So I'm off to the doctor today to get a naltrexone script. I've also been reading up on Campral....has anyone here tried it before? From what I read it's similar to naltrexone, and the two can even be taken at the same time for added effectiveness. I don't even know if it's available in Australia, I guess I'll have to wait and see.
This morning as I was laying in bed snoozing off my hangover, I was also considering getting a script for Antabuse while I'm at it, just in case the naltrexone doesn't work well enough to keep me from drinking. Just as a safety blanket kinda thing. I know a few people here have tried Antabuse....is it the sort of thing that I can just take as a one-off dose say, before a party or something like that, to make sure I don't drink?? Or would I need to take it every day for a few weeks (as its usually prescribed)?
N3o, bit late picking up on this, apologies. I've been avoiding the thread. I'm drinking a bit at the minute and feel like a hypocrite every time I post on it with advice, and threads elsewhere on addiction generally TBH. Stupid I know. 8)
I tried Campral ( Acamprosate ) for some months, taking 666mg three times a day, and didn't get much from it. It didn't seem to have much effect on either my cravings or my behaviours anyways. Its mechanism of action seems not to be well understood but I
think the fact I've never had what could be described as a physical dependency or anything even approaching high tolerance to alcohol may have something to do with that, IDK? Might be totally wrong on that, and it might be massively useful for you, so take this with a pinch of salt. That's just me trying to understand why my treatment with it didn't seem to work so well, and I could well be just rationalising there!
You can absolutely take it alongside the Naltrexone, and also alongside Antabuse. Those combos are commonly prescribed here in the UK at least.
As for Antabuse ( Disulfiram ): It builds up in your system over time, having a very long half life so that the level in your system stabilises over a period of days and stays in your system for a good period of days after your last dose, 4 or 5 easily, but yeah, you could certainly take it on a morning once in a while and if you drank that night it would produce a reaction. Depending how large your dose was and how much you drank that reaction could be anywhere from mildly unpleasant to really quite severe. Trouble is you won't know how long that single dose will stay active for in your system. You might be fine to drink next day, it might be a coupla days or more till you can drink without getting any reaction whatsoever.
As someone who was a bugger for manipulating the meds so I could stay safe through the week to keep me in a job but still drink on a weekend I found the length of time it remained active really variable and impossible to predict. I got caught out a few times trying to be clever with it, one time drinking too much not having dosed the previous two days ( making it nearly three since last dose ) and ending up with a reaction so bad I got the GF to call 999 and get me an ambulance convinced I was on the verge of a heart attack, if not already having one. I wouldn't recommend you take it on an as per needed basis because of that variability. I think it probably has to be all or nothing with Antabuse, the reaction is too potentially dangerous ( and massively unpleasant even when it's not ) to play around with like that but again, you might be more sensible than me with it and not so inclined to test your cleverness with it.
Good luck with the Naltrexone BTW. I'll be interested in how you get on with it. It's about the only thing I haven't tried yet to help me beat the booze.
