When do you consider using disulfiram in patients with alcohol use disorder?

Yes, there is a select population who benefit greatly from Antabuse: motivated professionals, monitoring programs for impaired professionals, and court-mandated cases.

Informed consent would include complete disclosure related to dietary limitations/risks for severe drug interaction up to 2 weeks po...

I love Antabuse, I’m a hero with Antabuse. There is no other treatment in medicine like it. It’s aversion therapy. If you take it, nothing happens. If you drink on it, you get really sick. Amazing if you think about it.

I’ve been prescribing Antabuse since 1986. I tell patients, if they’re serious a...

I have prescribed disulfiram for thousands of patients as part of an addiction IOP program. It works best when given under supervision. We used to have patients taking their disulfiram at the beginning of each daily group activity. The dose does not need to be higher: 125 mg/day is enough, or 250 mg...

I chose to answer in addition to the already excellent responses because I wanted to add a few practical observations from my own clinical experience that may be helpful.

Personally, I use disulfiram selectively and generally reserve it for carefully chosen patients in structured recovery environment...

I guess I must be the odd one out in this success group...

I have prescribed it to only a select few, since most do not want to take it when they hear about the aversive reaction.

The ones that did get the prescription, I suspect, took it for a few days initially but stopped completely at some point...

I chose to answer in addition to the already excellent responses because I wanted to add a few practical observations from my own clinical experience that may be helpful.

Personally, I use disulfiram selectively and generally reserve it for carefully chosen patients in structured recovery environmen...

Alcoholism and all addictions are compulsive behaviors with a clear psychological mechanism. It's important to deal with medical/social emergencies, but treating an addiction without making the psychology that underlies it the primary treatment focus, is neglect. AA has an overall success rate of be...

I’m a big fan of Antabuse for patients who are using it as part of a bigger system (therapy, AA, etc.) for alcohol abstinence/reduction. When used as a deterrent to prevent people from drinking (in patients willing to take it, who usually quickly learn the consequences of drinking on it), it can be ...