At 29 I was drinking a box of wine a day despite my successful career. Then I tried the £3 ‘Ozempic for alcohol’ pill – now I haven’t felt a craving for almost a decade

It was during a family brunch that Luke Smith first realised his drinking may have got out of hand.

It was 11am and the then-26-year-old was huddled in his parents’ bathroom, frantically downing two cans of beer before they left for the restaurant.

‘I realised then that it was becoming a problem,’ he says. ‘But I parked it for all the classic reasons – I was young, I had a good job and, on the surface, my life was going well.’

After all, Luke felt he could handle his drink without it causing him any problems. As a 20-something working full-time in sales in Bristol, drinking felt practically like part of the job.

His team had after-work drinks on Mondays and Wednesdays, and would be cracking open beers from the office minibar by midday on Friday.

‘In the beginning, I didn’t really notice that it was an issue, because we were all doing it,’ remembers Luke.

‘I was earning good money and it was fun – I would go out regularly and be day-drinking with friends over the weekend. But gradually, I started drinking more and more.’

As he reached his mid-20s, Luke seemed to have it all – a successful career where he was regularly recognised as the top sales associate at the company, a great relationship with his family and a busy social life.

‘I was always in a suit and very well groomed,’ says Luke. ‘I would still go to the gym every day. But beneath the veneer, I was losing control.’

An evening bottle of wine became two. And sporadically, Luke even found himself drinking in the morning to take the edge off the night before.

‘I knew I had a problem but I just didn’t know what to do about it,’ he says. ‘I went to AA meetings regularly, had periods of abstinence and even checked into rehab for a month.’

But nothing seemed to stick. During his worst relapse, Luke estimates he was drinking nearly 500 units of alcohol a week.

He’d start with a box – roughly four bottles – of wine each morning before moving on to a litre of gin, which he would drink straight from a pint glass.

Today, however, Luke has achieved an astonishing transformation. He has been sober for more than seven years. He no longer feels any craving for alcohol – and when he has occasionally had a glass of wine with dinner over the past few years, he has never felt the need for more.

‘My life has been totally transformed,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever drink again, even casually.’

The reason for Luke’s extraordinary turnaround is a £3 pill, dubbed the ‘Ozempic of alcohol’.

The tablet, naltrexone, reduces cravings by blocking opioid receptors in the brain, making alcohol less pleasurable and curbing the desire to drink. It means the brain can gradually ‘unlearn’ the link between alcohol and the feel-good effects that spark the urge to reach for a glass in the first place.

Studies show naltrexone has a near 80 per cent success rate at getting users to drastically reduce or eliminate drinking altogether.

In comparison, other rehabilitation methods – such as Alcoholics Anonymous’s 12-step programme, which relies on changing thoughts and behaviours and accepting responsibility for past harms – have success rates of less than 15 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation.

Yet, while naltrexone is available on the NHS, it is usually prescribed to prevent relapse once people have already become sober – something experts say should change.

Luke got a private prescription via The Sinclair Method, a clinic that advocates an approach which involves continuing to drink, but taking a pill an hour before the first drink of the day.

This is combined with psychological and lifestyle support from a counsellor. Many of The Sinclair Method’s clients are high-functioning professionals, such as Luke, and some have described it as ‘miraculous’.

For Luke, the drug worked almost instantly.

‘I had been sober for the six months before, so I was very scared to have a drink, even under the supervision of my dad, in case it didn’t work for me and just set me back again,’ he says.

‘But it was amazing. My parents had bought me a 12-pack of Peroni – and I could only drink one and a quarter. I threw the rest of the can away.

‘It was as if from my eyebrows up the light switch just wasn’t on. It was like drinking water. The feeling is bizarre, because you recognise from a sensory perspective that you are drinking alcohol, but there’s just no ignition. It’s like trying to start a fire with wet wood.

‘To this day, my family has kept two of those 12 beers as a memento.’

In the seven years since, Luke estimates he’s drunk just 14 or so times – usually when out for dinner with friends and family. Each time, he says, the most he could manage was a pint.

‘It’s just completely changed my life,’ he says. ‘To me and my family it’s been a miracle. And what saved me in the end was a tablet that costs less than my morning iced coffee.’

Luke is like many patients seen at the Sinclair Method Clinic, says clinical lead Dr Janey Merron – high-functioning, successful and often very good at hiding the fact they have a problem.

‘My average patient drinks a bottle of wine a day, yet goes to the gym every morning, does a full day’s work and often cares for their children on top of that,’ she says.

‘No one would know that they have a problem.’

Naltrexone can be particularly helpful for this demographic, she explains, because it doesn’t require them to disappear on a retreat to get sober, which often isn’t compatible with their busy lives.

Instead, the medication allows users to continue to be around – and even occasionally drink – alcohol without falling back into overuse.

‘Once you get to the point of ambivalence, then drinking becomes less of a big deal,’ says Dr Merron. ‘For most people, this will take between nine and 12 months, but for some it will be quicker or slower. But people can use this drug for the rest of their lives.’

Experts say there is a case for making naltrexone more widely available on the NHS to help people reduce their alcohol intake, and for more GPs to be trained in prescribing it.

They argue that the daily tablet could help curb Britain’s excessive alcohol consumption.

NHS guidelines advise adults to consume no more than 14 units a week – roughly six pints of beer or ten small glasses of wine – yet around a quarter of British adults exceed this.

Nearly a fifth admit to binge-drinking in the past week, defined as consuming more than eight units in a single session. More than 320,000 people are admitted to hospital each year with alcohol-related conditions, and more than 10,000 die – mostly from liver disease.

Regular drinking is also a known risk factor for several cancers.

Addiction psychiatrist Dr Peter McCann, medical director of residential rehabilitation centre Castle Craig, told the Daily Mail: ‘The harms from alcohol are only increasing, and there are many people who are put off by the all-or-nothing approach. We need to see more GPs able to prescribe medication such as this.

‘There’s a theoretical worry that giving out lots of naltrexone will reinforce drinking culture, or make it more normalised by giving you a pill to take which will stop you drinking as much.

‘But it would engage more people in treatment, and I think we need to be creative and throw as much as we can at the problem.’

For Luke, who now works as a senior coach for Sinclair Method UK, the medication was life-saving.

‘I feel so lucky to be able to help change others’ lives the way my own was,’ he says.

‘When you’re drinking very heavily you immediately get very good at spinning plates and being two steps ahead. I quickly learned that if I was exercising regularly and was well-dressed and well-groomed, nobody would ask if I was OK.

‘But at my worst point, it felt like a matter of life and death. Now, I feel like naltrexone has completely reversed my brain.’

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