Hello,

I've been passively observing this forum for a long time. I finally convinced my doctor to write a script for Nal this week so it feels like I have something to say here now.

I'm a 33-year old, married male, father of two young children. Over the last 6 years my drinking has progressed from run of the mill, jovial, "nothing in excess, especially moderation", college-boy, pound beers with the boys nights out; to an increasingly solitary and worrisome habit that I can no longer deny corresponds to every point in an "are you an alcoholic" checklist.

I know people here like stats so here are mine (best I can estimate from memory):

40-60u/week (A big spread, I know, but my drinking is highly variable)
1-2 AF

A side note: I am using American units. So the 0.5L 5% cans of beer I like so much count as 1.4u. Is that the way everyone here counts?

I didn't really start drinking until my College days. Even then, it was mostly binge nights at parties trying to meet women. In those days, weed was my drug of choice. In my last year of college, for whatever reason, I started to lose my appetite for weed and increasingly I turned to booze when I wanted a mood adjustment.

As I'm sure you all know, it's a slow insidious process. In the beginning you have 2-3 beers on a Tuesday night. After a tiring day at work that 4th beer on a Thursday night takes you where you want to be. And of course, on the weekends, you really "have a good time". And for a while - for years - it is a good time. And Homer Simpson's aphorism that alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of our problems is still more funny than it is true.

During this period, consumption gradually rises and I adapt. I'm doing well in my career, making more money and taking on more responsibility and pressure. I start to travel more for work. And somehow since they're free (expensed), drinks at airports and on airplanes and in hotels don't really count, do they? The hangovers are getting worse, but I have new strategies to deal with them. I have rules about what time to be in bed and how many glasses of water to drink. Sometimes my wife tells me she can smell alcohol on my breath in the morning. But that happens to everyone once in a while, right? My sweet wife is making comments more frequently about how much I drink. No ultimatums, but I do feel under surveillance.

And so I start to drink more secretively. I'm a night owl and she likes to go to bed early. At first it's just a couple of drinks. Gradually I come to look forward to, even crave, the moment when she will go to bed. Evening affection and love making both take a back seat to watching HBO series with 4-6 drinks. I'm smoking more now too. The combination of booze and smoke on my breath make me smell like a dead homeless guy in bed next to my wife. She complains that I snore, loudly. So some nights now I start to sleep on the couch or in the guest bed. And now with the barrier of embarrassment removed, I can drink even more at night. So much that there are too many empty cans to be discreetly disposed of in the household garbage. I'm hiding my booze now - stockpiles of full and empty cans of beer.

All of this staying up late is leading to more intense hangovers. Also, drinking every night of the week is starting to interfere with my sleep. I discover Ambien. I discover that if you take it after 6-8 beers you get a very pleasant buzz as it kicks in and then you sleep like the dead. I also discover that Ambien + booze = the worst hangover of your life. And I start to struggle during the day at work. But still I take the stuff; for a period of 12 months, I take it almost every night.

A dark period begins. It turns out that if you pound beers from 10:30pm-1am, pop an Ambien and then go immediately to bed, there is a very good chance you are going to piss the bed. This happens, over and over again. It's OK though, because I have a strategy. I go to bed with an old sleeping bag and put the blanket and sheets on the floor. When I awake, soaked in urine, I flip the mattress over to the dry side, put the sheets and blanket on and stash my underwear and the sleeping bag under the bed. The mattress eventually begins to stink of urine. No problem, I have a new strategy: I clean the mattress with a carpet cleaner and copious quantities of vinegar (which actually works!). Now when I go to bed I lay a large garbage bag on the bed, covered with two towels. I slip one of my baby's diapers into my underwear. This prevents my night-time leakages from soaking the mattress. Very clever, I know. It sounds crazy, but engineering a solution to deal with the bed pissing problem seemed like a better idea than stopping the boozing and Ambien consumption at the time.

This was about 18 months ago. I have since managed to kick the Ambien. Vile poison. Thank god it's prescription only. But my drinking is still oscillating way above where it ought to be.

I discovered TSM last August. After getting the courage to ask my doctor about it (without telling him what I did with all that Ambien he prescribed) I booked an appointment and showed him the documentation. He was against it. He said my consumption was excessive but not dangerous and that I needed to work on moderation. My consumption has bounced up and down from 40-60 units/week since then. I saw my doctor again this week. After giving him a slightly more accurate estimate of how much I really drink, he agreed we needed to do something and agreed to write me a script for 3 month's of Nal.

Took my first Nal on two nights ago. Did an AF last night. It's really to early to say anything else about it. I hope it will help me to moderate my drinking. I plan to post here as I make progress. I can see from all your posts that sharing is therapeutic for both the author and his/her audience.

Best,
David

Welcome to the forum David. I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I started TSM back in Fall of '11, but for various reasons and am back here today for reinforcement and support after the worst bender of my life. Obviously I am still struggling - but I believe my failures occurred because I violated the main principle of TSM which is Nal + One Hour + Al + Patience. So if I can offer advice...it's don't follow in my footsteps on that front!

Originally, I started out OK and experienced mildly positive results but went on a vacation in November of '11 in which I forgot my Nal and with increased drinking and not being able to wait that hour, I basically stalled, increased my intake gradually again, and then had some personal issues which led to this past few weeks incident. Traveling for work is also a HUGE trigger for me. I hate traveling and find it so tedious and boring, need something to amuse myself! I wrote this poem once in my head: When faced with a long security line, a helpful aide is a glass of wine. Last week I was flying internationally which meant after I checked in I had plenty of time to hang out and get loaded before I even went through security, I honestly have no recollection of going through or getting on the plane. That was the start of the bender. Every day I would basically white knuckle it till the day ended at 4pm have a few drinks then get ready for cocktail hour at 7pm. Of course that's followed by dinner in which wine is served copiously, followed by post-dinner drinks, naturally, in which I notice I am drinking 2-3 glasses of wine for almost everyone else's 1. Five days of this in a row, followed by a relationship blowout led to me basically drinking the entire contents of my hotel mini-bar on Saturday night, drinking on the flight back and then onward from the moment I got back in the States on Sunday night. I finally got myself under control somewhat on Wednesday during the day. Even while drinking in a more controlled fashion, the level of withdrawal that I have been experiencing these past few days has scared the **** out of me. and I was physically unable to go cold turkey and still function at a minimal level, so I have just re-committed to cutting back using NAL. Re-starting NAL has allowed me to do a gradual taper over the past few days and have what feels like control for the first time in months. I have also realized that even with NAL, I have no control with wine. That buzz just hits me so hard and fast! For whatever reason, I just cannot stop until it is all gone. I have switched over to light beer and that has helped with the control as well.

So! With that sordid tale as an introduction to my issues, you probably should read some of the more positive threads in the New/Introduction forum (you might want to post this there as well as people are more active and very welcoming to newbies), as well as the Weekly Progress. They helped me to have hope, which is why despite my setback, I remain...

Hopeful Bee

Best of luck!

Thanks Bee, less than 24 hours after joining I've already had several very thoughtful comments. It feels wonderful to be in a place where I can tell the truth without worrying that I'll be called a mentally diseased, hopeless f*$k-up who needs to surrender to god.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to stick rigorously to the TSM rules. They are, after all, not so hard to follow.

I hear you on the travel frustration trigger. I've been making a conscious effort lately to abstain completely when traveling. I make sure to have some tasty snacks with me and plenty of access to cold water. I always have a stockpile of good shows/movies on my laptop and podcasts/audio books on my phone. If I can lose myself in a good story the travel frustration melts away.

Good luck on your new TSM drive.
Best,
David