One Little Pill (2014) - full transcript

- All right, I think it's recording now.

It's been over an hour.

Get this started I guess.

Got.

I actually bought a shotglass.

Normally I just drink out
of the bottle, it's...

To the Sinclair method, bottoms up.

^- The World
Health Organization says

^that alcohol abuse kills more than three

million people every year.

- And a new study in the
British medical journal, Lancet,



has determined alcohol
as a more dangerous drug

than both crack and heroin.

- Alcohol abuse is the third leading cause

of death and disability in the world.

- It's actually
more dangerous than heroin.

- Nearly 18 million Americans struggle with

alcohol abuse or dependency every day.

- It rips lives apart,
it ruins relationships.

- Alcoholism will kill me before HIV does.

- Is there a cure for this addiction?

- With us today is Claudia Christian,

star of the sci-fi hit Babylon 5.

Claudia succumbed to alcoholism,

and after various forms of treatment,



she found one that saved her,

it's called the Sinclair method.

- You take the opiate
blocker an hour before

you have your first drink of the day,

and eventually you just drink less and less

and less and less and less.

- Why isn't this widely known?

- You can't touch it man,
because by the nature of touching

it, you're activating the
very thing that's killing you.

- It's dead easy,
and it's counterintuitive.

- It's not something we're
taught, like in medical school.

- The recovery
industry is very afraid

of people having that option.

- Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,

unless you could do something to change

what's happened,
but that's the other story.

- If science
revealed that what we know

about alcoholism and
its treatment was wrong,

that you could save someone's
life with a simple medication,

wouldn't you share it?

^

- I've always been a drinker.

I'm a binge drinker,
where I go weeks without thinking

^about it, but then I get
an overwhelming craving to

^start drinking.

^And I really isolate myself, and I just

completely wreck myself
for three or four days,

^where I do nothing but drink.

^- I can see the look in his eye,

^and it's that appearance that
all logic goes out the window.

- And you just sit and wonder,

how did it happen again?

How did you let it happen again?

And then you think of all the
things you gotta clean up.

And...

The fear and panic just ravages, it just,

you can't stop it.

^

^- It's extremely difficult to
find yourself in this business

^that you love, and that, for me,

^you know I work all day in a winery,

I love what I do, it's
fascinating, it's creative,

it's science, it's getting my hands dirty.

I could drink a bottle and a
half of wine in an evening,

and that was probably six
out of seven nights a week.

I knew it was getting out of control,

but I wasn't able to stop.

Coming to a point where
you find you have a problem

with this thing that you create,

with this thing that you really love.

Here I am in my mid-40s, I've had

a good amount of success with what I do,

I feel that I do it well, and damn it, I,

I may have to leave this, you know,

that just, it crushed me.

You know I had plans to
not be around a lot longer.

And um...

^- There are a lot of people in here

^trying hard to stay clean, Iris.

^I think you owe it to
them to tell me the truth.

^If you're using, I want you to leave.

Right now.

- When the alcoholism struck, it crept in.

^It changed from light, to social,

^to moderate, to heavy,

to abstinence, to binger.

The binges became worse,

and became more difficult to recover from.

There was a slice of Claudia
way in the back of the brain

that was saying,
what the hell are you doing?

But that voice was so small,

and the addict voice was so loud.

That's the absolutely
terrifying thing about it.

There is somebody that gets
you up at six in the morning,

and puts you in your car to go buy alcohol.

Who is that person?

It wasn't me.

It sounds absolutely
heinous, and it is but,

you basically take the
first drink of the day,

throw it up,
and then the next one stays down.

I tried everything,
I tried hypnotherapy, I tried rehab,

I tried AA in two countries
and 15 different meetings.

I tried moderation,
I tried white-knuckling it.

I tried tapering, I tried everything.

And thank God I found what I found,

and now I can help other people.

I'm doing this because I
wish that somebody would have

done it when I was searching for an answer

for my alcohol problem.

I don't want them to have to
go through years of suffering.

Needlessly, I mean, it's needless.

^ When I was searching for
help for my own problem,

I finally came across an American scientist

who has been recruited
by the foremost facility

in aclohol research, in Helsinki, Finland.

