Drug therapy as a treatment for addiction

Question 1

What is drug therapy?

Answer 1

Drug therapy involves giving patients a prescribed medication that will help to reduce the symptoms associated with addiction. The way drug therapy is used will depend on the type of addiction and the severity of the symptoms. Drug addiction and behavioural addictions will be treated slightly differently.

Question 2

Drug addiction and Detoxification

Answer 2

Medicated drugs can help addicts to cope with the effects of detoxification. Detoxification is when an addict tries to stop taking the substance they are addicted to. Many addictive substances that addicts take will have many unpleasant side effects when they stop taking them and start detoxification.

Question 3

Two things Drug Therapy will help with

Answer 3

Withdrawal- the physical effects of stopping the drug.
Reduce cravings- Patients will crave the substance when they stop taking it.

Question 4

Behavioural Addiction

Answer 4

Behavioural addictions are not usually treated with drugs however, there is some evidence that it can be effective. For example, The drug naltrexone has been shown to lessen cravings to gamble in patients with severe gambling addiction.

Question 5

Strengths for drug therapy for addiction

Answer 5

There is research support for suggesting that drug therapy is an effective treatment for addicts. For example in a research study 75% of gambling addicts treated with naltrexone showed a significant improvement in their symptoms compare to only 24% if treated with a placebo.

Drugs can help addicts to access other forms of treatment such as CBT. E.g. heroin addicts can be given methadone to help them access the counselling.

Question 6

Weaknesses for drug therapy for addiction

Answer 6

The evidence into its effectiveness is mixed. This means that some evidence shows that it works for some people but other evidence suggests that it doesn’t always work for everyone so it lacks generalisability

Giving medication to patients that are already addicted to a substance may be problematic. For example treating a heroin addict the drug methadone could make them dependent on the methadone.