So this board has over 700 registered members as of now. You would think there would be more people on both the cured and the not cured lists. If TSM worked for me, I would be shouting it from the rooftops and I would not be shy about putting my name on the list. But if it didn't work for me, I would also want people to know about it so that they get a realistic idea of what might happen. It seems like a lot of people join this board but rarely post or just drift off into the ether. What is going on? Are people just shy? Do they just stop caring after a while? I don't get it.

hey tambo,
i have asked myself the same question many times. i have read endlessly through old threads, trying to piece together the number of failures as well as successes. what i came to believe is that the majority of people who register for whatever reason fail to follow through either with the method or with the posting. i don't know why, but after going back and looking at LOTS of old threads, there are so many people there who comment but do not have their own threads, and many more who have threads that suddenly stop at 8 weeks, or 19 weeks or 2 weeks. i used to feel very skeptical about whether there were more than the tiniest percentage of folks getting cured here. now i think that of the ones that really follow through, post regularly and stay with it, perhaps half get "cured" others have improvements short of "cure".
i may be wrong, and am certainly willing to entertain other reasons why there are so few "cured", but my mind is at rest that of those who hang in the results are usually, but not always pretty good.
keep questioning,
path

ps. i am with you, i would be shouting from the rooftops "i'm cured!", or stating loud and clear "not cured". anyone else understand the reasoning for keeping quiet?

Just my 2 cents. I think Path is right. Lots who stop posting have probably quit. And ones who do will want to tell everyone they are cured. Wouldn't you? I know I will. When I am cured you bet I'll shout from rooftops! I want everyone to know this can work for most of us & I also feel with a little effort on our part it WILL work. Forget about the non-posters' we can't help them if they don't post or ask for help. And there are probably many who never really wrapped their heart around this for whatever reason. Be it AA brainwashing or a Dr. or some other cocamamie idea. I give us credit for sticking our necks out & just going for it. Huray for us!!!
ALWAYS JANE

Yeah, probably some of the people have quit TSM, some have become cured but have stopped posting, and some do not consider themselves to be cured yet, even though they are drinking at safe levels.

I believe we can all feel for these lost souls after all we do know what they are going thru & how hopeless some of them may feel. Can lead a horse to water but ..you know the rest. We need to take care of us. Support us all that are here anytime we need to. There are so many more jumping on here & we need to concentrate on them & give them the tools they need so they'll stick with the program no matter how long it takes. Just a little of our own effort added when we are ready will make a huge difference.
JANE

I wondered the same thing when I started, yet here I am and to all intents and purposes Im cured yet Im not shouting it from the rooftops. It happened so gradually and gently that it was no one day or week that I suddenly thought 'Oh Im cured'. There is also probaly is a tiny bit of not wanting to tempt fate by shouting Im cured in there as well. Im Irish and we tend not to tempt fate or the Gods. But for the sake of it in a very quiet voice I will say that Yep Im cured and Nal cured me. It did take 9 months though.

I would also estimate that of all the regular posters here that about 85% of people have had a dramatic decrease in units and yes it takes a hell of a lot longer than 3 or 4 months to see a prolonged improvement. The other side of the coin is that its much harder to post here regularly when alcohol is no longer a big deal. I find I have to remind myself to come in here and even then mostly now I just post in my own thread because I think I owe it to this site to pay back what it gave to me which was esentially my life and my peace of mind back.

so, to get all OCD about this, i decided to go through the list of members and see what we have. here is the result of my morning of counting and adding. (numbers are approximate, accuracy is not my greatest strength! and, please do check my math, could be errors there too)

of the 704 members a few are listed twice, so let's say 700.
500 of them joined before april 26 of 2010, about 6 months ago i (somewhat arbitrarily) think that those who joined since then should be considered active, and should not be expected to declare cured or not yet.

so, out of those 500 members, a whopping 305 are folks who have posted less than 5 times. (165 of those posted zero times.)
this leaves 195 people who posted 5 times or more.
out of those, about 38 were very active posters, (over 100 posts), another 38 were moderately active, (posting between 20-100 times), and the rest, 119, posted 5-20 times. again these are somewhat arbitrary distinctions i am making.

so, let's just say that of the 76 or so active posters, (38 very and 38 moderately) we look at who's cured and who's not.

the official list does not seem up to date. it includes 20 names, (including hawkeye who removed his profile). it does not however include zebron, nemo, domd, dizzy? bobinseattle? am i missing anyone? if not the cured total is 25. so, 25 out of our 76 active posters. much better than 25 out of 700!!

there does not seem to be a "not cured list". i can only think of a few who really stayed with it and did not get cured or improved. (i am not including names in this part, as i don't want to speak for folks who may still be doing tsm and/or reading here. if they'd like to add their names, i welcome them to do so. this list is much harder to put together. there are many who may have had problems with compliance, a few who needed to discontinue due to illness or surgeries, several who decided they needed to get their units down sooner than later and added baclofen, campral, topomax, or went for abstinence before giving tsm enough time to work. still others made great progress before backsliding. some may have simply quit tsm for whatever reason. i think many of the "not cured" however fall somewhere in-between cured and not cured, having made some reductions but not enough to claim cured. and, of course there are many mystery folks who suddenly stop posting, because they had success or failure or whatever. it is something we may never know. and, i am sure that there are others who have been completely silent. i sure wish those folks would speak up!

so from this unscientific review i hope we have a better picture of who's doing tsm and who tsm is working for. it should be fun to revisit this in a few months when some of the currently active declare themselves cured.

have a great weekend all!
path

Path, you make an OCD gal proud!!

Interesting numbers. I get kind of sad when people just drop off and I never know what happened. I really do want to know, did it work or not? I can take it, even if the answer is not!

Wow path, quite a bit of work! And I agree, it's nice to know what happens to these people. I thank you for listing me as cured, however, despite the fact that I'm technically an old timer I guess, I'm calling myself one that, as you put:

"fall somewhere in-between cured and not cured, having made some reductions but not enough to claim cured"

In fact, I just started Topamax today to see if I can take things to the next level.

Maybe this thread will cause some lurkers to come out and let us know how they're doing?

Path, thank you so much for doing all that counting. It must have taken some time. It does make me feel a little better if we compare the cured list to only active members. But I still want to know why so many members choose not to participate.