For over 30 years, Doctor David Sinclair

researched alcoholism, and discovered

something astonishing
about alcohol cravings.

^We've been taught the wrong thing!

^- It turns out that the,
the desire for alcohol

^increases every day that a
rat, or a monkey,

or a person, is deprived of alcohol.

The craving goes up and up and up,

and it doesn't go down.

We had rats that had been
dependent upon alcohol,

we took them through detox and then

two weeks or months without alcohol.

And it did not take away the craving.

Not only did it fail to
work, it was backwards.

It made the craving be 10 times worse!

This meant that the theory of alcoholism

being alcohol dependence, was wrong.

It also meant the treatment was wrong.

And all this effort that has
been put into detoxification

and detention, is counterproductive.

It's making people worse.

^- Sinclair applied this, he thought,

^ "How could I get inside the brain?"

Because when people drink alcohol,

there's a release of endorphins,
the body's own morphine,

which is reinforcing the system.

- The endorphins don't do
anything to most of the brain.

But to synapses,
pathways that have just been used,

they make them stronger.

The endorphin system is
a shortcut for learning.

When alcoholism is being learned,

you have a strengthening of the pathways.

Each time the drink occurs,
the endorphins are released,

and they make pathways stronger.

They get a great deal of reinforcement.

- To prevent reinforcement,
you can use a medication

called Naltrexone,
which is like a key fitting into a lock,

so that the body's own opiates,
endorphins, just bounce off,

so there is no reinforcement to the system.

The neural pathways become weaker each time

there is drinking on Naltrexone.

It goes back to the work of
Ivan Pavlov who discovered that

the dog, in this case,
could learn to salivate

to a bell if the bell was rung,

and the dog was presented
with a reinforcer,

food, but if you stopped
giving the reinforcement,

no more food, the dog would still salivate,

but a little bit less each time,

until there was no longer salivation,

and that is unlearning or extinction.

Pharmacological extinction
is a technical term

for what we now call The
Sinclair Method, or TSM.

The medicine itself is not curative.

You have to take the medication
one hour before drinking.

- I'm going to go meet some friends,

I'm out here in Santa
Monica, they've got a new bar

that they really like so,
I thought I better take a pill.

I started the Sinclair method in 2009,

and very quickly it
stopped the binge drinking

and the cravings.

Now, I only take the pill
if I'm going to drink.

But I always,
always keep my medication with me,

just in case.

^- I took a few animals that
were rats that liked alcohol,

^and I put them in the boxes,

^they were able to lever-press for alcohol.

^And they learned it overnight.

^They loved alcohol,
they pressed for alcohol,

and I showed David, well,
this is working, they like it.

Then David said well,
wait and try Naloxone,

Naloxone is one of these opiod antagonists.

Would they still be willing to lever-press?

Or would they do something else?

This is interesting,
they started lever-pressing,

but then they stopped.

And I repeated this the second
day, the third day,

they would always start lever-pressing,

but they stopped earlier and earlier.

This was really fascinating, and then,

I gave the data to David, and David said,

"Well, it seems like extinction."

- I'm gonna go for number two.

Tell you what, I'm gonna do one more.

I don't know if you can see it,

but I just had about that much of it.

^I'm waiting, keep waiting for the,

^for the feeling, and it's not coming.

If I'm talking to somebody
out there right now that...

Is an alcoholic,
you know what I'm talkin' about,

when you get that first drink
that, like ,

that felt good.

You feel it from the top
of your head and it goes

right down your body
through your fingertips.

It's almost like your inside saying,

"Thank you, that's what we needed."

And then it's like, "Give me more".

But when you don't get it.

Well my point is,
if this is how normal people feel

every time they drink,
why the fuck would you even drink?

What is the point?

My brain feels cheated right now.

- It's a learned behavior,
and when you cause

pharmacological extinction, it undoes it.

You can sense the difference in your brain.

You can notice that you're,

I'm like I am when I was in my 20s.

^I don't think about
alcohol, that's the beauty.

^- My primary goal must be

^to aid people on a journey to heal.

^The big thing is there's abstinence,

and then there's not abstinence, you know?

