Blocking the Effects of Cocaine?

Science continues to discover drugs that help treat addiction, such as Vivitrol and Suboxone. Scientists are getting closer to discovering a drug that could blunt the effects of cocaine. While these drugs are useful in the treatment of addiction, it’s a mistake to think that “cures” to addiction have been found.

At some point, drugs might be developed that change a person’s DNA so that addiction is cured or prevented, but until this day comes the drugs being developed are simply tools to help recovery happen.

Recovery from addiction is based on a long term management and maintenance and personal growth. Recovery from addiction must be maintained throughout the remainder of a person’s life. There’s never a time when, say, an alcoholic is no long an alcoholic, or a cocaine addict is no longer a cocaine addict. A person in recovery can get to the point that they no longer desire to use alcohol/drugs, and being around alcohol/drugs doesn’t bother them, but this doesn’t mean that the person could start drinking or using drugs without consequences.

There’s also the problem of switching from one drug to another. Cocaine addicts often make the mistake of thinking that cocaine is the only drug they should deal with. The 10 years I worked in inpatient addiction treatment in the 80s and early 90s when cocaine was very popular I saw cocaine addicts relapse over and over because they’d either start drinking alcohol to replace the cocaine, and then develop a problem with alcohol, or they would drink alcohol and while impaired, under the influence of alcohol, make the decision to return to cocaine.

So addiction has many complications that a pill will not solve. It’s good that science is using pharmaceuticals to help deal with withdrawals and early recovery, because early withdrawal/brain adjustment and recovery from cocaine are very difficult, but recovery is much more that getting clean and stabilizing — there’s a rebuilding phase, and then there’s lifelong maintenance. I don’t see much success in recovery for those who seek the easy short-cuts.