I am so grateful to tsm and naltrexone, and especially to Claudia for having the courage to "come out" with the story of her struggles with alcohol. She has saved/helped more lives than maybe she knows

April 9th of 2016 was my first drink with nal and fortunately I was a classic early responder. I was totally surprised that suddenly the alcohol didn't grab a hold of me and that it took over an hour to finish the drink -- unheard of! I like to say that the experience was that I had a drink, but the drink didn't have me!

I had been drinking every day for years though for the last few of them I was more of a binge drinker. I went through a period about 2 years ago where I was just tired of drinking and I quit drinking for a month and when I resumed I only drank on weekends with friends. I describe the feeling as if I had been enchanted and alcohol's spell was broken. But within a year I was back to drinking more than I should and the worst part was that I was craving it. My life was starting to revolve around having social situations where drinking would occur.

I think I discovered nal by googling alternate methods as I knew that AA would never be an option for me. Their antiquated quasi-religious "methods" are a put off to a rationalist/atheist like myself and more importantly, it doesn't work. I read Dr. Eskapa's book and that convinced me to try tsm.

My drinking has been totally within normal bounds (8-10/wk with 2-5 AF days; the most I've had since nal is 18/wk). And at 5 months almost to the day everything completely clicked! My ambitions and desires, some old and some new, have surfaced and I am enjoying pursuing them.

I so enjoy having myself back!

Excellent news! So cool...

That's fantastic news, Nikita, congratulations!

Nikita7 on the other board also found that she was becoming interested in things that she'd lost to booze, that falls right in line with the reward center in the brain picking the next thing on the list once alcohol has been removed from the menu.

It's a great thing to hear. Congratulations. I do was a fast responder and on some nights when I only have two or even three beers I have to pinch myself just to be sure it's real. Something that was utterly impossible to do, without serious repercussions, prior to TSM.

Congratulations. Thank you for posting this. I hope to be there with you eventually.