It has to go hand in hand with having abstinence as your treatment goal. Mason presented the study's results yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Acamprosate issold in Europe, South America, Asia and elsewhere, and more than a million people have taken it, Mason said. It is manufactured by Lipha s. a. of Lyon, France, which paid for the new study. That step, which would require federal approval, will take at least a year, she said yesterday.
Doctors already have some drugs available to maintain abstinence.
One, disulfiram, makes a user feel nauseous and otherwise sick if he or she also uses alcohol. Another medication, naltrexone, acts on brain circuitry to reduce the desire to drink. Acamprosate acts on different brain circuitry. Mason's six-month study involved 601 alcoholics who were treated at 21 medical centers. They were randomly assigned to take either acamprosate tablets or a placebo twice a day, starting two to 10 days after their last bout of excessive drinking.