"Ameisen was, from the outside, a wildly successful man. He had a private practice in Manhattan, had been awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his work and, to top it all, was a brilliant pianist. But the physician was also helplessly addicted to alcohol and regularly hospitalized after binges. Like Blaise, every single treatment had failed him."
"His situation was desperate, but a thought kept nagging him. After reading a New York Times article describing how Baclofen eased the muscle spams of a cocaine addict, he developed a hunch that the drug – a relaxant typically used to treat patients with multiple sclerosis – might help him.
"With nothing left to lose, he decided to turn himself into a guinea pig, reasoning that it was “more dignified to die during my own clinical experiment than it was to die of alcoholism”. In 2004, he started taking small, and then increasing doses of the drug. He was astonished when, a few weeks in, his cravings disappeared. He simply had no desire for a glass of wine any more."
"His situation was desperate, but a thought kept nagging him. After reading a New York Times article describing how Baclofen eased the muscle spams of a cocaine addict, he developed a hunch that the drug – a relaxant typically used to treat patients with multiple sclerosis – might help him.
"With nothing left to lose, he decided to turn himself into a guinea pig, reasoning that it was “more dignified to die during my own clinical experiment than it was to die of alcoholism”. In 2004, he started taking small, and then increasing doses of the drug. He was astonished when, a few weeks in, his cravings disappeared. He simply had no desire for a glass of wine any more."