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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

If you're an alcoholic, and your body is physically dependent on alcohol consumption, would this allow you to satisfy your physical cravings without the deleterious effects normally associated with alcohol addiction? Kind of like how a nicotine patch helps satisfy the physical addiction?

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That's exactly what benzodiazepines are for, but only for short-term taper protocols as the dependence/withdrawal profile over the long term is worse than alcohol. Medium-term can be covered by gabapentin.

I know an alcoholic who was also addicted to gabapentin. It didn't reduce his alcoholism, and even when he tried to stop drinking, he would get stoned on the gabapentin (and was largely unaware of his diminished state)

How did ozempic treat him?

>> breaks down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract without harming the body.

Likely no. This stuff will destroy the alcohol before it enters the bloodstream. So it sounds useful to stop people absorbing more alcohol (pumping the stomach situations) but won't do much for alcohol already in the blood and causing effects in the body.

Woudn't people just consume more alcohol to compensate the one destroyed by this invention? My guess is that some persons drink until they are drunk, not until they took N glasses of drinks.

No, there would be a risk of dt's, seizures, and death.

Quitting alcohol requires medical supervision for those who are deep into alcohol use disorder.

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