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What's more, experts claim thousands of social drinkers are also on the verge of alcohol dependency, while a report by Cancer Research last week showed that even one glass of wine a day can increase the risk of cancer.
But is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Leading US cardiologist Dr Olivier Ameisen spent a decade addicted to alcohol but discovered a pharmaceutical drug commonly used as a muscle relaxant that 'cured' his illness. Here he tells his story.
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.
Then the injuries started happening. I have broken my shoulder, wrist and three ribs and, on one occasion, found myself in a taxi with blood streaming down my face.
I had no idea how I did it. I told the cab to take me to the hospital I worked at and one of my ex-medical students treated me.
I not only worked at the hospital but I was clinical professor at its partner institution, the Cornell University Medical College.
This wasn't good. It was embarrassing for both of us. After another blackout, I woke up attached to intravenous tubes and a urinary catheter.
My drinking stemmed from anxiety. I found parties stressful but always found them easier if I had a scotch in my hand. There was no predisposition for alcoholism in my family.
It was when I moved to New York that I started relying on alcohol. At the age of 41, I was living in a state of permanent dysphoria – the opposite of euphoria – but my doctors just told me my anxiety was caused by drinking.
They didn't understand I was drinking to help my anxiety. So I started getting drunk all weekend. I would start on Friday and finish on Sunday.
If I had patients on a Monday, I would stop on Saturday, feel terrible all day Sunday and then go into work.
If I still felt drunk, I would cancel my patients – I never worked drunk. Many doctors have alcohol dependency problems and one report in the British Medical Journal found that liver disease is higher in doctors than in the general population.
I spent the next eight years going to thousands of AA meetings. I went to rehab ten times and tried yoga, hypnotherapy and acupuncture.
Then a friend sent me an article about the effect of a muscle relaxant called baclofen on a drug addict's craving for cocaine.
I was drunk when I received it so discarded it, but a year later, I went back to it. I started self-prescribing, telling colleagues I needed it for calf twitches (which I did suffer from). I started on a low dose and steadily increased to 180mg a day.
Immediately I started sleeping better, something I never did. There are virtually no side effects, although I did worry I may die in my sleep if my respiratory system relaxed too much. I wasn't scared of death but I was scared of living with alcoholism.
I contemplated suicide but was so convinced someone would come up with a cure ten minutes after I finally did it, I never went through with it.
Eventually I went up to 270mg a day. On lower doses, although I was getting better, I was still having blackouts.
I couldn't believe what then happened – the baclofen not only stopped my craving for alcohol, it relieved my anxiety, the thing that makes so many people vulnerable to addiction.
It was like jumping out of a window and starting to fly. I went out with my friends and saw a man drinking a glass of whisky and I felt nothing.
Most alcoholics say the bottles talk to them but I felt totally detached from that drink. It was just an object.
I had a drink in a bar in Paris but didn't go back for a second. That's unheard of for alcoholics but I had no motivation to go back for another.
When I admitted my problems and subsequent findings in a 2004 medical paper, it was terrifying.
I am the first doctor to have come out and admitted their problems but I have since received many e-mails from others telling me they suffer too.
Today, five years on, I am down to 50 mg a day and I still haven't relapsed –trust me, I've tried.
Although there are now trials happening in Glasgow and Switzerland, France and the US, many doctors still refuse to believe baclofen is the cure to addiction. But it saved me and can save others. The End Of My Addiction by Dr Olivier Ameisen (Piatkus Books), £11.99
The Science: How does baclofen work?
The Science: How does baclofen work?
Experts now acknowledge Dr Ameisen's hypothesis that alcoholism is linked to a deficiency in GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), which is described as the brain's natural valium. This natural tranquilliser helps us to relax and a deficiency leads to anxiety, muscular tension, insomnia and depression.
To deal with this, people who are deficient in GHB self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and progressively become dependent.
GABA works through two receptors, GABA A and GABA B. When a person drinks alcohol it will occupy the GABA A receptor, mimicking the GABA's relaxant effect. When they stop drinking, they will feel anxious again.
When you take baclofen it stimulates the GABA B receptor, something only GHB does. Other medications will act only on the GABA A system but it seems the way to stop alcohol dependency lies with the receptor B.
London Metro Monday, March 2, 2009