And neither camp is ever
gonna agree with each other.

- I think it would be hard to tell people,

"Yeah I'm gonna try this method,

"but it involves me drinking."

Because initially people are gonna say,

"Well that's just because
that's what you wanna do."

- I had apprised
my husband of this method

that I had found.

He had pretty much said,

"You go back to drinking
and that's a dealbreaker."

- One thing I like about
Chicago, and hate about Chicago,

is the amount of drinking
that happens in Chicago.

There are four AM bars, that, on Saturdays,

they open 'til five AM.

Who's the guy who's like,
"I'm tired of going to bed

"at four AM, this is bullshit, city hall!"

- They wonder
why you just can't quit,

^and mostly they think you're pretty weak.

^And the guilt trip is
absolutely, amazingly painful.

My husband is president of
a large healthcare concern.

What you marry someone for and

what you end up hating about
them, is the same thing.

So yeah, he did keep me in line,

and I hated him keeping me in line.

I wanted the Sinclair method,
and the doctor asked me

if I had support in my family, and I said,

I have very good support for AA, and rehab,

and abstinence,
I have the best support ever.

And he said, "In that case,

"I don't think it will work for you."

- It's a deeply-ingrained belief in society

that abstinence is the only way.

If you give in to addiction,
it's some moral failing,

or weakness.

^Even my family members, who love me,

^even some of my family
said, "Just stop drinking!"

Just said, "Why can't you just stop?

"Just have some discipline, come on!"

^- I had hepatitis as a teenager.

^And I went in to the doctor and,

^He said, "I want you to stop drinking."

^I said, social drinking?

He said, "Stop drinking".

So that afternoon, I quit drinking.

I haven't had a drink since.

Why can't everybody do that?

I mean, it's so simple, you just say no.

You just stop.

We had a tough time during that era

when Claudia was drinking heavily.

I was the most insensitive guy to people

who had habits that they couldn't break.

Or for that matter,
addictions that they couldn't kick.

You know, I just didn't understand it.

You just have to say no,
you just have to quit,

no problem.

^- I don't understand
people who have one drink.

^I don't understand people
who leave half a glass

^of wine on the table.

I don't understand people
who say they've had enough.

How can you have enough
of feeling like this?

How can you not wanna
feel like this longer?

My brain works differently.

^- It isn't a moral failing,

^it isn't 'cause you're a bad person.

^It is a disease of the brain.

So treat it like a disease.

- These are health conditions,
and if we can address them

as health conditions,
when you have a health condition,

if you have a heart attack, you don't go,

"I don't wanna tell anybody,
including my physicians

"or anybody, that I had a heart attack."

You wanna get it taken care of,

you wanna make sure it
doesn't happen again.

^- Some people, because of their genetics,

^when they drink alcohol,
they get a great deal

^of reinforcement.

And they learn very
quickly to drink alcohol.

^- My father was a drinker.

^On my mother's side,
her parents were both alcoholics.

My grandfather died from alcoholism.

^- So these people, they are not immoral,

^they are not really bad persons.

^This kind of an inability
to control their actions

^is just part of the disease,
and we have to understand that.

- This is not an easy
disease, it's not an easy

issue to deal with,
and you need a support system,

and some people really
need that 12-step, AA,

family of support.

- The only choice for treatment
in a TV or movie script

seems to be traditional treatment.

Well, where are they?

^They're in an AA meeting,
they're in rehab.

^- Will not
completely give themselves to

^this simple...
- Wanna be my sponsor?

^- No thanks.

^- Hey.

I'm serious on this.

It's a good deal.

- And if people realize
that, yeah, you know,

there's an imbalance,
and maybe there's a way

of correcting this imbalance,
for example, with Naltrexone,

then I think this would
be the starting point,

and I would be really
happy to correct this,

even with a very cheap pill.

^- Hi, it's Saturday morning and

^we are now on I guess would
be considered day three

of Steve starting out on this path.

I'm amazed at what I've seen, actually.

Because his pattern in the
past, once it started

and he's gotten that taste of the alcohol,

nothing turns it back, usually.

