-
Asked by Ignacio de Bonito to Lauren, katy, Anais on 14 Mar 2016.
-
Lauren Laing answered on 14 Mar 2016:
Great question!! I don’t actually study drug addiction, but I can give your question a go. Obviously the ultimate goal for patients who are addicted to any drug, be it alcohol, heroin etc, is to become free from dependence. This means, that they do not need any form of treatment to prevent themselves from taking the drug. However, it is a long process to treat addictions, and the methods that work best depend on the person. Methods include treatments like counselling and cognitive behavioral therapy (this is a form of psychotherapy: It works to solve current problems and change unhelpful thinking and behavior).
Specialized medications to treat substance abuse and addiction are also already available. One example is: Disulfiram (Antabuse)- This medicine is used to treat alcohol abuse. It was designed to provide users with unpleasant effects when they drink alcohol.
Another example is: Naltrexone (ReVia)- This medicine is also used to treat alcohol dependence. It is also thought to reduce the response to alcohol.
Methadone: is used in the treatment of morphine and heroin addiction. This is a powerful synthetic painkiller drug which is similar to morphine in its effects but less sedative and is used as a substitute drug.
-
-
Katy Kellett answered on 14 Mar 2016:
As Lauren said there are a few that help already, but I don’t think there will ever be one that works for all drugs. This is because all drugs work very differently so addiction needs to be treated on a drug by drug bases.
Usually when people are given drugs to help addiction it is just to help the side effects of addiction, this way people will find it easier to quit. most people that relapse do because coming off the drugs is more painful then being on them. they just need to push through the pain to become clean, which can be very hard.
-
Anais Kahve answered on 14 Mar 2016:
Hi Ignacio, scientists are trying to develop effective medicines to help people who are addicted to drugs. Like the other scientists have said, there must be different medicines for different drugs. Some drugs make you physically dependent on them and other drugs make you psychologically dependent on them. These effects mean that you need different types of drugs and therapies to treat addiction. People are who are addicted to alcohol can be both physically and psychologically dependent. Antabuse was first used to make the feeling of being hungover (the feeling you get after you have been drinking too much alcohol) feel even worse. But Antabuse is no longer used because it is thought to be unethical to do this.
Comments