I’m kind of confused by the whole idea because I don’t understand the lack of side effects. Knocking out the brain’s learning system to cure alcoholism seems disproportionate, and I would also expect naltrexone to interfere with the ability to experience happiness (which many people seem to like).
For tablet form, a patient following the Sinclair Method takes a 50 mg tablet one hour before every drinking session.
So it seems that the method is to time the disruption of opiod reinforcement to target when the person is drinking. Side effects may therefore be limited to other activities that typically coincide with drinking.
Though this also raises the issue of meta-akrasia, wouldn’t people learn to not like taking the tablets if they don’t enjoy anything they do for the next hour?
Though this also raises the issue of meta-akrasia, wouldn’t people learn to not like taking the tablets if they don’t enjoy anything they do for the next hour?
I don’t think so. This is the same idea as in my melatonin post about making yourself go to sleep; hyperbolic discounting means you can be rational about taking the pill well in advance, even if by the time it kicks in, your preferences have changed to prefer to have not taken the pill.
(And not enjoying things isn’t the same as displeasure or pain, after all. People don’t particularly enjoy most of what they do—it’s the extremes which are unusual & rare.)
From the Wikipedia article:
So it seems that the method is to time the disruption of opiod reinforcement to target when the person is drinking. Side effects may therefore be limited to other activities that typically coincide with drinking.
Though this also raises the issue of meta-akrasia, wouldn’t people learn to not like taking the tablets if they don’t enjoy anything they do for the next hour?
I don’t think so. This is the same idea as in my melatonin post about making yourself go to sleep; hyperbolic discounting means you can be rational about taking the pill well in advance, even if by the time it kicks in, your preferences have changed to prefer to have not taken the pill.
(And not enjoying things isn’t the same as displeasure or pain, after all. People don’t particularly enjoy most of what they do—it’s the extremes which are unusual & rare.)
Does it affect the feeling of enjoyment? I suspect it won’t, because enjoyment and reward are distinct.
I wonder if this stuff can be used as a diet pill?
It’s worth noting that for many alcoholics, “start of a drinking session” means “waking up in the morning”