What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
alcohol? I ask because the wife of a co-worker is severally alcoholic.
She can't stay sober for more than a few days at a time, then drinks for
many days. When she drinks, she turns violent, forcing her husband to
move out. She is currently sober and relatively stable, and her husband
ate dinner with her last night, but I would like to get her anti craving
medicines before she drinks again and again alienates her husband!!!!!

On Feb 2, 7:38*pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> alcohol? *

I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
Jimbo

Tim Bruening <tsbrueni@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> alcohol? I ask because the wife of a co-worker is severally alcoholic.
> She can't stay sober for more than a few days at a time, then drinks for
> many days. When she drinks, she turns violent, forcing her husband to
> move out. She is currently sober and relatively stable, and her husband
> ate dinner with her last night, but I would like to get her anti craving
> medicines before she drinks again and again alienates her husband!!!!!

That's for medical people to decide. In the meantime, she may have to go to
rehab. At minimum, she should begin going to AA meetings and her husband to
Alanon.

The catch: if she doesn't want help there is no way she's going to get it.
Trying to coax or make her do something about her drinking is a waste of
time.

Please feel free to ask more questions. And good luck.

jimbo wrote:

> On Feb 2, 7:38 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> > alcohol?
>
> I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
> of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
> Jimbo

How then do you resist the urge to drink?

jimbo wrote:

> On Feb 2, 7:38 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> > alcohol?
>
> I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
> of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
> Jimbo

I recently read a report in the August 16, 2004 edition of Medical News
Today (www.medicalnewstoday.com) about a drug called Topiramate that can
reduce drinking, alcohol cravings, and the symptoms of alcohol withdraw.
This finding is corroberated by cooresponding decreases in serum
gamma-glutamyl transferase levels, a biological marker of heavy drinking.

On Feb 3, 7:20*am, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> How then do you resist the urge to drink?

I applied the principles contained in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous and the obsession was removed.
Jimbo

Tim Bruening <tsbrueni@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> jimbo wrote:
>
> > On Feb 2, 7:38 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > > What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> > > alcohol?
> >
> > I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
> > of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
> > Jimbo
>
> How then do you resist the urge to drink?

You go to AA.

Tim Bruening wrote:
>
> jimbo wrote:
>
>> On Feb 2, 7:38 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>>> What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
>>> alcohol?
>> I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
>> of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
>> Jimbo
>
> How then do you resist the urge to drink?
>

I couldn't - at least not for very long. That was until I began working
a program in AA.

AA taught me to draw strength from my higher power in order to avoid
that first drink. By staying sober for more than a few days to a few
weeks at a time I continued working the steps and developed a new
perspective on myself - a perspective that meant I could look at myself
in the mirror without loathing. Once I became comfortable with who I
was, avoiding the first drink became a lot less difficult.

I will offer to you a perspective you may not have considered. If your
friend's wife is an alcoholic she is not drinking for the same reasons
as you or most other social drinkers. Most people drink because they
like the way it makes them feel, alcoholics drink because they don't
like the way they feel when they are not drinking.

Slogans won't change that, nor will medications.

If AA isn't her cup of tea, she could try Rational Recovery which
utilizes "Addictive Voice Recognition Technique" in order to stave off
cravings. The only caveat with RR is to try and avoid the anger that
the program is darned near built upon. While reading the small book I
get the impression that RR sobriety is more a case of staying sober 'at'
AA rather than being sober to better one's life.

In the end, however, it boils down to whether or not she 'wants' to quit
drinking. If not, nothing you (or even your friend) can do to get her
to stop.

Good Luck

In news:47A5B277.1F6C1119@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us,
Tim Bruening <tsbrueni@pop.> typed:lugubriously

>> I recently read a report in the August 16, 2004 edition of Medical
> News Today (www.medicalnewstoday.com) about a drug called Topiramate
> that can reduce drinking, alcohol cravings, and the symptoms of
> alcohol withdraw. This finding is corroberated by cooresponding
> decreases in serum gamma-glutamyl transferase levels, a biological
> marker of heavy drinking. +

Tim hello and welcome, stick around for a while as there are a few threads
here and there that might give you some situational stories of what some of
'us' went through and what we thought at the time/

By the way, your name is familiar, from security or somewhere, I forget :-)

If or when a person is drinking to excess or abusively or tends to binge....
they may or may not clean their act up in time - or have an awakening of
sorts, however stark or rude. For some of us it was DUI, jail,
homelessness, jobless, penury and poverty, illness and in some cases death.

A jolly good drinker of the hail fellow well met type, may escape this
obsession for years and years. I view it as a line in the middle of my
path. I skeeter to the left (In the US its the Right) for years. Because
of my personality- my weakness- whatever, I crossed that invisible line.
Thing is in all the years I've been doing this,m I firmly believe that once
that imaginary line has been crossed, you just cannot recross it back to
normal drinking.

PS these are my words and my opinion and although there are medical and
psychological findings to back these theories up - we alcoholics will
convince ourselves that ONE DAY we well be like normal drinkers - UNTIL we
accept that we are powerless over the demons within, in my case, alcohol.

Cheers
Tommy

Biljo White wrote:

> Tim Bruening <tsbrueni@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > jimbo wrote:
> >
> > > On Feb 2, 7:38 pm, Tim Bruening <tsbru...@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> > > > What medications, if any, do you take to reduce your cravings for
> > > > alcohol?
> > >
> > > I've never taken a medication to reduce craving nor have I ever heard
> > > of one that works. Her best best would be to consult a physician.
> > > Jimbo
> >
> > How then do you resist the urge to drink?
>
> You go to AA.

My co-worker's wife is now going there, several days a week, early in the
morning.