And to see him last night, do that,

and to wake up this morning
and still see, you know,

more than a quarter of the bottle
left, almost half,

and only one beer gone?

Um, it, it's indescribable.

- Say hi real quick?

- Hi.

^- I've got a beautiful fiancee,

^who's so supportive.

^You know as much as I'm
doing this for myself,

^I'm doing it for us, and for my kids.

- I had poured another glass,

that would have been my third.

And I brought half of it up to my bedroom,

and I was just gonna have
it before I went to bed,

and it was still there in the
morning, and I threw it away.

Unheard of.

You do not waste anything.

- I was diagnosed with cancer
of the left eye, melanoma.

There is nothing that I have ever felt

like this pain.

It was unbelieveable.

They send you home with
a little magic bottle.

Couple of drops, ,
three minutes, it's over.

I mean, magic.

My wife said, "Bottle's empty."

And I said, so get another one.

She said, "No, he said that's all you get."

And I said, get another bottle.

I don't care what you have to do.

If there was a street exchange
where I could have picked up

another bottle of this,
this magic steroid cocktail,

believe me,
I'd have gone out and bought it.

And I said to myself, I think I know now,

what an addict goes through.

And I will never, ever again,

say to somebody who has
a habit or an addiction,

just give it up.

Should be no problem, just say no.

That is bullshit.

Maybe this was meant to be,
you know, to straighten me out.

Now I sympathize,
I have empathy, and I know.

- What really has
happened as far as I can tell,

is they've closed ranks.

My mom and my husband and my
brother have joined forces

to do anything in their power to stop me

from doing the Sinclair method.

Just pulling out a drink
in front of any of them,

would be a fate worse than death.

I am not going to give in
on this because I think

it's not true to what
I think is good for me.

- The most frustrating thing of all for me,

is the fact that I have so many people

that want to go on the Sinclair method,

that are literally dying
from their alcohol addiction,

and their GP will not prescribe Naltrexone.

It's a declassified, completely safe,

non-addictive opiate blocker.

That can be found in other
countries over the counter.

Why aren't we doing that here?

- I didn't think it would
be much of a problem

getting Naltrexone at all.

But when I tried to get it,

no doctor would prescribe it to me.

- I have been drinking my whole life.

^When I drink, I'll start drinking,

^and next thing I know it could
be six o'clock in the morning

^and I'm still like, awake, drinking.

Well I have actually
been diagnosed with AIDS.

I found out I was HIV
positive in April of 2000.

But also I have Hepatitis C.

My doctor tells me all the time
that I have to really really

be careful about drinking.

Alcoholism will kill me before HIV does.

I smoked crack cocaine, and I believe that

drinking does definitely lead that on.

I've reached out so many different times,

in so many different directions for help,

I'm just amazed that I have
never even heard of this pill.

Never heard of it before, ever.

I'm at a stage where I will try anything.

And if my doctor is agreeable,
then I would love to try it.

^

^- The UK has one of the highest

^ rates of alcoholism.

Yet even here, doctors and rehab centers

are not prescribing Naltrexone.

- I was very much in a
monogamous relationship

with alcohol for quite a long time.

^The reason why I never left her,

^was because the sex was brilliant.

^- Sex was great.
- Yes, I knew

she was bad for me,
yes I knew she was a bitch, but.

- Both of us found the
Sinclair method inadvertently,

via the internet, or social media.

- Sure.

- It wasn't in a rehab place,
it wasn't in a facility,

it wasn't in a detox.

It wasn't in a hospital,
it wasn't through a doctor.

It wasn't through a friend.

It was just by doing our own research.

- It's been months since I
was, what I would call

a compulsive drinker,
even though it's not been

that long since I last had a drink.

- And you've been on the Sinclair
method for six months now?

- Since April, April the second.

^What I first tried to do
was to access it through,

^through primary services here in Britain.

^Big, big

yeah, big mistake, no.

No joy there.

- To access what?

To access the medication?
- Yeah, yeah.

To access the medication
to see whether I could,

yeah to see whether I could
be prescribed Naltrexone.

- But now you know
Nalmefene has been approved

by NHS, National Health Service in the UK.

- It isn't being prescribed
in my town, though.

