Washington: Scientists have introduced an injection to keeps the drinkers off alcohol for one month. This is the good news for those who want to abstain from alcohol during the festival season. David Rosenbloom, a specialist in substance abuse at Boston University School of Public Health, said: "When you interview patients about triggers for drinking, they often say holidays and family events. For some it's the stress of being lonely, for others it's the stress of being with people."

During Christmas and New Years, social pressure and opportunities to drink are particularly high, so many alcoholics take pills containing naltrexone, which reduces the desire to drink by blocking the receptors in the brain, responsible for the high that drinking brings. But for a pill, they have to take a decision everyday and often pressures make them stop taking the tablets during holidays, said Sandra Lapham at the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The US Food and Drug Administration approved a slow-release formulation of naltrexone in 2006, in which the drug is injected into the muscles once a month. Researchers conducted a study on 28 patients, gave full-dose of naltrexone shots to all the participants and compared these with another 28 given placebos. Study found that the drug was just as effective during the holidays as it was for the rest of the year. The shots reduced the number of drinks, frequency of drinking days and the percentage of days classed as heavy drinking sessions. However, Lapham warned that naltrexone injections must be given with care, because they can cause abscesses if the drug is deposited into fatty tissue.

Rosenbloom said the injections might also reduced deaths from drink driving and he would like to see the courts offer naltrexone shots to repeat drunk-driving offenders.