Posted by pseudoname on June 25, 2006, at 10:10:13
There's a long article on the search for drugs to *cure* addiction in the New York Times Magazine today (Sunday 6/25/06).
• Complete article available free for a week at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/magazine/25addiction.html?pagewanted=print
"In 5 or 10 years, we will be treating addiction very differently," predicts Nora Volkow, a psychiatrist and the director of the institute on drug abuse. … What Volkow means is that in a decade or so, we may actually start treating addiction effectively.
* * *
[Recent] changes could lead to addiction vaccines. Several are already in development. … The vaccines, which the institute on drug abuse and others are testing, work by producing antibodies to a specific drug, binding to the drug when it enters the bloodstream and keeping it from entering the brain. An effective vaccine won't stop craving or treat any underlying pathology (making it an inadequate solution, some say), but it will make it nearly impossible for an addict to get high on that particular substance. And if it is combined with medications that could blunt craving, some addiction specialists believe that we'll stop using the word "treat" and start using the word "cure."
* * *
Science, it seems, has always been just about to save us from addiction. "But it has never lived up to its promise," says Bruce Alexander, emeritus professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, "and I don't believe the science will live up to its promise now, either. Addiction doesn't demand a scientific solution."
* * *
What do addicts think about all this focus on their brains? William C. Moyers, a recovery advocate (and the son of the journalist Bill Moyers) who for 12 years has been free of crack and alcohol, [said] "I was born with what I like to call a hole in my soul. … For us addicts," he continued, "recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot. Recovery is also about the spirit, about dealing with that hole in the soul."
poster:pseudoname
thread:661261
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20060512/msgs/661261.html