- It might not be prescribed,
but it's approved officially,

it's a legal thing,
and patients need to demand this.

- It's funny you know,
I went through hell to get

the Naltrexone,
but they'll frickin' give me,

you know,

six months of Xanax no problem.

It's like, "Yeah,
sure", even though that's,

you know, highly-addictive,
and it just sets me off.

- I could get Percocet tomorrow,

I could get Vicodin tomorrow.

My back hurts.

But no, can I get Naltrexone?

Why didn't somebody offer this to me?

^- Mainly, it's a profit matter.

^If this medication were owned
by a pharmaceutical company,

^and if it were, had exclusive rights,

then they would put more
money into promoting it.

But the other reason is,
that the better you get,

the less you drink.
- The less you're

gonna use it.

- The recovery
industry is very afraid

of people having that option.

Because it's not expensive.

My husband knows a lot of
people in that industry.

Yes, I think he would be
afraid to introduce that

personally, to them.

- So what I ended up going,
was to see the doctor,

back at that treatment center.

He was just preaching 12-step jargon at me,

you know, I mean, berating me with it.

I've tried 12-step programs, I,

they don't work for me.

We talked about it when we were in group,

we're like, what's gonna change this time?

You know, we know everything.

We know everything that
you guys are telling us.

Nothing changes.

^- A well-known
example is all these

^sad celebrities who go
in and out of rehabs,

^10, 12 times, and no one says,

^ "Maybe the rehab isn't doing a good job."

^Everyone says the person has failed.

But in fact, these programs are just

extraordinarily ineffective.

- Rehab is a
multi-billion-dollar business.

A revolving door,
sometimes costing $1000 a day.

Where I went to rehab is
now under a new management,

so I wanted to see if much has changed.

^- When they're in here,
they have individual therapy,

^twice a week, they go to groups,

^throughout the day they
have psychoeducational

opportunities,
how do you manage the cravings?

There are lots of behavioral
skills that you can learn

to manage cravings.

And it depends on that person,

and what specifically
would be helpful for them.

- The Sinclair method would
mean taking the opiate blocker,

drinking on it, blocking that,

and within a few months
creating extinction,

so you don't have any cravings.

And you don't wish to drink.

Have you heard of that?

- I have not heard of that.

And I know that we do not use that model,

but again, you'd probably have to talk

with our physician about that.

^- We rely on the recommendations of

^the American Society of Addiction Medicine

^for the treatment of addictive disorders.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine

would entertain the use of
any treatment that showed

evidence-based research.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine

does not endorse the use of alcohol

as a treatment for alcohol
dependence disorders.

And so it would take a major shift in the

philosophy and the outlook
of the treatment community.

- 85 to 90% of people who
go on abstinence-based,

faith-based treatments like the 12 steps,

or AA, or an expensive rehab,

relapse within a year.

- Yes, we do use Naltrexone.

- So Bayside
does offer Naltrexone,

but only while abstinent.

That means taking it every day,

and not targeting alcohol specifically.

So you're essentially blocking

good endorphins as well.

- There are two aspects
to the Sinclair method.

We're not only getting rid of the

bad behavior, the behavior you don't want,

but you're also helping
to fill in the vacuum of

developing other behaviors that are

healthy alternative behaviors.

It can be exercise, it could be sex,

it could be anything which
is releasing endorphins.

- So if you engage in good
behavior on your days off

from drinking and your
days off from Naltrexone

or Nalmefene, makes you,

more predisposed to
continue that good behavior.

It enforces the good,
positive things that you're doing.

- Utimately I found the Sinclair method.

I still wasn't quite ready to
go to my doctor about this.

I'm self-employed, I have insurance,

I just wondered what that might do

to my possibility of maintaining insurance.

I ordered from an Indian pharmacy.

Got the pills,
began that night I got the meds,

and I was amazed at this
glass of wine that sat there

while I cooked a dinner for
two and a quarter hours.

Second week,
we're getting there a little further.

Third week, my God.

I feel this distance between
that and how I am now.

^A few weeks ago I noticed
my drinking ramp up,

and having several nights
where I drank pretty heavily,

and that scared the hell out of me.

