Alcoholics are highly likely to suffer from chronic insomnia that keeps them from getting enough night sleep, and the condition reduces of recovering from alcohol dependence.

The researchers have found that epilepsy drug, gabapentin, can reduce insomnia in recovering alcoholics, and help them stay away from alcohol more successfully.

The team conducted a randomised, placebo-controlled trial on 21 insomniacs, and found that 30 percent of the patients who received gabapentin during alcohol recovery relapsed to drinking, compared with 80 percent of those who received a placebo.

"We showed that the patients who got the real drug, rather than placebo, were less likely to relapse to drinking -- or if they relapsed it was later," said lead author Dr Kirk Brower, FASAM, the executive director of U-M Addiction Treatment Services and a professor of psychiatry at the U-M Medical School.

"In other words, gabapentin prevented and delayed relapse. Meanwhile, patients reported sleeping better in both the treatment and placebo groups, which may be due to the gabapentin in the first group and the resumption of drinking in the other," he added.

Co-author Dr. Flavia Consens, an associate professor of neurology and member of the U-M Sleep Disorders Centre said that as many as 70 percent of people with alcohol problems suffer insomnia, while others cope with other sleep disturbances including breathing problems known as sleep apnea.