Hi I am a guest visitor from another forum(my way out).We were talking about Naltrexone yesterday and I thought I would share this thread with you folks over here.Basically the thread is about the mu-opiod receptor gene 118G.The articles I read showed that people with this gene were those who responded best to Naltrexone. Interestingly it showed that people with the same gene may experience increased pain on facing social rejection.It is not the first article linked in the thread-if you read on down 9 0r 10 posts you will find it.Aplologies if this has already been discussesd in the TSM forum.I had a quick scan down the threads and didn't see anything jump out but it may be already here somewhere.If so then just ignore this. Good luck!


http://www.mywayout.org/community/f20/t ... 48970.html

Hey Coalfire,

I've actually had my dna tested and I do test positively for that gene you mentioned meaning that I respond well to nal and I fear/avoid social rejection. This definitely bears out in real life as I am responding amazingly to nal and I've had a huge fear of social rejection my whole life. As a child I was painfully shy and as I got older I still avoided asking girls out. I would rather for the most part pretend I wasn't interested than risk the rejection.

Now if there was only a pill that could fix the social rejection fear.

Hey Tambo - it's called alcohol, Lol!

Just kidding - but I wonder how many self-medicate with alcohol to help ease anxiety in social situations?

Tambo. I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that you have had the test done. I have spent hours this week searching the web for somewhere that you could order a home testing kit. Could I ask you the name of the place where you had the test carried out.Was it a saliva or blood test? Did you have the test before you started on Naltrexone and also how did you find Naltrexone ie did it take long to work/were you able to moderate/did you achieve abstinence etc Sorry for all the questions. You are the first person on the web that I have met who is interested in this test never mind actually have it carried out and I would absolutely love to hear your story. Thanks.ps I have just spotted your units at the bottom of your post. Sorry-not used to your forum.

One more thing Tambo. I am really interested in how a 118g+ alcoholic drinks in real life. The text books only tell you so much. I was interested in your comments about dating/social rejection etc. Could I ask you how did drink affect you? The article I read said that people who have this gene tend to experience euphoria after drinking. Did drinking relax you or did it make you a bit wired? Was your off switch absolutely broken? You know the panic at the end of the bottle that AA talk about-was that a big feature for you?For example if I knew that I could only have 1 or 2 drinks then I would rather not drink at all because it would just trigger massive overwhelming cravings/panic at the end of the bottle feelings for me. About an hour ago on MWO I posted a new thread called" Were you a heavy drinker before you became an alcoholic?" The first and second posts were mine.

http://www.mywayout.org/community/f9/we ... 49028.html

Can you relate to any of that?

I am trying to build an idea of what a 111G+ alcoholic is actually like and whether their good response to Naltrexone is the only thing that distinguishes them from other alcoholics. I would be really interested in anything you have to say. Thanks again.There is another type of quiz that you may have seen http://www.mywayout.org/community/f22/q ... -5100.html

I can relate to type 5 Allergic/addicted. I wonder what type you relate to.Im trying to work out is 118G +any particular one of these types.

Hey Coalfire,

I'll answer your questions in more detail later, but for now you can check out 23andme.com. That's where I got my DNA test done.

Thanks. Look forward to hearing from you. I will google it now.

Hey Coalfire,

I'm not a geneticist so forgive me if I use the wrong terminology, but the gene associated with nal response is located at Rs1799971 and is called OPRM1. The possible genotypes are AA, AG, and GG. AA is normal. AGs have a better chance of responding to nal than AAs. And GGs have an even better chance of responding to nal, but have an increased likelihood of developing alcoholism, and an increased aversion to social rejection. There is a much more in depth description of this at http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1799971

Here is a chart from the above website of the percentage of each genotype in different sample populations.

Orange is AA, Green, AG and Blue GG. Most on this board will be interested in CEU, which is a sampling of a western and northern European population. I probably relate most to HCB, which is a Chinese population (I'm Vietnamese) Most people are AA and that group has about a 55% positive nal response. If you have at least one G then your chances go up to 87%. You can see the GGs are on average, less than 10% of the population. I am GG.

As for my experience with alcohol, I believe I was an alcoholic from the first time I got drunk (18, Freshman year of college). I definitely experienced the euphoria. Luckily, my first 3 years, I didn't have much access to alcohol, so I only got drunk maybe once every several months at parties but I was constantly thinking about the next time. Alcohol made me feel comfortable at social functions where otherwise I would have been shy (though it still did not help with the ladies because I would get trashed so quickly). As soon as I turned 21, I started drinking alcoholically almost every night. There was no build up from regular drinking to alcoholic drinking. It was straight into alcoholic drinking for me. Alcohol made me feel alive and alert, not sedated and I did panic if I ran out, so I always made sure I had enough. I would not stop until I passed out. I knew I had a problem almost from the beginning.

As for my fear of rejection... I never had a girlfriend in high school or college mainly because I was too scared to ask girls out and because I was too picky (plenty of girls liked me but they just weren't the ones I was interested in). I had and still have an intense fear of rejection, though it is not as bad now that I'm older. I did not have my first real girlfriend until I was 29 years old. And even with her, it took me a year and a half before I worked up the nerve to kiss her. This is all very personal stuff and I can't believe I'm sharing it, but it illustrates the depths of my fear of rejection. I have plenty of friends, have a good education, decent job, come from a respectable, well-off family, am pretty good-looking (yes, I'm tooting my own horn), but my fear of rejection, I believe has held me back from finding that special someone. When my girlfriend dumped me because of my drinking, I took it very hard and I still am even 6 months later. I'm in pain everyday and I still break down in tears at random times.

Fear of rejection and alcoholism has defined my life in so many ways and it is strange to think that it could be caused by a single gene in my DNA. Luckily, this gene also predicts I will be successful with nal. I hope I've answered most of your questions Coalfire, don't hesitate to ask if you have others.

Thanks for sharing that Tambo, very powerful because it is so personal. As you know I also had 23andme run a report on me and unlike you I have the AA genotype. I also quickly developed an alcohol problem and despite having an average predicted response to nal, have ended up responding quite well to naltrexone. I think our genotype determines a possible range of responses but our phenotype is the result of how our genes interact with our environment. I would not let a genetic test like this determine whether or not I gave naltrexone or any other drug a try because there is so much individual variation in response to drugs. I would still try the least aggressive drug with the least side effects first before moving on to other treatments like baclofen.

Tambo. Thank you very much for sharing this information.When alcoholics talk you hear about their drinking,you hear people talking about how they have difficulties in social situations and you hear about how some people succeed and fail on Naltrexone. Up to now they all have been separate issues,discussed on separate threads. The discovery of this gene is the first time that they have been looked at together.I am sorry that you are going through break up pain. Its never good and that gene is going to make it so much worse....You know thats weird mentioning someones gene in the context of a break-up...I guess the future has arrived!As far as the whole social anxiety thing goes we had an interesting chat about it recently on mwo. We started off talking about alcohol substitutes like cannabis and kava-kava then on page 8 the whole conversation did a u turn and we started discussing social anxiety.It might interest you.http://www.mywayout.org/community/f20/d ... 48746.html

Im glad that Nal is working so well for you. It must feel good that you are on a treatment tailor made for your genes. Thats light years away from where most of us are at.

I have 2 more questions Tambo. When you ordered the test from 23 did you have to specify that you wanted this one done? I see it listed in their response to drugs list. Or do you just order the regular test and then the 1118 gene thing appears automatically in the results? Lastly someone in mwo was asking about confidentiality ie what they do with their database. I said I would ask you.Thanks again. Coalfire.