Actress Claudia Christian, known to science fiction fans for Babylon 5, has spoken publicly for years about her alcohol use disorder. On the podcast How’s My Drinking? she describes her path, the treatment she credits with saving her life and the stigma that, she says, still keeps too many people silent.
Everything else had failed
Christian tried peer support groups, rehab, talk therapy, hypnotherapy and more. Periods of abstinence always ended in relapse: after a few months, the cravings returned, and each binge was worse than the last. In 2009 she discovered the Sinclair Method, which uses naltrexone, a medication approved since 1994 for alcohol dependence, taken about an hour before drinking. Several doctors refused to prescribe it to her before she managed to start the treatment.
She describes ups and downs over nine years, including a serious relapse after becoming careless about taking the medication, and says she should also have worked on the reasons she was drinking. She has now chosen to stop drinking entirely, for several years, and says she has no cravings, even after losing her father and other relatives. Having a choice, she explains, made sobriety bearable.
From personal story to advocacy
She wrote a memoir, then made the documentary One Little Pill, funded by her science fiction fans, and created a non-profit organisation in 2014. Originally called C3 Foundation, it is now Options Save Lives. It helps people find a qualified prescriber and offers peer support, coaching, a free drink-tracking app and online meetings.
Talking about it
For Christian, the biggest obstacle is shame. People who recover tend to disappear and never mention it again, and professionals such as pilots, police officers and doctors risk their careers if they admit a problem. She calls on medical schools to teach all the medications used for alcohol use disorder, and on patients and families simply to talk about them.
As with any treatment, the decision belongs with a doctor: her account is personal testimony, not medical advice.