Alcoholism

Several medications may help improve treatment of alcoholic patients. Medications that effectively and specifically reverse symptoms of alcohol intoxication or coma currently are lacking. Benzodiazepines remain the most effective medications for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal and for the prevention of withdrawal seizures and delirium, even though the adrenergic agents clonidine or atenolol may hasten resolution of withdrawal symptoms and facilitate outpatient detoxification. Psychosocial rehabilitation of alcoholics may be improved by judicious addition of the alcohol-sensitizing agents disulfiram and carbimide, the serotonergic drugs fluoxetine and buspirone, the opiate antagonist naltrexone, and, for primarily depressed alcoholics, tricyclic antidepressants. As in psychosocial alcohol rehabilitation, patient-treatment matching may improve results of pharmacotherapeutic intervention.