We Asked Real Patients About Their Experiences With Oar Health — Here’s What They Said

To sign up for Oar Health, you’ll complete a five-minute sign-up process and then be prompted to pay for a consultation. The first step will be inputting your name, date of birth, and state of residence. Then, Oar Health will ask you to select whether you’d like to drink less alcohol or quit drinking altogether. Then you’ll be asked whether or not alcohol is causing negative consequences in your life.

You’ll be asked whether you struggle to control your drinking, whether you’d like a subscription to the medication, and finally, you’ll be prompted to create an account and schedule your consultation.

The Consultation

While it might sound a bit impersonal to do an online consultation without face-to-face conversation, many of the patients I spoke with told me they signed up because of the anonymous process.

“We all lie to our doctors out of embarrassment,” says John Ricard, a 25-year-old patient from Colorado. “Knowing I could go online, not really interact with someone, and get something to help was really the major draw for me.”

If it is determined that you are a good candidate, you’ll be connected with the Oar treatment team via asynchronous messaging in your patient portal, so that you can ask questions, and then a treatment plan will be developed and tailored to your needs.

Most people receive a response on whether they’re a good candidate for Oar treatment within 24 hours of completing the consultation, and your first delivery of the medication will arrive within one week.

The Medication

Generally, the recommended dosage for naltrexone is one 50 milligram pill per day, with a meal or a snack, but your prescriber might ask you to take a half pill for the first few days of your treatment plan, then take half in the morning and half in the evening for a few more days, before finally going up to the full one-pill-a-day dose.

According to the patients I spoke with for this review, the medication arrives in one bottle, packed in a discreet (unlabeled and unbranded) shipping box for your privacy. The medication also comes with a dark blue pouch containing educational materials about the medication and your treatment plan.

Regular Check-Ins

The patients I spoke with told me that once they received their medication, a doctor or a nurse from Oar Health would check in with them via asynchronous messaging and then continue to check in throughout the treatment plan, to track their progress and well-being.

“They communicated every single day with me until I was stabilized. I think for at least a week if not two,” says Rose Connolly, a 70-year-old Oar Health patient from Iowa.

Another patient, who asked not to be named in this article, told me that his care team encouraged him to keep a journal to track any changes in his behavior.

In addition to the check-ins with the care team, Oar Health offers a variety of additional optional resources, including:

• Weekly community encouragement calls
• One-on-one coaching via asynchronous chat with a certified, licensed addiction counselor
• Digital tools to track progress, learn, reflect, and build healthy habits
• Weekly SMART Recovery meetings on Zoom
• App resources about managing sobriety and what to expect when cutting back on drinking or quitting altogether

Oar’s National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coaches can help with goal-setting and offer behavioral tools and strategies for managing cravings, building healthier habits, and addressing triggers related to drinking. In addition, the coaches offer nonjudgmental emotional support and accountability by monitoring patients’ progress and adjusting recovery plans as needed.

The weekly SMART Recovery meetings are all facilitated by a licensed mental health counselor. Meetings offer mutual peer support and have four rotating themes: living a balanced life, building and maintaining motivation, coping with urges, and managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. SMART Recovery is a nationwide nonprofit that offers free support groups for people with any type of addictive behavior. Their meetings are open to anyone, not just Oar members.

What Oar Health Patients Said

All six people I spoke with told me they saw positive results after taking naltrexone, with most starting to see results within just a week. And most told me that this treatment plan worked far better than other treatments they’d tried before.

For example, Richard Hodnett, a 70-year-old Oar Health patient from Georgia, says that he started drinking in 1968, and despite several attempts to moderate his drinking, he had never been able to do so, even after checking himself into a detox center in 2019. Before starting naltrexone in July of 2024, he was drinking a 12-pack of beer a day. Now he hasn’t had a drink since.

“For me, it’s the perfect solution,” he says. “As we’re speaking today, I have absolutely no desire; there’s no vodka or beer in my house. And I don’t care.”

He wasn’t the only patient to report similar results to me either.

Rich Harvey, a 45-year-old patient from New York, also says that he hasn’t had a drink since he signed up for Oar Health two years ago. He says that the medication doesn’t really make him feel different, but it does take away his desire to drink. “Over some gradual time, it turned off that sort of switch in me,” he says. And this switch has stayed off, he says, even after he weaned off the medication last year.

Patients whose goal wasn’t to stop drinking altogether but rather to drink less were also happy with their treatment.

