Yeh Chrissie, I knew that the story sounded funny when I clicked the Submit button but there it is and I am certain it was not in anticipation of tomorrow . NOW, I have a follow up to the above. First I did make a big mistake cooking lunch, I forgot to add the major ingredient, olive oil, to my garlic shrimp. But then soon after eating I had a little bit of a stomach problem which i blame on the Nal. Then about thirty minutes later I was sitting here talking with my wife and watching a TV program when I suddenly just fell asleep without any warning, almost as if my body turned off an internal light switch. Really strange, I think it was for only about 10 minutes but dead asleep. Even now I am still feeling a little buzzed from the Nal and know that it is for sure the meds and nothing else, I carefully checked the way I was feeling this morning before I took the med.

Still, tomorrow is the big day and I have not for sure made up my mind but I am leaning toward taking a 50mg tab an hour before I eat. But if it gets me as loaded as I was this AM on 25mg then I won't want the wine. Or maybe i will just throw up and ruin my whole lunch. Ha.

OK, so today was the day. I took a 50mg Nal at 12:00 and at 1:00 I broke 9 1/2 years of abstinence to have a glass of wine with my Christmas lunch. AND, nothing bad happened, absolutely nothing. Well that is not exactly true, the Nal again made me just a little bit loopy but not like yesterday. Plus when I took my first sip of wine, a nice Italian Nero D'avola, I had a really nice sensation, almost like I just ran into an old girlfriend that I had not seen in a long time. But I paced myself, drank some water and sipped my wine along with the lunch and finished off the wine after lunch but before a nice coffee and pecan pie. I must admit when my wife had a second glass after the kitchen was cleared I felt the urge to join her but I really wanted to test myself and so I did not although I thought about taking a sip or two for a couple of hours after lunch was over but I did not have a craving, more of an intense urge. Something I am thinking about now is that I do not believe that the alcohol in the wine affected me at all but because the Nal gave me a buzz I can't be sure if the wine did or not. So there it is, eight hours have passed since my wine and no desires are following me around so I guess the day was a success. But I do wonder what the Nal did for me, I mean I did enjoy the wine, the taste the feeling, everything. So I am wondering if my receptors were blocked or not. What do you think? I was sort of expecting not to like the taste of the wine or remember the taste but I did and I liked it so what was blocked? Was my not taking a second glass the Nal or just me. I know that the previous time that I had 8 years of abstinence I was able to drink for a pretty long while without getting hooked again but eventually I did get pulled in very far, very, very far. But as I have said before I was in a different place then with a very different life style which is as far away from me today as Mars is from Earth. I guess that my next test will be the next time that I have something planned where a drink will be appropriate, I do not intend to take Nal just to have a drink for drinkings sake or to test the Nal. At least that is the plan but we all know how drinking can alter the best of plans in the best of people. But, any comments from anyone about my first Nal/alcohol experience?

Let me be the first to congratulate you here in the forum! So glad "day 1" was a success!
I wish I could answer your questions....was it "you who resisted a second glass" or "was it the Nal"? I had/ve the same questions regarding myself being so determined to keep to my "one drink rule". And I think it is a difficult, if not impossible question to answer for those of us who have not extinguished our desire to drink w/ Nal. Those who drank daily while taking Nal can be more certain that the Nal worked for them. Those of us starting at the "abstinence" stage have not successfully extinguished our innate need/desire to drink. But does the Nal help? I think it does somewhat but I also think it takes a bit of willpower on our side. That's just my opinion with nothing but my own limited experience and reading the experiences of others on this forum.

Regardless, you've done well and I wish you continued success going forward.

Well said, and I fear I have nothing useful to answer your questions, since my own experience was not from abstinence, but rather wanting to get "less drunk"...or maybe "drunk less often"!

Of course, 9 years is a long time to be able to remember, but did the sensation of the wine seem LESS intense than you recall??? For me, the impact of alcohol got knocked down a good 30% or more, right off the bat. From the description of your side effects, it sound like you are very much affected by it so I'd think (hope) it would also have some impact on the alcohol's potency. "An intense urge"...is that a craving? Sounds close, at least to me...but you planned well and so were able to follow your plan. More experimentation needed.

Maybe Ellpee will weigh in here, since his experience starting from abstinence is so similar.

Chrissie and Gotthegene,

Thanks for your remarks. I guess that if I had to answer whether I had a craving for a second drink yesterday I would say no because I am pretty atuned to my wants/desires. I did want to drink more but it went away and I don't walk away from something that I want very easily. I have classified myself as having an addictive personality, I have been addicted to cigarettes but quit 20 years ago, alcohol but quit on my own for 9+ years and when I eat chocolate it is all I can do to force myself to stop. I have to really watch myself, when I go to Las Vegas or some other gambling locale I get hooked pretty quick on betting, especially if I am losing, which I almost always do. So it is no wonder to me that drinking eventually took me to task as well. Yeh yesterday was a success regardless of whether it was the Nal or my will power. But why question it. If i have the Nal on hand for any future drinking then I will take it and drink but not unless it is a real occasion, if I do not have Nal then I will not drink. Maybe with that attitude I will not create a problem for myself. Thanks again, comments allways welcome.

New Year's Activity,

So I did not test myself much since my last posting, just a glass of wine New Year's eve. I only took 1/2 of a Nal and had a glass of wine at midnight. Not much after that as I got a little too sleepy to want to stay up real late. Then today I cooked a ham and black eyed peas for lunch and had a glass of wine. Again I took 1/2 Nal an hour before the wine. Thing is I think that the Nal gives me a little bit of a buzz even before I have the wine so it is kind of weird but not unpleasant or anything that I don't want. I think that I still like taste of the wine just as much as I ever did before Nal. So to that extent my pleasure receptors are not being blocked against the taste sensation that I feel from the taste. But I do think that I can drink the one glass and get on with the rest of my day or evening without thinking very much about another drink. I am pleased with that. So far. My wife on the other hand is so funny, she never drank more than a beer on occasion when we met. She still only drinks a few glasses of wine a year and she gets a little drunk on just one glass and it is so funny, she admits that she is under the influence when it happens, I call her a real light weight. Funny.

So, it is now almost two weeks since my first drinks in over 9 years and I have not had any ill effects from the break in abstinence. So that is good. Now my next big test will come in a couple of weeks when I take a trip to South America to buy a house at a lttle beach community that I really enjoy and enjoyed for more than 10 years. Although most of the times that I went to that beach in the past I was drinking. I have ordered another 30 Nal to carry with me and if I find myself deciding to have a beer or wine then I will have an ample supply of Nal to shut down the evil receptors. If I feel the slightest slip in my ability to control myself and if I find that I am thinking about booze instead of what I need to do then it is my plan to back off totally from drinking. Anyway that is the plan. I have made many plans where alcohol is concerned and not followed through but this time the stakes are too high to betray myself.

Sailorbox, are you still taking Nal on a daily basis despite not drinking most days?

Congratulations on good results thus far.

No, I have only taken Nal one hour before the time I will drink. In fact so far I have only taken about 4 Nal in total. But I have an ample supply if I decide to start drinking more often. Based on what I know about Nal I don't know that there is any benefit to taking it if you are going to be abstinent. Does anyone have any different knowledge? Thanks.

How about beer drinkers.. How is Nal treating you beer drinkers? Is it the same for all forms of alcohol, beer, wine, whisky, etc. ? Just wondering because so far I have limited my few drinking episodes to red wine. But I might take a trip and find myself in a place where beer is easier to order than wine. Any helpful experiences.