Yay!

So I did some online researching,

I looked at a study or a
report from Yale University,

they found that 100 milligrams
to be most effective

in people with family
history, which I have.

So I decided I would try upping the
dose, 75, I really

find that it's blunting the
effect that the alcohol has.

- It's not unusual for
people to up their dosage,

I've known people to go
from 50 to 75 to 100.

People shouldn't have to self-diagnose

with information found online.

Doctors and therapists should be educated

about pharmacological extinction.

And be willing to tailor the treatment

to the individual.

- I want to be a better mother.

It's very important to me.

- I'm sorry you don't feel good.

- I mean I just can't even think of enough,

say enough good things about her.

And she amazes me every
day when I look at her.

- Yeah I saw you defrosting that.

- I must, for her, you know?

F me, like for her, to do her right.

She deserves that, she's never had that

from me, her whole life.

- So are you still drinking?

- I drank a lot this weekend,

^like more than I have in a long time.

^- What kind of sparked this one?

^- A friend of mine brought me a bottle of

something called "cowboy whiskey".

- That was dangerous.

The Naltrexone,
so you heard about it from your daughter.

- Yes.

- And you're interested,
now I'll be honest with you.

I've never myself prescribed it for anyone,

and I'm not very familiar with it.

I've heard about it, but it's been,

it's not something we're
taught, like in medical school.

- Right.

- So it sounds like an option.

So I just need to do a
little more research.

- Okay, I hope I get to see you again,

'cause you're one of my favorite doctors.

Of all time.
- Thank you.

- I really cannot see myself,
and I know this is sad

to say, but completely alcohol-free
for the rest of my life,

I mean I just can't
even imagine doing that.

^- I prosecuted for a lot of years,

^and I just loved gettin' the bad guys.

But prosecutors are supposed
to be reducing crime

and protecting public safety.

And we were addressing only part of it.

- The judicial
system doesn't utilize

the Sinclair method per se,

but Helen Harberts uses
Naltrexone with great success.

^- Our justice system was
designed to deal with criminals.

^But what's in our justice system is

^addicts who commit crimes.

^And there's a big
difference between a criminal

^who uses drugs,
and an addict who commits crimes.

Normally, a person who would
have like a first-time DUI,

the minute the handcuffs go
on, they get it,

and they won't be back.

There's a very small percentage of people

who come back again.

When you start to see a relatively
high blood-alcohol level,

and you see priors, those people represent

a tremendous public safety risk.

They are among the scariest
of the criminal justice

population in terms of lethality.

The problem with sending people to prison

for these offenses,
is that nothing changes.

So the minute they hit the
door, that brain says,

"Dude, we gotta have beer.

"We gotta go drink now."

Now treatment is not
fun, and it is not easy.

There are some drugs, including alcohol,

where the cravings are almost impossible.

It's like watching people
with their fingernails

dragging on a blackboard.

You can see them,
they're just trying to hold on.

They're in agony.

The cravings are driving them nuts.

There's a medication called Naltrexone,

that you can give these people,
which stops the cravings.

We give 'em this pill, and it's gone.

It's gone.

We've started using it
wherever we saw people

who were unable to control
their alcohol consumption,

because it so sharply improved outcomes.

I think in my first 10 years as a DA,

I may have seen three people get off drugs.

So the outcomes were miserable.

Now I expect seven out
of 10 that I deal with.

And I'm pretty close to getting there.

We get regular citizens back.

And they pay taxes, and they get jobs,

and they live a life of recovery,

and they don't come back
into the justice system.

It's freakin' awesome!

- With all the
success and positive outcomes,

it still feels like people
don't want to accept the fact

that there's a modern medical
and biological solution

that works for people.

^- Unless you really wanna do it,

^you're really not gonna, that's my theory.

I mean I think he really wants
to not feel that way and,

that pill's helpin' him somehow.

It's helpin' him convince
him that he's strong.

He drank just as much as I did.

He drank beer, had a couple
shots, he was fine.

I mean, it was like we were in a timewarp

about 20 years ago.

You know, I didn't get any texts from him

the next day saying how bad he
feels, nothin'.

