Drink yourself sober?

Over the past few months, it's become official: Drinking is good for your health. Studies show that moderate drinkers live longer than teetotalers. Moderate drinkers also live longer than heavy drinkers, but heavy drinkers still live longer (only slightly, however) than teetotalers.

So the goal, one would think, would be for teetotalers to regularly have a sip or two, and for heavy drinkers to stop guzzling from the firehose.

Easier said than done, of course, but one not-so-new method that purports to put a kink in the firehose -- and thus slow the gusher to a trickle -- is the Sinclair Method.

Its premise -- based on Pavlov's studies of learning and extinction -- is simple. Keep drinkling! But before you drink, pop a pill (Naltrexone). This will keep you from getting a buzz. Eventually, the spell (your brain's connection between alcohol and pleasure) will be broken.

Developed by Dr. John David Sinclair (currently chief science officer at Lightlake Therapeutics in Helsinki), most of what's known about the Sinclair Method, until now, has come from Roy Escapa's book, The Cure for Alcoholism: Drink yourself Sober Without Abstinence, Willpower, or Discomfort.

This week, however, an article in Newsweek isa certain to change that, and ensure that millions more learn about it too. So check it out.