Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My brother-in-law takes Antabuse (disulfiram) because he is an alcoholic. He claims that he takes the medicine everyday and my sister has ocassionally counted the pills & it appears that the correct number of pills are missing.
However, she has caught him with a drink a couple of times. He says that the Antabuse only gives him a mild headache & a funny taste in his mouth when he drinks. The doctor & all of the paperwork say that you are supposed to get violently ill if you drink.
He just went into the hospital to detox (blood alcohol more than twice the legal limit for driving) but still insists that he had been taking the Antabuse every day while he was drinking the past few days and never threw up.
So I'm asking my online friends. Have any of you ever experienced this or heard about it first hand (drinking while on Antabuse & not getting sick)? BIL was a heavy drinker for many years could they have just given him an incorrect dose? Or maybe he just lied about taking the medication? Or is he the one in a million/ten million who can take the medication, drink and not get sick?
Ideas?
My sister said that the doctor said that he must have lied about taking the medication. But BIL must have been pretty sneaky because he didn't know that she was counting his pills.
I would like to get a little more information that I may help my extended family. Thanks.
Alcoholics can be very sneaky when it comes to partaking of booze....If you believe that just because you've counted the pills.... he's been taking them faithfully...then he's definately got YOU fooled
Last edited by purehuman; 02-08-2012 at 11:47 AM..
It's not worse germaine2626....it just is what it is....all alcoholics lie if they feel threatened....there's lots of people who say they've quit smoking too....until you're not around....and then the patch comes off.....You can bet he's not lying to you and your sis because he wants to.....he's an addict...he needs it...and right now it's probably the love of his life......sorry
My friend takes disulfiram because she is a recovering alcoholic. She has tried to drink on a few occasions while on this medication and experienced vomiting and general feeling of malaise.
The morning he went to the hospital he was disoriented, not making sense and acting "really odd" not acting drunk. My sister thought that he may have had some type of stroke. The hospital found his blood alcohol was .2 and he had not had a stroke.
But something definetly was seriously wrong as he ending up in intensive care for 10 days in a medically induced coma (or something like that that). They said that he was "having a serious detox situation". But no other answers other than that.
BTW he came home from the hospital needing to (temporarily) use a walker, wasn't supposed to drive and snuck to (drove to) the liquor store when my sister fell asleep due to exhausion.
Needless to say she (and the rest of us) are not very happy with him.
Well Germaine 2626, I have been drinking for 20 years and I pray to God I get my brain and conscience to stop this hell somehow. Honestly, I have been trying everything from group therapy to medication, and among these medications were the well known Antabus and Camprall. This was 15 years ago maybe... here I am still in the same crap, I drank with Antabus, it did nothing else than turning my face red and my heart pounding, Camprall did neither as much...just the fact that it inhibited my mood to drink but my will was stronger.
I find myself that my life s getting by and I have two wonderful kids, I am not getting any younger and I hope to be able to raise them.On top of it I am a marathon runner, that is the paradox, I am trying to get my power together and quit those 2 bottles of wine a night. And now cigarettes... I honestly don't trust that medication and I really took it everyday despite the "so supposed" effects.
Good luck to your brother in law and me...
Hello everyone,
Just wanted to add to the comments from another alcoholic's perspective. I know that in the 20 or so years i drank alcoholicly i lied, cheated, stole, denied and avoided. I did anything necessary in able to drink. I lost my home, my car and my children (now grown doing well for the most part). There was no parent, spouse, friend, lover, judge or jail cell that was strong enough to keep me from my drink. I know if i had been on antabuse i certainly would have deviated a plan to drink on or around it. Absolutely NO question. Alcoholism,although receiving more medical awareness these days is a very lonely and painfully misunderstood disease. It takes alot of (simple) work to recover. I was sober 6 years and relapsed. Now i try again.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One drink is to many....a thousand never enough