For example, one 57-year-old male patient who wishes to remain anonymous because of the stigma attached to alcohol use, says that he was having around 40 drinks per week before taking naltrexone, but after taking it is down to just four drinks per week.

After taking the medication, he says, “I noticed I did not want to drink as much during the day — and then in the evening, I could have one drink and be satisfied.”

Another patient, age 52, who also wants to stay anonymous, says that not only did it curb his desire to drink and help him stay satisfied with less — it also changed what he tends to drink. Before the medication, he’d usually drink two glasses of tequila and one or two bottles of wine at a time, but since taking the medication, he’s mostly happy nursing a beer instead.

What the Research Says

The results reported to me by Oar patients aren’t just anecdotal; peer-reviewed studies on naltrexone have shown similar results.

There are also multiple studies examining the safety of taking naltrexone.

Additional Positive Results

Beyond helping them cut back on or quit drinking, many of the patients I spoke with reported other positive results too.

Ricard, for example, says that signing up for Oar Health and quitting drinking has significantly improved his mental and physical health.

“I’ve lost 60 pounds since I started taking naltrexone,” he says, and he has found that his social anxiety has lessened. “I feel like I’m able to exist in the world without having to drink to loosen up,” he says, adding that this is true even when he goes to parties or is around large groups of people.

Hodnett says he has experienced similar improvements in his health. “You would think that when you go from 63 to 70 your health would start showing a decline. Instead, mine has shown a total improvement,” he explains. There were improvements in his heart health and blood work at his most recent checkup with his primary care doctor, he says, “whereas before, with my red blood count and white blood count, things were just not going well.”

“If I had continued [drinking],” he adds, “I truly believe that we might not be having this conversation today.”

Other patients told me that they found they became more interested in hobbies and other activities.

“Once I stopped drinking, I started riding a motorcycle,” says Harvey. “It was something that I always wanted to do, but I always thought ‘no way’ because I was never sober.”

Side Effects Are Possible

Naltrexone can cause side effects in some people, including:

• Nausea
• Headaches
• Dizziness

Most patients report a decline in side effects after being on the medication for a few weeks, but not everyone.

While many of the patients I spoke with found that to be the case (or they experienced no side effects to begin with), three patients told me that they did experience some side effects throughout the course of their treatment.

Connolly, for example, says that the naltrexone made her feel a bit drowsy, so her Oar care team recommended that she only take the medication in the evening.

Another patient, though, who wishes not to be named, says that he experienced insomnia, so he had to switch to taking the medication in the morning. He also experienced some nausea and low libido. Another patient says she had headaches for the first few days after starting treatment.

Other Medications

Naltrexone is just one of several medications available to help treat AUD, and it works by blocking the pleasurable sensations from drinking. The biggest advantage of this medication over others is that it does not make people feel sick when they drink alcohol, making it a good solution not only for people who want to quit drinking but also those who want to cut back.

“Naltrexone is often the best frontline medication for patients with an alcohol use disorder who are trying to drink less or quit. It is effective in reducing heavy drinking, easy to take, and quite safe,” says Joshua D. Lee, MD, chief clinical adviser at Oar Health. Dr. Lee is also a professor of population health and medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the NYU Fellowship in Addiction Medicine.

Other Online Prescribers

When evaluating Oar Health, our editors also evaluated more than 65 other online therapy and psychiatry companies, including many that offer online psychiatric treatment for AUD, including:

• Talkiatry
• Mindful Care
• Monument
• Ria Health
• PursueCare

The biggest difference between Oar Health and Talkiatry is that Talkiatry is not as narrowly specialized as Oar. Talkiatry offers psychiatric treatment for AUD as well as a wide range of other mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and more. Talkiatry’s prescribers can prescribe a range of psychiatric medications, which means that for AUD, your prescriber could prescribe you naltrexone or acamprosate or disulfiram, depending on what your psychiatrist thinks is best for your needs.

Talkiatry is an online practice that only works with patients that have health insurance (including Medicare), which could result in lower out-of-pocket costs for your treatment plan. However, if you’re underinsured or do not health insurance, Oar Health would be the better option for low-cost treatment, since it does not accept insurance.

Like Talkiatry, Mindful Care’s psychiatric providers can prescribe naltrexone, acamprosate, or disulfiram for AUD, as well as other mental health medications if necessary. However, where Talkiatry can, in some cases, prescribe controlled medications (such as stimulants for ADHD or benzodiazepines for anxiety), Mindful Care will not. Mindful Care also accepts insurance, unlike Oar Health, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

Neither Talkiatry or Mindful Care will ship your prescriptions to your home like Oar Health does; instead, your prescriptions will be filled through your local pharmacy.

