of that stuff so it can be very helpful
here's how I think it helps I think it helps because especially if you do the
once a month injection then you only have to make that decision once a month you have
to make the decision to be clean and sober once a month you don't have to make 450000
times a day so in my mind it can make staying sober from pain pills and heroin much easier
you don't have to do the will I won't I will I have some cash in my pocket
well I think I can get by with it or just this one time it kind of
it can really go a long way to alleviate all of that internal dialogue that makes getting sober so
doggone difficult now there are some cons to taking naltrexone or Vivitrol for opioid addiction
the cons our research does show that there's a slightly increased risk of
overdose associated with this medicine before you freak out let me tell you why it's not because the
medicine itself overdoses you it is because a lot of people when they finally come off of the
medicine or they stopped getting their Vivitrol and naltrexone or whatever they go back out there
and they use but they use the same amount that they used before they ever started taking it
and they're not taking into consideration like their tolerance
and so because of that it's kind of like they go back out there and they
they put a ton of opioid in their system and it overdoses them that's where the increased
risk comes from and there's also sort of one other common version of that that can happen
and that's somebody that's on this medication could be so desperate to get high that they take
so much of the medicine just thinking if I take more it's going to work
that they can end themselves getting in trouble that way all that being said I'm not a doctor I
don't prescribe medicines I can't tell you what to take and what not to take
but what I can tell you is I have had many clients use this and opioid addiction pretty successfully
now you definitely got to be in a situation where you're really trying to fix this
right if you're in that situation then talk to your doctor about it it might
be a good option for you now let's move on to using naltrexone to help with alcoholism
in the case of alcoholism it is slightly more complicated
and the reason is is because alcohol actually acts on
five different neurotransmitters in your brain endorphins is only one of those neurotransmitters
so just like in the other incidents what it does is it blocks the endorphins so if you are taking
this medication and you drink alcohol with it it will block partially the effects of the alcohol
because it's blocking those endorphins however it doesn't block the entire effect of alcohol
so clients that I have had on this medication will say something like well
it can kind of make it less fun than it used to be
now one of two things can happen if you're trying to go that route you're either going to think I'm
just not trying hard enough and drink a lot more because you want to feel the way you want to feel
you want to get that buzz in that case medication is not very helpful or you're going to think man
this isn't that much fun anymore and you might drink less so a lot of people use this medication
to help prevent binge drinking now when it comes to taking naltrexone for opioid use disorder
is a pretty clear like it blocks it when it comes to taking it to help with alcoholism
it's like a partial thing right it it blocks one of the things but not all of the things
so it doesn't block all those effects so you're going to see
mixed results with this there is actually a whole recovery model
built around the idea of taking naltrexone for alcoholism it is called the Sinclair method
and so in this method people actually take the medicine before they drink
so they're not taking it trying not to drink they're taking it trying not to drink as much
and I gotta say I'm a little mixed on it if you want to know how I feel about the Sinclair method
then I will link up my video on that for you at the end of this
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