Acupuncture and Addiction

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But a major study published in 2002 in the Journal of the American Medical Association by docs at Yale, UCLA, Columbia, and other top academic centers came up with less enthusiastic acupuncture data. The study compared three "relaxation" techniques--acupuncture that was said to hit the right addiction spots versus acupuncture that did not hit these spots (this was the control) versus a "calming" video--among 600 coke addicts. While all three groups reduced their intake of cocaine, there was no difference on the crucial standard of retention or the duration of treatment, which is generally viewed as the best predictor of sustained recovery. Numerous studies of acupuncture for heroin users found that it helped them with the symptoms of withdrawal but didn't reduce relapse rates.

Sometimes the results may be less physical than emotional. Jim, a 51-year-old ex-con who received regular acupuncture treatments during his three months at the Circle Program at the Colorado Mental Health Institute, credits acupuncture with his newfound sobriety and claims he’s no longer the angry, emotionless man he used to be. “The more I did it, the more I was able to get in touch with my feelings,” he says. “I literally just started crying after the treatments. It’s highly unusual for me to let my guard down like that.”

While being a human pin cushion may sound painful, practitioners say that the needles don’t hurt. In fact they can do the opposite, helping some patients to relieve the pain they’ve grappled with for years. Morgon, a 28-year-old former crack addict who lives in Los Angeles and has been sober for four years, used to feel “like I had been hit by a truck every morning. Her back pain was so bad that “I couldn’t walk and would collapse if I stood up.” But once she got sober and started a regular acupuncture regimen, her ailments disappeared. “Acupuncture took away my problems completely,” she says. Of course, giving up her daily crack habit probably didn’t hurt.