A drug that cures alcoholism may be the next anti-anxiety medication
There is absolutely no sense in which antabuse &quot;cures alcoholism&quot;, I really can&#x27;t think of a worse way to put that. All it does is cause a violent physical reaction when alcohol is consumed.<p>Alcoholism is an umbrella term for 2 co-occurring disorders, one physical and one mental. On the physical side, alcohol produces an allergy which manifests as an intense physical craving for more alcohol - craving in the sense of a physiological need, which the alcoholic experiences on equal footing as a need for food, water or oxygen. The mental side of things (often referred to in AA as a spiritual ailment) is a sort of compulsive disorder in which the alcoholic becomes absolutely obsessed with proving to himself and others that he can &quot;drink normally&quot;. The obsession is why the first drink is taken and the allergy is why it will never be enough.<p>Now, the allergy is relieved immediately by removing the allergen, say by going to rehab or drying out at home, but as anyone who has spent any time at all around one of us knows, this purely physical &quot;sobriety&quot; is usually short lived if the mental obsession is left untreated. The proposition of antabuse is basically identical. Everyone I&#x27;ve ever known who took antabuse simply stopped X days ahead of a relapse. It is completely useless.<p>As for whether or not it alleviates anxiety in rodents, I will leave that to the people who are studying it.