Hi,

I am new to this forum today. I wish I had known about it sooner, but anyway here I am. I have been on naltrexone for four months today. I have not seen much of anything since starting this pill. I have been taking it as directed in the book, one hour before consuming any alcohol. I do like to drink gallons of beer daily. I have a pretty good life in spite of that fact; however, I am trying to quit this nasty habit. My wife is 100% behind me as is my doctor. I just feel like I should be seeing some results by now. I am not giving up on this by any means, maybe I just need encouragement. Am I the only one who has experienced results like this? I mean it has been four months now. Any help would be great, I REALLY want this to work. Life is passing me by while I am sitting here drunk every night.

Stubby

I've tried to respond to this post numerous times, but I just can't string the words together to give a proper response. According to the book, this is a take-it-and-forget-it cure. I'm not so sure. There is no doubt in my mind that I could go back to drinking 100+ units a week, and I will probably hit 150 on vacation in a few months. However, I now feel I have more control over my daily units. I've been AF for the past 3 days, but decided to have a few beers tonight. I haven't strung together 3 sober days this century until this week.

Abstinence programs put 100% of the burden on you. I feel like TSM takes at least 50% of the load, but at some point you will have to take training wheels off and see what happens. I doubt you have kept a drinking diary, but I would encourage you to start one now.

It seems to work with most people, although typically longer time-frames than the book says. It appears the longer that you have been addicted and the higher the amount, lengthen the time to recovery. For me it took 5 months, before there was a precipitous decline in drinking. I was a fully addicted daily beer drinker and I never missed a day. After 5 months, when I was finally down to drinking at safe levels, I continued my treatment (of course) and experienced further declines. As of this post after 67 weeks, I've had 3 beers in the last 4 weeks and that was on one day in May.

Special occasions still present their challenges, such as an out-of-town conference I went to 5 weeks ago where there was a free open bar every late afternoon and evening every night of the week. I still took my Naltrexone of course, but my numbers went up for that week. Still, it was 1/3 of my pre-TSM levels for that week of "uncontrolled drinking". I consider that amazing and I consider TSM amazing. There is nothing to lose except your patience. I tried over 21 times over 5 years to stop or control my drinking using every method imaginable and TSM is the only one that actually worked. I don't ever try to not drink, it just doesn't have that "luster" for me anymore.

Bob

I started tsm last summer and went into the Fall of 09 before quitting. Don't know exactly why I quit, maybe expectations too high. Anyway I started up again about a month ago and have noticed better success than last year. I do this thing on my own terms. I don't keep a drinking diary, I try to just take my 50mg 1 hr before and sometimes it's less and once in a while I forget altogether, but I don't beat myself up about it. I finally admitted to myself that I don't really like aa so I don't torture myself by going there anymore. Last evening I poured myself the usual double or triple and followed that with the next one. Half way through that one I decided I just didn't want any more so I tossed it in the bushs. This is unusual and I hope a harbinger of things to come. It' great to have this place to discuss and share this stuff!

Jazz Man. Hey glad to see you back.

I'm still at it. Coming a year next month and have had a decline just not the dramatic results of some of you. But I stay on in hopes of being cured and an example of one who took over a year.

I will post soon, just hadn't had too much to report but I read the forums a lot anyways, My Best, Jim