The 1994 approval of naltrexone by the federal Food and Drug Administration was a milestone in the treatment of alcoholism. Naltrexone is a medication that decreases the rewarding effects of drinking and reduces the craving for alcohol that often leads people to relapse. Yet despite its effectiveness for many recovering alcoholics, it does not work for everyone. If an individual does not achieve a therapeutic effect at the standard naltrexone dose of 50 milligrams per day, he or she may want to discuss a dose increase with the prescribing physician. Agonists activate a receptor to achieve their effect.
Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist.
This means that naltrexone blocks the opioid receptor from being activated but does not cause any psychoactive effects for the person taking the medicine. Naltrexone was first developed in the 1970s as a compound to block heroin and other opioid agonists from activating the receptors for opiates like heroin. In the mid-1980s, naltrexone was approved for the treatment of heroin addiction. In the late 1980s, researchers began to suspect that drinking alcohol was pleasurable because it released endogenous morphine-like molecules. Joseph R. Volpicelli, associate professor and senior scientist at the Treatment Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, was one of those original researchers.