Can a Single Drug Keep Alcoholics on the Wagon and Help Junkies Through Withdrawal?
From NEWSWEEK, January 30, 1995. Copyright (c) 1995, Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Marge Catrambone had been battling alcoholism for years when she volunteered, in early 1990, to take part in an experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. The fortyish sales manager kept attending her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but for three months she also took daily doses of a drug called naltrexone. “Once I started,” she recalls, “everything turned around. It stopped my desire to drink, the craving.” Five years later, Catrambone is still sober–and the medication that helped her is gaining new stature as a weapon against addiction. Last week naltrexone’s maker announced that the Food and Drug Administration has approved it as a chemical treatment for alcoholism–the first one approved in four decades. And a few mavericks are now claiming that their own naltrexone regimen can get heroin addicts through withdrawal in a matter of hours, enabling them to start new lives the next day. Caveats
