OA's One Man Experiment - Baclofen, Curing Our Alcoholism

We are where we are today because of the genius and bravery of one man, Dr Olivier Ameisen. Had he not made the mental leap towards Baclofen, had the courage to take it himself, and then the unbelievable bravery to ‘out’ himself to tell the World, then we would all be the worse off.

His was a one man experiment. What if it hadn’t worked for him? After all, Baclofen doesn’t work for everybody. And there is definitely a range of efficacy across takers. His failure would have been our disaster. No, serendipity worked in all our favour. Thanks to him.

So, where do we go from here? Dr Ameisen has striven for some considerable time to get further trials off the ground, but with little success. I pray that he will succeed, but fear that he will not. Notwithstanding that, others have said that irrespective of any trial results, there is absolutely no doubt that Baclofen works wonders for a very significant number of people, and is surely all that matters. Amen to that.

My point today, and my now longstanding frustration, is that currently, we are all undertaking what amounts to (probably) tens of thousands of ‘one man / woman’ experiments. It is true that forums such as MWO have improved communication and dialogue between fellow sufferers and Baclofen takers, but what they singularly fail to do is firstly to collect information in a systematic way; and secondly collate all this mass of information into a format that is accessible either to those contemplating taking Baclofen, or those already taking it who might now have a specific question.

That is precisely what I had hoped B4a would become. And it is getting better as more people join in. But, in spite of repeated requests and pleas, too few visitors take the trouble to provide even basic information. I intend to attempt to address this very shortly on the front page of the site. Fingers crossed.

The point is that, pending any formal research (which will take years to undertake, and as long to analyse, and probably then another year before it is published in a journal that none of will get to read), we are all our own experimental group. We probably already have a series running into tens of thousands of subjects. What a rich seam of information that would be if it could be tapped.

After all, if you pool enough anecdotes, eventually it starts to become evidence.

I will do all that I can, but you must help me too.

Thank you for your time.

Pip