Naltrexone blocks the mu opioid receptor. By blocking that receptor, people don’t get reward pathway activation from alcohol. As a result, people don’t enjoy alcohol as much when they take naltrexone. That might lessen alcohol intake in some people.
Addiction is usually the result of people’s difficult past. Whether the difficulties were trauma or some other mismatch of needs/environment; some people end up with the predicament of needing to numb their pain with alcohol. Naltrexone doesn’t affect with alcohol’s capacity to numb. So if someone is out to numb themselves naltrexone is not likely to be the solution. But if someone drinks more than they intend to because of the subtle effect of reward activation then naltrexone might be very helpful.
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