Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Alcoholism Management: Hypersensitization Technique

1985; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 56; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2466/pr0.1985.56.2.462

1558-691X

Vedagiri Ganesan,

Alcoholism and Thiamine Deficiency

Aversive experiences created in therapies for alcoholism management could not be fully internalized and endured by patients because the aversive agents (electric shock, antabuse, emetics) are not natural. With the use of the natural agent, alcohol, a naruralrejection-response of the human body, emesis, could be induced to hypersensitize a patient to alcohol. An alcoholic aged 62 yr., with 43 yr. of drinking history. after screening was treated with the following hypersensitization technique under medical supervision. Treatment was given in early morning after overnight starvation. During treatment the patient sac with eyes closed to help him internalize the aversive experiences. He was asked to drink a glass of water (200 ml.) slowly sipping and enjoying each sip. This was followed by two more glasses and further doses of water were mixed with increasing quantities of arrack (5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 200, 200 ml.). He drank slowly but continuously. He felt nausea at the introduction of arrack and vomited 12 times during the session of 75 min. with 11 doses. Posttreatment nausea and vomiting persisted for 36 hr. and even liquid inrake was not possible. But there was no dehydration. Aversion to alcohol induced by this treatment resulted in abstinence over 8 mo. To reduce the severity of posttreatment reactions the level of alcohol was slowly raised (10 ml. per dose) for ocher cases. Such a modification was effective when three or four sessions were given on alternate days. Each session was terminated after 12 instances of vomiting (rejection of 1500-2000 ml. of liquid). As sessions progressed onser of vomiting appeared earlier and posttreatment vomiting increased in frequency. The gradual increase in alcohol concentration and the concomminant intensification of nausea and vomiting form a strong conditioning link which sustains the rejection of alcohol. This can be referred to as the development of an experimentally induced allergy to alcohol. A typical patient after such treatment experienced nausea and vomiting on encountering a drunken mn and even the therapist. Development of this new technique was stimulated by a similar hypersensitization technique used in extinction of smoking (1). The effectiveness of these procedures with limited cases requires further confirmation with larger numbers of persons and longer periods of follow-up.