It really could be the drug,
or it really could be

he's ready.

We had a buddy just move back from Chicago,

like I was saying and
he told me after you left,

he's like, you know, he's like,

"I haven't seen that Newman in years."

- Did he really?

- I swear to god.

- The work that I've been, you know,

^not only myself involved with personally,

^but professionally,
what's been transformative in my

^experience, has been to
approach it more comprehensively.

I believe that that person
might need something beyond

symptom reduction, beyond harm reduction.

Now do, does the harm-reduction
model have value,

and serve a purpose, without question.

- If someone had said,
take a pill and you'll feel,

I'd go, yeah, I'll take a
pill, that sounds easy,

I'd do that, but it would not have,

I would not have gotten, just from what I,

the little I understand
about the Sinclair method,

I wouldn't have gotten what I've gotten

out of the 12-step program.

^- People get very passionate about

^what it is that they needed
in order to become sober,

^and they can actually develop
whole frameworks around it,

^that's what Bill Wilson did.

^He figured out what he
needed to become sober,

^and that was the system he worked in.

^- He was a huge science fanatic.

He was a niacin studier,
he was an LSD-taker,

anything to stop his alcoholism.

- I would agree with you.

- Who knows what he would
have thought of if he saw

Naltrexone laying around,
maybe he would have

given that out at meetings.

I don't think that every single alcoholic

has a spiritual sickness.

I don't think there's anything
spiritually wrong with me.

I have a very very strong
connection to the higher being.

- It's not a question of faith,
it's a question of facts.

^I wasn't going to be able
to pray this thing away.

When you look at different
treatment approaches,

you've got AA with, with you
know, try to pray to it.

And then with other types of counseling,

they're trying to reason with it, you know.

And I'm thinking well, well you know,

it's silly, why don't you just kill it?

- I don't believe that I ever was capable

of praying away my alcoholism.

But I did pray for an answer.

And that's, I believe why I
ended up in that detox center,

where I found that little
flyer for Vivitrol,

and I researched it and found out

that Naltrexone was the
active ingredient in it,

and that's how I found
Doctor Eskapa's book.

So maybe that was divine intervention.

It's a beautiful prayer.

But it's not the 1930s anymore.

We can change things we couldn't back then.

- The brain is built so
that it has an eraser.

We are born with a nervous system

that can change its own wiring

on the basis of experience.

^And until people
understand their own brain,

^their own behavior, to some extent,

^they're not going to
understand the treatment.

- This method did exactly

what I wanted it to do.

It's put me in control of my drinking,

instead of everybody else being in control

^of my drinking.

It's very empowering,
in that you won't ruin

your whole life if you have a drink.

Our relationship is much better

because he is not in control of what I do,

or how I feel, or what I think.

I feel like it's my decision.

- We have to go back to what are the goals,

what are the intentions of this person.

What is it that you want?

What are your goals?

Because if what I believe
is gonna get in the way

of your process of healing,
I am doing you a disservice.

- Out of the 14 or 15 million Americans

who have alcohol use disorder problems,

1/10th actually even seek
treatment every year, right?

So what we need to do is,
that's not their fault,

that's our fault,
we're doing something wrong

if only 1/10th of the people with a problem

^are even looking for the treatment.

^

^For people who are
struggling with alcohol,

^And every other treatment
program that they go to says,

^"You have to stop on day
one, and then never drink

^ "for the rest of your
life one day at a time",

^et cetera et cetera.

How nice is it to be able to say to them,

"Okay, well you don't feel
like you can stop drinking,

"fine, take this pill an hour
before you start drinking."

Any method that we can
present to people that has

what I call a lower sort
of threshold of entry.

Any method that allows
people to come in more on

their terms, instad of our
terms, is useful.

- For the nearly
80 million people worldwide

that suffer from alcohol dependence,

that don't' have access to
rehab, AA, or other resources,

don't they deserve options too?

^

^- The foothills of the Himalayas.

^You just come here,
you feel the vibrations.

^It's a spiritual place.

But you come down to too,

because of what you see in the villages,

what's happening with the women.

Especially the poor.

And a husband who has started drinking,

and then one day he becomes an alcoholic.

