Addressing medications that are ineffective and potentially harmful for patients with alcohol and other substance use disorders

Addressing medications that are ineffective and potentially harmful for patients with alcohol and other substance use disorders

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Read issue 152 (January 2025) of the Therapeutics Letter about this topic: Avoid serotonergic antidepressants for people with alcohol and other substance use disorders.


In this TI Best Evidence webinar, Dr. Evan Wood raised awareness of evidence-based interventions included in a new national guideline for the clinical management of high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder, highlighted the difference between evidence-based and common non-evidence-based interventions (including routine antidepressant use) that impact care of this population, and helped participants understand the applicability of these recommendations to persons with other substance use disorders.

TITLE: Addressing medications that are ineffective and potentially harmful for patients with alcohol and other substance use disorders

WHEN: Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 at 12:00 PM PST [convert to your local time]

WHERE: free online webinar.

SPEAKER: Dr. Evan Wood, Professor of Medicine, Canada Research Chair in Addiction Medicine, UBC Faculty of Medicine.

CME CREDITS: MainPro+/MOC Section 1 credits: 1.0.


LEARNING OBJECTIVES (by the end of this session, participants will be able to):

  • Demonstrate increased awareness of evidence-based interventions included in a new national guideline for the clinical management of high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder.
  • Understand the difference between evidence-based and common non-evidence-based interventions (including routine antidepressant use) that impact care of this population.
  • Understand the applicability of these recommendations to persons with other substance use disorders.

About the topic: Persons with alcohol and other substance use disorders commonly present with symptoms and mental wellness concerns such as insomnia, anxiety and low mood.  As a result, a range of medications, such as antidepressants and antipsychotics, are commonly used to address symptoms either attributed to substance use or secondary to underlying concurrent mental health conditions.  Despite this widespread approach to clinical care, an under-appreciated literature demonstrates that this pattern of prescribing is likely ineffective for most patients, and there is also an under-appreciated literature demonstrating how certain medications appear to have an under-appreciated adverse event profile resulting in increased substance use. This topic is covered in issue 152 (January 2025) of the Therapeutics Letter: Avoid serotonergic antidepressants for people with alcohol and other substance use disorders.


About the speaker: Dr. Evan Wood, MD, PhD, FRCPC is a Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Addiction Medicine. Dr. Wood is an addiction medicine physician who has helped with the leadership of a number of clinical care and clinical training programs and has co-chaired the writing of a number of provincial and national substance use disorder therapeutic guidelines aimed at improving care of persons with substance use disorder.


VIDEO RECORDING

2 Comments
  • Jack Da Silva
    Posted at 11:36h, 30 January Reply

    Excellent presentation by Dr. Wood. Informative.

  • Therapeutics Initiative
    Posted at 00:12h, 03 February Reply

    For an interesting perspective related to this topic see the recent post on Dr. David Healy’s blog: Antidepressants, Alcohol and Anne-Marie. It begins with Anne-Marie’s story as it is remarkable on many fronts. She had come across most of the material mentioned in this webinar but was left with the dilemma – who was going to believe her. She also found a rich source of something else that wasn’t mentioned: a series of company trials testing S-2 and S-3 antagonists as treatments for alcoholism. She found all of this before she met Dr. Healy, who acted as an expert for her in a legal case where the judge simply refused to believe that anyone drinking alcohol for any reason is not fully in control of what they are doing – despite the SSRI link to FASD.

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