Alcohol misuse is a huge issue across the world, accounting for 4 percent of deaths and 5 percent of the burden of disease globally. It’s well-known that staying sober is the key to reducing alcohol-related harm, but unfortunately, treatments for alcoholism are limited in their effectiveness, and people often relapse after only a short time.
Over the last decade, there has been growing interest in the use of the dissociative anesthetic and scheduled drug, ketamine, to treat alcohol addiction. It’s traditionally used to induce and maintain surgical anaesthesia, but can legally be used off-label —sometimes in conjunction with psychotherapy — in the hope of sustaining abstinence for longer.
The Relationship Between Ketamine and Alcohol
Clinics across the globe are offering ketamine infusions designed to help patients overcome addiction, and reduce the symptoms of psychiatric disorders. It’s making a controversial treatment choice, partly because this drug is commonly abused by recreational users — it holds the ability to make people feel dreamlike and detached, as well as relaxed and euphoric.
The UK’s first publicly accessible ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clinic — Awakn — opened in Bristol recently. Grounded in medicine, it’s run by trained professionals including a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist and several research scientists. For a charge of around $8,300, patients participate in a course of nine psychotherapy sessions, with three incorporating low-dose ketamine infusions to boost the healing power of the therapy.
