How's your Hang?

Hi guys, just been reading an interesting article in Monday's Metro.

Don't know if anyone read it but it is about a leading US Cardiologist Dr Olivier Ameisen who apparently spent a decade addicted to alcohol.
He told the reporter that "Blackouts soon became very common during my binges and eventually I started losing whole evenings. Sometimes I would call a friend at 3am and forget I did it. I would see them a few weeks later and they would tell me about our conversation but I had no recollection of it." Dr Ameisen then goes on to talk about the injuries that started happening to him on nights out including one time when he found himself in a taxi with blood streaming down his face - he says "I had no idea how I did it."

Dr Ameisen says in the article that there was no predisposition for alcoholism in his family. He spent 8 years attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and he even went to rehab (10 times), tried yoga, hypnotherapy and acupuncture to try and beat his addiction.

It was then that he tried the muscle relaxant baclofen. He started self prescribing and he began to sleep better (something he never did). He says he was scared he might die in his sleep if his respiratory system relaxed too much but he kept taking the stuff (he actually increased his dosages). On the increased dosages he noticed a big improvement to his alcoholism. On the low dosages he says he was getting better but was "still having blackouts." On the increased dosages he couldn't believe what happened. The baclofen stopped his craving for alcohol and relieved his anxiety. Dr Ameisen says "It was like jumping out a window and learning to fly."

Today, five years on, Dr Ameisen has significantly cut his daily dosage of the drug and hasn't relapsed to alcoholism.

Dr Ameisen is not the only member of the medical profession that talks favourably of this drug. The article in the Metro also notes the views of Dr Renaud de Beaurepaire of the Paul-Guiraud hospital at Villejuif near Paris. Dr Renaud said he prescribed baclofen to two alcoholics who "were at the end of the road. It was pretty miraculous."

The article says that experts now acknowledge Dr Ameisen's belief that alcoholism is connected to a deficiency in GHB (gamma hyrdoxbutyrate) which is like valium for the brain - it helps us to relax. A deficiency leads to anxiety and to deal with this people who are deficient in GHB may end up becoming overly dependent on alcohol.

If the drug baclofen became more widely available perhaps those with GHB deficiencies would no longer have to rely on alcohol to suppress their anxiety?