Addiction treatment mirrors Pavlov

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 38

Addiction treatment mirrors Pavlov

MELISSA SWEET

of AAP (through NZPA) Sydney A revolutionary method of treating drug addicts, involving a similar principle to Pavlov’s famous experiments on dogs, is to be tested by Australia’s hew drug and , alcohol research centre. The centre’s director, Professor Nick Heather, said it would be the world’s first major trial of a technique known as “cue exposure/’ which involved bombarding addicts with situations and images they usually associated with drug taking. For example heroin addicts might see a syringe or particular people and places and feel a yearning for the drug. But under the technique they were denied the drug and the bombardment continued until their association of drug taking with particular situations was eliminated, Professor Heather said. . Whereas Ivan. Pavlov

showed dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, this technique aimed to eliminate the “conditioned craving” which was common among addicts. “So you concentrate a lot of unlearning, if you want to use that term, in a short space of time in order to get rid of the link between the two things,” he said. The fact that all addictions — including compulsive gambling — had high relapse rates indicated the addiction often related to habit rather than the drug itself, he said. Professor Heather said the trial would represent an international breakthrough if it proved the technique could improve the poor, success rate of drug and alcohol treat- ■ ment ■ . At present, about twothirds of former drug and alcohol addicts relapsed within six months of treatment. ■ ■ ■ .'/■ ’ ■ .4 trial, involving

alcohol and heroin addicts, was expected to be completed in the next three to four years, he told reporters after the official opening of the first national drugs and alcohol research centre. The Special Minister of State, Senator Susan Ryan, opened the centre, which is funded by the Commonwealth and based in the Prince of Wales Hospital. Professor Heather said other methods of avoiding relapse also would be researched. These included training people to assert themselves and refuse drink or drugs and teaching them to cope with moods of depression and V anger which often precipitated drug taking. Professor Heather was head of the addictive behaviours research, group at Scotland’s University of Dundee before he took up the centre’s directorship last' month.