So in this beautiful place,
you have this little black dot.

He was so drunk,
and he came into the house,

he burned the house and he
wanted to burn all of them,

all four of them.

There's so much violence
because of alcohol.

I'm asking them which one of you drinks?

None of them drink.

You'll be surprised,
women never drink in India.

It's the men.

It's been a long walk with the alcoholics.

I tried the Alcoholic Anonymous approach,

but to get the men to do
anything about the alcohol

was almost impossible.

It was not 'til I met Doctor Roy Eskapa,

and heard about the Sinclair method.

It really made a lot of sense.

It's so beautiful,
you don't have to stop drinking.

You don't have to give up alcohol.

The alcohol will give you up.

So that's the beauty of this treatment.

- I'm telling him,
I don't think you are a bad person

because you drink,
alcohol-taking is a disease,

so don't be so shy and ashamed of it.

I'm not stopping you from drinking.

But just call us up, that how is it going.

In the Sinclair method
you have to understand

how to manage yourself.

The person has to take responsibility.

- India is just one heartbreaking
example of the greater

worldwide issue that faces
our families and societies.

It's time to implement solutions
that are proven to work.

It's just a matter of people
understanding and grasping,

and change is very difficult to comprehend,

especially when it is
going against the grain

of everything we've been taught.

^- This stuff works,
it is malpractice not to use it.

^It is inexcusable not to use it.

^It's cruel not to use it.

Don't tell me you can't do it,

tell me how you're going to do it,

and how long it's going to take you.

Get it done!

If you only have people with
insurance at first, use it!

Affordable Care Act is coming, use it!

Do whatever you need to do,
but to improve your outcomes,

to protect the public safety, get it done!

- It's not my way or the highway
when it comes to addiction.

It's all of us working
together and understanding that

we're each different.

Every individual is different,

and every treatment will work differently

for that individual.

- So far so good,
I've tried it on 12 times and,

it's worked like a charm every time.

Every morning when I wake
up, no craving at all,

it's incredible.

- That's good news,
'cause I know you were kind of afraid of

jumping into a binge.

- Never in a million years
could I have tried this 12 times

on my own, and not ended
up in the treatment center.

It just would not have happened.

- I bet your fiancee's happy too.

- Yeah she's really happy, she's,

she tells me she notices a big
change, I don't have the

scowl like this now.

I'm smiling a lot more, I tell ya, it's...

- Isn't that wonderful?

- It's so nice.
- Yeah.

I'm doing this because I
wish that somebody would have

done it when I was searching for an answer

for my alcohol problem.

I hope that I'm a source of
comfort for other alcoholics,

and by giving them hope and an option.

And I think that's my role, is to provide

people with a choice, an option,

a knowledge about it, information about it.

Here's one, chronic alcoholic at age 60.

Talk about grassroots,
it's tiny at this point.

It's me sitting in front of
my computer eight hours a day,

reaching out to people all over the world,

and talking about their
struggles with alcoholism,

and what their options
are, where they can get the

medication,
calling up pharmaceutical companies,

asking them if they'll give
me a discount for me "people".

You know, the more we do it,
the more we talk about it,

the more people seem to get involved.

- She's taking her time, which is precious,

and her efforts,
to literally educate the populace,

on a subject where a great deal of

that population is ignorant.

And they know nothing about this particular

regimen for getting under control.

And the need to, and she's taking that on,

and that's incredible.

Screw the, you know, the Academy Awards.

You know, this is really something special.

And I'm proud of her.

- Thank you.

- Two meetings a week that are
centered on educating people

around what is the logic
behind the Sinclair method,

and then a process
component for those groups,

where people get to say
what's going on with them,

^and how is the process
working working for them?

- After rehab, if she wants to try using it

^to stay sober, I'd be definitely
willing to work with her.

^But again, I would make
sure she understands that

this is a partnership, that she is,

we're doing this together.

^ - It's like insurance.

^I like having it on me at all times.

^I feel like my life isn't
over if I have a drink.

^- My brother was an alcoholic,

he committed suicide when he was 24.

And think if this had been there.

If this had been around, he might be here.