From Wikipedia: “Disulfiram does not reduce alcohol cravings, so a major problem associated with this drug is extremely poor compliance. Methods to improve compliance include subdermal implants, which release the drug continuously over a period of up to 12 weeks, and supervised administration practices, for example, having the drug regularly administered by one’s spouse.”
My guess is that for a strategy like this to work better, you’d need the pain to come right away, strong enough to build an immediate association between alcohol and suffering. Instead, “about 5 to 10 minutes after alcohol intake, the patient may experience the effects of a severe hangover for a period of 30 minutes up to several hours.” By contrast, here’s how one Reddit user describes alcohol cravings:
It isn’t so much a thirst like for water after a long run, it is more like a thirst for the body buzz and mental clarity that comes with drinking. You cannot enjoy any activity until you have that drink in you, and once you do, ON THE FIRST SIP, your body finally releases you from the tenseness and uncertainty you’ve been feeling all day. It is an indescribable release.
Note that the effect is immediate and intensely pleasurable. Yet alcohol only reaches the brain 5 minutes after consumption, and only takes effect 10 minutes after consumption. So there’s something psychological, not just chemical, going on here. I’m skeptical that a delayed-onset pain that’s potentially not even shifting the same motivational mechanism that caused the cravings would be effective.
The fact that people self-harm, despite the fact that the pain must be immediate and intense, should be at least some evidence against the idea that strategies like this would work. My money is on the idea that disulfiram’s apparent effectiveness when taken is mainly a third variable problem. People who take it are likely to be highly organized or highly motivated to quit.
The same psychological mechanisms that transfer the positive effects of alcohol “forward in time” from the delayed physiological effects to the first sip should also work for the disulfiram hangover. And precommitment is a psychologically powerful effect. Pigeons will reliable learn to hit a button that disables another button providing a small short-term reward so that they can later hit the button providing a larger reward.
Taking a disulfiram pill in the morning because doing it yesterday resulted in you waking up feeling great today is a fairly easy psychological association to make.
Concluding that disulfiram shouldn’t work and success is all correlation seems like way too strong a conclusion. People do learn from strong longer-term contingencies even if it’s less powerful relative to consequences than short-term contingencies.
From Wikipedia: “Disulfiram does not reduce alcohol cravings, so a major problem associated with this drug is extremely poor compliance. Methods to improve compliance include subdermal implants, which release the drug continuously over a period of up to 12 weeks, and supervised administration practices, for example, having the drug regularly administered by one’s spouse.”
My guess is that for a strategy like this to work better, you’d need the pain to come right away, strong enough to build an immediate association between alcohol and suffering. Instead, “about 5 to 10 minutes after alcohol intake, the patient may experience the effects of a severe hangover for a period of 30 minutes up to several hours.” By contrast, here’s how one Reddit user describes alcohol cravings:
Note that the effect is immediate and intensely pleasurable. Yet alcohol only reaches the brain 5 minutes after consumption, and only takes effect 10 minutes after consumption. So there’s something psychological, not just chemical, going on here. I’m skeptical that a delayed-onset pain that’s potentially not even shifting the same motivational mechanism that caused the cravings would be effective.
The fact that people self-harm, despite the fact that the pain must be immediate and intense, should be at least some evidence against the idea that strategies like this would work. My money is on the idea that disulfiram’s apparent effectiveness when taken is mainly a third variable problem. People who take it are likely to be highly organized or highly motivated to quit.
The same psychological mechanisms that transfer the positive effects of alcohol “forward in time” from the delayed physiological effects to the first sip should also work for the disulfiram hangover. And precommitment is a psychologically powerful effect. Pigeons will reliable learn to hit a button that disables another button providing a small short-term reward so that they can later hit the button providing a larger reward.
Taking a disulfiram pill in the morning because doing it yesterday resulted in you waking up feeling great today is a fairly easy psychological association to make.
Concluding that disulfiram shouldn’t work and success is all correlation seems like way too strong a conclusion. People do learn from strong longer-term contingencies even if it’s less powerful relative to consequences than short-term contingencies.