The End of My Addiction

laboratory animals.
    From the first day, my muscular tension and nervous anxiety began to subside and my sleep became more restful. If I took an extra 20–40 milligrams of baclofen when I experienced the first desire for alcohol, I only had to struggle with intense craving for about an hour before it subsided, without soon recurring strongly as it always had in the past.
    The additional 20–40 milligrams of baclofen induced a state of deep relaxation followed by somnolence, which left me clearheaded. This was completely different from the mental fogginess induced by benzos like Valium. Even when I dropped off to sleep, I awoke feeling mentally sharp. (Based on my experience, cognitive enhancement is one of the characteristics of baclofen that deserves thorough study. Even when baclofen made me somnolent, I was struck by how clear my mind was. There were no interfering “parasite” thoughts, which usually invade and preoccupy the mind almost constantly in addiction.)
    During the deep relaxation phase, I found that I could use the craving-coping skills taught in AA and CBT as I never could before. Baclofen enabled a thought process to intervene between craving and the compulsion to drink.
    By Wednesday, February 11, I had reached 250 milligrams of baclofen a day. My friend Rebecca had convinced me to drive with her family to Megève, in the mountains, and we left early that afternoon. I loved her family, and was always happiest in the mountains; still, I was wary. A resort town would flood me with drinking stimuli, especially the sight of people relaxing with alcohol in the evenings. But I figured that if I avoided drinking places as much as possible, I would be fine.
    At dinner on the first evening, Rebecca and her husband ordered wine for themselves and their daughters. No one drank more than a glass or two, I stuck to mineral water, and there was still a little wine in the bottle when we left the table.
    Over the following days I took long hikes, sometimes alone and sometimes with others in the group. The mountain vistas and frequent fresh snow were exhilarating. I thought of skiing, but decided not to risk an injury that might interrupt my baclofen protocol.
    On Saturday, February 14, thirty-seven days into the protocol, I reached a dose of 270 milligrams a day, nine times the amount that Giovanni Addolorato was using in his trials of baclofen to reduce alcoholics’ craving. Rebecca wanted me to go with her that afternoon for tea at Le Lodge Park Hotel, the fanciest place in Megève. The hotel had a spacious bar and lounge area that was famous for people-watching as well as for the breathtaking views outside every window. I was apprehensive about seeing people drinking there, but I agreed to go.
    We arrived around five o’clock, when there was still a little light to catch the splendid scenery. We found a table, and I picked up copies of Le Monde and the International Herald Tribune . I read the two newspapers religiously every day, but I also thought they would be a useful distraction from looking at people drinking.
    We ordered tea, Rebecca settled into some people-watching, and I began reading. After five or ten minutes, I glanced up from the newspaper. I saw a man in an armchair to my right drinking a glass of something dark—whisky or cognac, I assumed—and felt neutral. I looked back down at the paper for another minute or two, before this neutral feeling registered consciously.
    “That’s interesting,” I thought.
    I looked up again at the man in the armchair. He had been joined by a couple of friends and they were lifting glasses to each other in a toast. Again I felt neutral. In the years since the onset of my alcoholism, this had never happened. In five weeks, baclofen had made it happen.
    Sweeping my eyes around the room, I dared to look at the bar with its gleaming bottles. They no longer called to me, as they had for so long. I saw people drinking various things: coffee and tea, soft drinks, beer, champagne, hard liquor. No alcohol thoughts came to mind; no craving for alcohol troubled me.
    I thought, “I am in a fairy tale or a dream. In a moment the spell will break, and I will wake up to the horror of needing a drink.”
    I didn’t.
    Half an hour later, after Rebecca and I finished our tea, we went to meet her family for dinner. The spell didn’t break; the dream didn’t end. That evening, for the first time since my alcoholism began, I had no craving for alcohol.
    We spent three more