Monument is the most similar telehealth platform to Oar Health, because it also specializes in the treatment of alcohol use disorder. Like with Oar, you will fill out an online assessment form at sign-up, but unlike Oar Health, you will have a call with a prescriber before you receive your prescription. You’ll also be encouraged to have regular check-ins with your prescriber every four weeks. On some subscription plans, you can also get online therapy to supplement your treatment plan, and the company does offer some therapist-led support groups.

Monument prescribes not just naltrexone but also disulfiram, making it a good option if you’re unsure which is best for you. However, it only treats patients in 19 states and Washington, DC. Oar is currently available in 42 states.

Ria Health is a telemedicine platform and app that helps people suffering from AUD, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, and depression. Its providers can prescribe naltrexone, as well as disulfiram, Antabuse, acamprosate, gabapentin, baclofen, and topiramate, but you will be required to meet with a prescriber via video chat before being given a treatment plan. It is available in all 50 states and accepts health insurance, though insurance is not required to seek treatment. It is worth noting that Ria Health costs $449 per month without insurance, which is significantly more expensive than Oar Health’s $99 monthly.

PursueCare is also a telemedicine platform and app, but it treats not only alcohol use disorder but also substance use disorder, which is an addiction to alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines, and/or methamphetamines. It can also help treat tobacco addiction, as well as several other psychiatric conditions, including anxiety, depression, mood disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, and some psychotic disorders. Its providers prescribe naltrexone or Campral for AUD, and like with Ria Health, you will have to meet with your prescriber via video call before being given a medication. It accepts insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare, but also takes patients who do not have insurance. Its addiction treatment plan is $245 per month, which is less expensive than Ria Health at $449, but still more than Oar Health, which is $99 monthly. It is only available in 12 states.

Detox

Whether or not they decide to take any of the medications above to curb their drinking, some drinkers will need to properly and safely detox from alcohol first. If you’re looking for more in-person support than Oar Health, detox programs are available, usually offered through a hospital or inpatient treatment center. The detox programs usually last two to seven days, though some are longer, since the symptoms of detox can last for weeks.

During these programs, drugs may be given, such as carbamazepine or gabapentin, benzodiazepines or barbiturates, or diazepam or lorazepam. These meds can ease symptoms and prevent seizures or death during detox. During the detox, you’ll be supervised by care staff, and these programs are generally advisable for people who are very heavy drinkers who will likely experience severe detox symptoms.

Support Groups

Support groups can help people stay sober, either on their own or in combination with taking medication, which is why Connolly still goes to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings in addition to pursuing treatment at Oar Health.

Beyond AA, support groups are offered by organizations such as SMART Recovery, LifeRing Secular Recovery, Women for Sobriety, and Moderation Management.

Some Oar Health patients I spoke with told me that support groups like AA were not enough to help them stop drinking. Hodnett says that when he was just attending AA, he still struggled to control his urge to drink — and that didn’t change until he started taking naltrexone. “A lot of times I’d leave those AA meetings, but then have to walk home past about three liquor stores,” he says. “Every day it was kind of like, ‘God, no, no, no, don’t drink.’ But this way [with Oar] I don’t have to go through that, which is much, much better.”

Harvey was another patient who told me AA didn’t really work for him. “I honestly didn’t really want to go sit and talk about drinking for an hour with people,” he says. “Half the time, it would make me want just to go out and drink.”

If you want to drink less or stop drinking, signing up for Oar Health is safe, effective, and affordable. It has an attentive and knowledgeable care team that has made the patients I spoke with feel supported in their journey of moderating alcohol and finding sobriety. While Oar Health does not accept insurance and the medication can cause some side effects, all of the patients I spoke with were very happy with the treatment plan they received.

In fact, several of the patients I spoke with said naltrexone is the only thing that has worked for them in terms of reining in their alcohol intake, which has greatly improved their health and overall well-being. “I think it’s fantastic,” says Harvey, one of the patients. “I would definitely recommend it to anybody.”

“I was a little ticked that all these years and going in and out of AA, nobody ever mentioned the fact that there was this drug you might try as an option,” patient Connolly says. “I’d never heard of it until I saw their ads, and it has changed my life.”