Dean Edell: 14 millions Americans are considered alcohol dependent. Several million more engaged in risky drinking patterns. There is no cure for alcoholism. But there are many treatment approaches that help alcoholics stay on the road to recovery.
Bridget: I threw the best parties, I made the best decorates.
Sue: I would drink to get to sleep at night.
John: I was drinking anywhere on the upwards of case or more per day.
Dean Edell: Bridget, Sue and John deal with the same demon.
Bridget: I just wanted to die every single day.
Dean Edell: All are recovering alcoholics, each fights the disease in a different way.
John: Being an alcoholic is extremely hard work, it takes a lot of times to plan your day, and then you also have to schedule in time to be hung over. And it's really quite a heavy load there.
Dean Edell: Chef John Bouse has been to hell and back. He tried over and over again to quit drinking.
John: I tried simply just going cold turkey, Intensive Outpatient Programs. I even tried going to AA. But none of those things even work, and I realize that if I would continue to drink as heavily as I was drinking that would eventually result in my death, or the death of somebody else.
Dean Edell: John finally found help with the drug called Naltrexone, which targets the reward center of the brain.
Helen Pettinati: It's driven biologically by certain pathways in the brain that cause people to crave or have urges to drink.
Dean Edell: Naltrexone is available in pill form, and now doctors are testing in injectable dose they think is even more affective.
Helen Pettinati: We think this is going to give a lot of people and their families hope.
John: My relationship with my family has been healing. I feel better.
Sue: The stress level in my life personally was just at such a high level that I really started drinking so much more.
Dean Edell: Sue's journey to recovery took her on a different path.
Sue: I had known enough people who had been through traditional treatment where it just didn't worked.
Dean Edell: At the Health Recovery Center, nutrition is used to balance the brain's craving for alcohol.
Joan Mathews: We need to realize that the mind doesn't operate alone out in a vacuum. It's totally dependent on the molecular balance of the brain.
Dean Edell: Participants are screened to see what physiological factors may cause them to crave alcohol.
Joan Mathews: Once we see that, we can overcome it.
Dean Edell: The program uses high protein foods like chicken, fish, and eggs and supplements to reduce cravings for alcohol.
Joan Mathews: With alcoholics, we would give them a formula that would replace all the essential fatty acids.
Dean Edell: Sue's recovery continues.
Sue: I wanted to make sure that I'd be able to handle different situations without using another substitute.
Bridget: I remember tasting champagne from other peoples' glasses.
Dean Edell: It started as a childish curiosity.
Bridget: There was an older boy in the house and he kept filling my orange Fanta with vodka, and I was getting on to laugh.
Dean Edell: Just as intoxicating, need for acceptance.
Bridget: Suddenly I was very very funny instead of being a weird little kid.
Dean Edell: That's how the alcoholic odyssey begin for Bridget Leroy.
Bridget: Starting off very sexy, and I always ended up with me in my basement with a bottle of tequila, and just praying the children wouldn't wake up.
Dean Edell: Bridget denied the truth even when her doctor could see otherwise.
Bridget: He said you know your liver number is really off, are you drinking a lot? And I was being -- I thought I was being honest, I said no.
Dean Edell: The fact is women don't have to be falling down drunk, or drinking to cause problem.
Mark McGovern: Anything that happen to a man would happen much sooner to a woman both in terms of medical consequences, because of hormonal issues, body fat, just plain size.
Dean Edell: Women develop brain and liver damage as well as heart disease faster than men. Alcohol also increases a woman's chance of breast cancer and infertility.
Mark McGovern: Women who are educated and professionals are at greater risk. Physicians are much less likely to ask a women who is working, or who is white how much they drink.
Dean Edell: Bridget has found peer support, and has been sober for seven years.
Bridget: For me and this isn't everybody, but for me the only thing that works is to just group support.
Dean Edell: Three alcoholics, three solutions and three recoveries in progress.
Bridget: I Know, I have got a bunch of other drunken in there, but I don't know if I have got another recovery. I need to hold on to what I have today.
Dean Edell: Even with drug or nutritional approaches, group support and counseling are also recommended to help patients heal relationships, and deal with a disease they must fight for the rest of their life.
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