Ray in New Orleans

Honey, that's all good and well, but the study wasn't about alcoholism; it was about binge-drinking. Not all binge-drinkers are alcoholics, even though all alcoholics are binge drinkers.

If people so inclined to get hammered can "feel drunk" without poisoning themselves that's at least worth checking into. Who knows where the science from that could lead.

I'm not seeing where you read into this that they researchers are proposing this would be an outright solution to alcoholism.

Dox

The primary downside of "binge drinking" (assuming we're not talking about extreme alcohol poisoning like the newsies get all in a twist about) is the "feeling drunk" bit. The stupid stuff people do when really drunk, like get behind the wheel. If it normally takes me 5 drinks in an hour to "feel" like I'm at .1% BAC, but I can take this pill that helps me keep myself to only 3 drinks, but I am still feeling the effects of 5 drinks, what exactly has been accomplished?

And my basic beef is with the assumption that "binge-drinkers" (any kind, but including alcoholics) drink to a certain level of drunkenness and then stop. With alcoholics, that notion is demonstrably false. With so-called binge-drinkers, I suspect it is also false a large percentage of the time. I think there are many factors that affect how much a person drinks in any one session...if people always drank up to the level of drunkenness of their choosing, we wouldn't have drunk drivers or Girls Gone Wild or any of that. I believe that by and large, most people who drink to excess, whether alcoholics or not, drink more than they intend to.

Look, if anybody is in favor of more research into treatments for alcoholism, it's me. I've suffered directly, I've suffered because of immediate family members, and every time I walk into a meeting I get to talk to more of my friends who have suffered worse than I. Hell, maybe someday the magic pill will be invented, and then I can go out and have a beer. Maybe a pill like that would have prevented the relapses and suicides I've seen.

And maybe the researchers are smarter than the article conveys. Maybe the reporter got it all wrong. But on the face of it, it doesn't sound like they know a whole lot about why people drink too much.

But then again, most normies don't.

Maybe the reporter got it all wrong

When scientific research is reported, that's almost always the case.

The thing you appear upset about – the “magic pill” factor is something you’re projecting onto the article. I don’t read anything like that implied by the article except the statement that it “might one day lead to a way to attack the binge-drinking problem.” I’m not challenging your credentials on the issue; I’m just trying to understand why you’ve got such a beef with the science. The research didn’t focus on alcoholism, but binge-drinking. It focused on 20-somethings – a demographic with which the rate of alcohol poisoning cases associated with binge-drinking is a legitimate concern. There are a few potential benefits to be found here. Let’s set the alcoholic issue aside for a moment. Consider the average guy who drinks too much, but is trying to cut back. One of the most important elements of altering any kind of intake (food, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, etc) is to eliminate the habit behavior. If you get out of the habit of sitting down and quaffing a few beers, then it helps alter the behavior and makes it easier to wean -- like smokers who use gum to quit the habit of smoking while they wean off the nicotine. I’m just not understanding where you’re making the jump between the scope of the study and the interpretation you placed on it.

I think I explained pretty well what I think is misguided about the research as portrayed in the article, so rather than repeat myself ad nauseum I'll just let it lie, and let the readers draw their own conclusions. I don't expect to convince you of anything.

Sober for nearly ten months and never thought it was possible. When I saw that article, I thought for four seconds, "Huh...maybe I'm NOT an alcoholic and just need some kudzu!"

Nice to see another sober friend.

Normal drinkers don't NEED to control their alcohol intake, be it with a pill or otherwise. To take a pill in order to halt a binge strongly suggests that the peson in question has impared control, which is one of the major symtoms of alcoholism.

In addition, there is more to alcoholism/problematic drinking than simply drinking to excess and causing physical damage. There are many pychological problems that accompany alcoholism such as complusive and obsessive behaviour, depression, paranoia, fear, to name a few. These problems are often dealt with in sobriety. To simply ' cut down' or 'stop drinking' is only a small part of the soloution.