Claudia Christian: Babylon Confidential

The primitive brain is powerful. Once addicted, few of us—perhaps less than 10 percent—have the ability to use our higher cortical brain, our “willpower,” to overcome the biological cravings for food and water. The systems in the primitive brain that drive impulsive and compulsive heavy drinking in the alcoholic have become as powerful as those for the basic drives. For those individuals who can override the impulse to drink and can remain abstinent there is no need for The Sinclair Method.

It is often very difficult for non-addicts to understand addiction. One way of illustrating the overwhelming power of biology driving addiction is to imagine being out in the desert for forty-eight hours without water. The forty-eight hours now become seventy-two hours. In the distance you see a truck driving toward you. All you can think about is your thirst—a drink of water. As the truck approaches, you see that it is refrigerated and surely contains some cool, nourishing liquid. Indeed, when it arrives two people hop out and set up a table on which they place a bucket of ice and water and several types of juices and soft drinks. They now instruct you to resist: “Don’t drink,” they say. But the biological impulse to drink, to survive, overwhelms you, and of course you cannot resist the deprivation effect. This is what it is like to be an alcoholic—or an amphetamine addict, a cocaine addict, or even someone suffering from non-substance addictions like gambling. 7 7 Gambling, high-risk compulsive behavior, and several other destructive behaviors are thought to be mediated via the opioid or endorphinergic system. The primitive brain takes over and you relapse.

Until the discovery of “pharmacological extinction,” which has come to be known as The Sinclair Method, alcoholism and many other substance and non-substance addictions were indeed incurable. The best you could hope for was that you would remain on the wagon as long as possible between relapses. While it is true that around 10 to 15 percent of those addicted to alcohol do manage many years of abstinence, they can never touch a single drink again. Indeed, many traditional detox and rehab centers actually inform their patients that their chances of remaining abstinent are less than 15 percent at one year.

Naltrexone changes that situation, but only when used correctly . Claudia read about TSM and the correct way in which to use the medication in The Cure for Alcoholism . The book describes the origins of Dr. David Sinclair’s thirty years of alcohol research for the National Public Health Institute in Finland and how pharmacological extinction represents a major breakthrough in addiction science.

Instead of the 85 percent failure rates associated with traditional treatments, 8 8 National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Drug Abuse, World Health Organization. TSM achieves success rates of around 80 percent. Success in TSM terms means that after treatment, individuals are biologically de-addicted . Their craving is dramatically reduced, and they are able to drink within World Health Organization safety limits—or they are able to abstain without craving alcohol.

In most cases the benefits of the treatment take about three to four months to appear. Babylon Confidential demonstrates that Claudia was a “fast responder.” But, depending on the individual, benefits may take some people up to ten or twelve months. Once patients have successfully reversed the addiction they must follow one golden rule. The Cure for Alcoholism constantly reminds them never to drink alcohol without first having taken their naltrexone (or nalmefene); otherwise they remain at risk of relearning the addiction. 9 9 50 mg is standard, but sometimes, according to reports from readers of The Cure for Alcoholism on their Internet forum www.thesinclairmethod.com , a dose of 75 mg one hour before a drinking session in a twenty-four-hour period is required.

Despite more than ninety clinical trials—many of them conducted to the gold standard of clinical research (double-blind and placebo-controlled)—most doctors have not yet heard about naltrexone and its efficacy in treating alcohol addiction. Unless a medication is covered by a patent, there is no financial incentive to spend the hundreds of millions required to market a new medication. Unfortunately, when a doctor has heard about naltrexone but prescribes it according to the manufacturer’s implied directions—take a 50 mg naltrexone tablet and abstain from drinking—the result is always failure. 10 10 John H. Krystal, MD, et al., “Naltrexone in the Treatment of Alcohol Dependence,” New England Journal of Medicine , December 13, 2001. This study of 627 alcoholics in Veterans Affairs hospitals proved that naltrexone is ineffective when combined with abstinence. Fortunately, Claudia’s search led her to my book The Cure for Alcoholism , and she learned how to treat her alcoholism effectively with naltrexone by following the golden rule and not abstaining from drinking.

Alcoholism remains a stigma. Physicians, patients, and their families often mistakenly conclude that the individual is “weak” or “immoral.” Babylon Confidential bravely describes how Claudia Christian was rescued by TSM from the “monster” unconsciously arising from the super-strengthened opioid system in her primitive brain—and how after years of unnecessary suffering she has been freed of the tormenting, unrelenting imprisonment of the addiction that had become hardwired into her brain.

Tragically there are millions of people like Claudia confined to this biological prison. Since they do not know about The Sinclair Method, they remain addicted despite battling the craving and addiction as hard as they can. While their intentions may be noble, mere conscious knowledge of the dangers of compulsive, uncontrolled drinking makes no difference, and most unwillingly relapse back to heavy drinking.

One study conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden confirmed that naltrexone also attenuates amphetamine addiction. This is a most convincing and groundbreaking study, proving that naltrexone cuts craving and significantly reduces amphetamine abuse by blocking the reinforcement coming from the amphetamine. It was conducted by Nitya Jayaram-Lindström and a team headed by Johan Franck in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. 11 11 Nitya Jayaram-Lindström et al., “An Open Clinical Trial of Naltrexone for Amphetamine Dependence: Compliance and Tolerability,” Nordic Journal of Psychiatry (59 (3): 167–171, 2005). , 12 12 Nitya Jayaram-Lindström et al., “Naltrexone for the Treatment of Amphetamine Dependence: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial” (2007, submitted). , 13 13 Nitya Jayaram-Lindström, “Evaluation of Naltrexone as a Treatment for Amphetamine Dependence,” a dissertation from Karolinska University Hospital, presented Dec. 18, 2007. After tests with volunteers and a compliance test with amphetamine addicts, a twelve-week randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial showed that naltrexone eventually reduced addicts’ craving and produced fewer urine positives for amphetamine. Jayaram-Lindström points out that there are an estimated 35 million amphetamine abusers worldwide—more than the total number of heroin and cocaine abusers combined. In its final phase the study used a double-blind, placebo-controlled design and obtained results showing that naltrexone was effective in treating amphetamine addiction. Just think about the wonderful implications of pharmacological extinction for the millions in the grip of amphetamine and methamphetamine addiction.