Champix may also be used in the future to help alcoholics and heavy drinkers...

A research project seen by Ukmedix News shows that the effective smoking cessation drug Champix may also be used in the future to help alcoholics and heavy drinkers stop drinking alcoholic drinks. The active ingredient of the Champix drug namely varenicline apparently works very well in controlling the urge to have a drink. The researchers who worked with rats that had been given large amounts of alcohol over a period of four months and thus had become dependent on it saw that when they gave them the Champix drug they did not drink as much as they had been doing previously.

The Champix drug also has the advantage that it is safe and it does not work by reducing the appetite so that if alcoholics were to use it they would not eat less. Another drug on the market that reduces cravings for smoking, [Acomplia] is also known to reduce the appetite. It is possible also that in the future the Champix drug could also be used to treat people who have other addictions such as to pain killers and gambling. It could eventually become a medication to treat all types of addiction and not just smoking addiction. The Champix smoking cessation drug works only on the brain receptors that control the urge to smoke and in fact all addictive urges. The researchers noted that is appears that alcohol also seems to affect the same area of the brain that nicotine does.

Many people who are alcoholics also smoke and associate those habits together. People who are trying to give up smoking often say that one of the very difficult things to do is to have a drink and not to smoke and therefore the Champix drug could be especially useful for them. Champix is made by the medical company Pfizer and if this alcohol related benefit can be properly researched and tested it could prove to be a financial boost for the company.