hello everyone.

i am probably just one of many people who has followed along over time and has been helped by all of you on this board. thank you from the bottom of my heart. i am private by nature, and am shy about sharing things about my life -- particularly things that make me feel vulnerable. but i wanted to contribute my story in case there is someone who might have something in common with me and might be helped by knowing that.

if you are looking for help, and wondering if the sinclair method is for real, i am writing now to tell you that it absolutely has been for me.

wow, so hard to even begin. it really snuck up on me, the dependence on alcohol. i was not a partier, or a user/abuser of other substances... just someone who enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner (and who had to LEARN to like that!). over a period of a few years, a glass became two, and then more, and then i was drinking at least a bottle of wine a night, usually more. i stopped a couple of times on my own, but always had terrible cravings and eventually went back to drinking.

i never drank during the day, but my daytime functioning was impacted by hangovers, disturbed sleep, and irritability. plus, looking back, i see that all sources of relaxation and pleasure in my life grew to be increasing distant seconds to drinking, which always came in first. i really looked forward to evenings as my time to drink.

my wonderful partner never fully realized the extent of my dependency, and i did not share my concern with him as the physical fallout worsened. i had many more days of feeling bad than good.

one day i was wandering around in a bookstore, killing time. i "happened" to find myself in the self-help aisle, and began picking up books. as usual, the addiction literature did not speak to me at all. the worldview represented by 12-step-style programs clashes with who i am in so many ways that i have never felt that i could find help there. i always considered that to be a personal failing of mine -- that if only i could be more open and more of a joiner/sharer/believer, i could have worked through my problem.

and then i picked up the book about the sinclair method. i have a bit of a science background, and i quickly understood the premise being explained in the book, which made sense. but i don't know if i would have followed through and tried it without finding all of you when i googled "naltrexone."

what i discovered was a whole other recovery community, one that you don't hear a single mention of when you watch "intervention" or any of the other addiction programs on television.

i ordered naltrexone from river pharmacy, and began taking it right away on the day that i got it, december 10th, 2010. I have taken it exactly as described (50 mg per day) except that i have not kept logs of my drinking. i had strong side effects with it from the beginning, and also had the honeymoon effect that others have described: that first week, i almost didn't want to drink at all.

however, the cravings returned. i took the nal consistently. i began to notice during the first month that the physical cravings decreased, but i also noticed to my surprise that that did NOT make it easy to not have a drink -- that first AF day was still psychologically really difficult. this board helped me. i read someone's posting that explained that even though the nal is working, at some point, you do have to use some willpower. so i did that -- at about the 1 month point, i said to myself, i'm going to have an AF day every week.

and then i had two or three AF days a week, and after three months, it was not difficult to not drink at all. but i still had the occasional craving. this board helped me with with that. someone explained that if you are still having cravings, the extinction is not finished. so i deliberately chose some occasions to drink with nal, and i did that. it wasn't very enjoyable -- i found myself really wanting to get the evening over with, in fact.

that was march. by april, i was not having cravings, not taking nal, and not drinking. i also found the pleasure seeping back into all those parts of life that had been coming in second to alcohol -- taking walks, relaxing with my partner, even just watching tv.

i've read on the board a couple of times where posters miss the pleasure of drinking, the "warm glow." i have experienced that feeling of loss, too. no doubt about it, that was nice when it wasn't making me sick! and i sometimes miss the whole social experience that exists around drinking. for example, i always really liked bars, and in a vague way, i sort of thought that being cured would allow me to enjoy bars in the same way as a non-drinker. then something occurred to me: the crack house is never going to be quite as much fun if you don't smoke crack anymore.

i see people out having cocktails and i sometimes have a pang of i-wish-that-could-still-be-me. but it can't. i think of it like this: nal has allowed me to return to a version of a pre-drinker's brain, in that i don't drink myself sick every night and i am not frantic with cravings when i don't drink. BUT i drank so much over time that i changed my brain, and now i'll always be vulnerable to my heightened ability to respond to alcohol. so for me, it has to be drinking with nal, or not drinking.

and all things considered, the trade-off is so, so, so worth it. no question.

it's now 7 1/2 months after beginning the nal. i have no physical cravings at all. i don't really care to drink with nal, so i don't -- but if a social occasion comes along where i want to drink, i plan to go ahead and do so with nal. i feel well every day. my psychological missing of social drinking still pops up every once in a while, but rarely -- and only for a moment until i remember what drinking really is for me.

thanks again to you, the posters on this board. i am very grateful to you.

What a wonderful and eloquent post. Thank you Grace. I wish you the best of luck going forwards
What you say about the loss associated with your previous drinking life really resonates with me. As I am moving along with TSM, I find myself wanting to drink less and less, but sometimes I do want to drink and be in social situations and bars, etc. However, with the nal, not only is drinking not very fun, but additionally I tend to get very nauseous (still!) and sometimes even vomit from the combination. Like you said, sometimes I now see drinking evenings as something I need to "get through' rather than enjoy. And that IS sad - I am hoping it will not always be like this.
EL

I, too, anticipate drinking sessions as somewhat of a chore. I don't really look forward to it, but I am safe in the knowledge that I am protected. And I yet enjoy myself. What goes on chemically behind the scene affects how I perceive things: When I choose not to drink, I actually feel like I am choosing not to take Nal. I just don't feel like taking the Nal, despite the fact that I have no obvious effects from the Nal. Drinking is now somehow secondary in my experience. Everyone thinks that the alcoholic is addicted to the feeling of being intoxicated, when in actuality what one is addicted to is something that goes on behind the scene and is not so much experienced. The pure opiate reward was merely paired/conditioned with the feeling of intoxication. What TSM/Nal does is remove the opiate reward, which one does not so much experience, and leaves the feeling of intoxication which is now somehow not as appealing anymore.

Fantastic post Grace! Congratulations.

Thanks so much for posting Grace!

Thank you for sharing your experience, it's encouraging for everyone to read. It also makes me wonder how many people are out there trying TSM that we don't know about.

LOL!!! "the crack house is never going to be quite as much fun if you don't smoke crack anymore" thats a classic, thanks Grace. A very big congratulations to you and thank you for your post.

thanks so much for your support. today i thought of you all again -- i went by the bookstore where i first saw the sinclair book on the shelf. i went to the section and it wasn't there -- hopefully someone else is getting some help from it -- but i put my hand on the bookshelf and felt almost like i was making a pilgrimage! I know all of you can understand how much i treasure this new freedom that i have.

and yes, i feel sure that there are many others like me whom you have helped. thank you for reading my post!