The End of My Addiction
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"After years of battling uncontrollable addiction, I have achieved the supposedly impossible: complete freedom from craving."Dr. Olivier Ameisen was a brilliant cardiologist on the staff at one of America’s top teaching hospitals and running his own successful practice when he developed a profound addiction to alcohol. He broke bones with no memory of falling; he nearly lost his kidneys; he almost died from massive seizures during acute withdrawal. He gave up his flourishing practice and, fearing for his life, immersed himself in Alcoholics Anonymous, rehab, therapy, and a variety of medications. Nothing worked.So he did the only thing he could: he took his treatment into his own hands. Searching for a cure for his deadly disease, he happened upon baclofen, a muscle relaxant that had been used safely for years as a treatment for various types of muscle spasticity, but had more recently shown promising results in studies with laboratory animals addicted to a wide variety of substances. Dr. Ameisen prescribed himself the drug and experimented with increasingly higher dosages until he finally reached a level high enough to leave him free of any craving for alcohol. That was more than five years ago.Alcoholism claims three hundred lives per day in the United States alone; one in four U.S. deaths is attributable to alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs. Baclofen, as prescribed under a doctor’s care, could possibly free many addicts from tragic and debilitating illness. But as long as the medical and research establishments continue to ignore a cure for one of the most deadly diseases in the world, we won’t be able to understand baclofen’s full addiction-treatment potential.The End of My Addiction is both a memoir of Dr. Ameisen’s own struggle and a groundbreaking call to action—an urgent plea for research that can rescue millions from the scourge of addiction and spare their loved ones the collateral damage of the disease. The Barnes & Noble Review In recent decades, genetic research has supplied ample evidence to support the notion that alcoholism is not a moral failing but a disease of the brain -- a point of view that has had champions since at least the 18th century. But the general public -- and, surprisingly, many doctors -- largely persist in seeing addiction as a fundamental failure of willpower. As the French cardiologist Olivier Ameisen details in The End of My Addiction, moral judgments often interfere with doctors' ability to effectively treat addiction. "Treat" is the operative word, as conventional therapies offer support for the daily struggle to maintain abstinence rather than provide a cure. A habitué of AA meetings and rehab facilities, Ameisen often complained to his physicians that if they could treat his chronic anxiety disorder, his alcoholism would be cured. After years of frustration with conventional treatment, Ameisen began experimenting on himself with the muscle relaxant baclofen, which has successfully suppressed addiction to alcoholism, cocaine, and nicotine in laboratory rats. Ameisen was able to successfully treat his alcoholism -- as well as the underlying anxiety that led to his addiction -- and published a case study in a prominent medical journal. He was largely met with resistance from the entrenched medical community (though his work was later supported by the findings of other researchers), and in response he wrote this hybrid of a book. The result is part memoir, part critique of the medical establishment and drug industry. Most important, it's an argument for wider use of baclofen, made straight to the potential patient. This book will of course interest those who have suffered from addiction -- but it will also appeal to anyone curious about the science behind addiction's life-destroying power. --Jennifer Curry
Foreword Jeffrey S. Borer Borer, Jeffrey S.1 Moment of Truth 32 A Remedy Gone Wrong 183 Under Treatment and "In Recovery" 414 Doing Great and Feeling Awful 715 Falling Down 1096 Against Medical Advice, or, The Life of Afterward 1337 Cutting Through Craving 1628 The End of Addiction? 1819 How Baclofen Works: What We Know, and Need to Know 207Appendix 233Notes 315Acknowledgments 321Index 325
