To say that alcoholism is a 'spiritual malady' is ridiculous, especially when Dr. Sinclair had alcoholic rats...were they suffering from a lack of 'moral character'? Puh-lease. Face it, AA is archaic, sets people up to relapse, it just doesn't work. The most traumatic experiences and demoralizing treatment I have had was in 12 step rehabs, tho I did attend a St. Jude retreat which was kinda cool, I learned a lot, but the whole co-Ed thing is completely inappropriate in my opinion, and it should definitely come the cognitive behavioral therapy with pharmacological extinction. I think a 6 week TSM retreat with cognitive behavioral therapy specialists combined with healthy food, rest, just you know, a general healthy lifestyle with drinking tho, would be an awesome kickstart to the program...kinda like a spa retreat but you take naltrexone and drink...who hears me on this?
No seriously, I understand, alcoholism is no joke, it destroys lives for sure, but to say it's a choice or a disease or whatever...it's really just a brain malfunction and in my opinion, the pharmacological extinction combined with cognitive behavioral therapy is the best way any of us has to rewire those neurological pathways...

A TSM Rehab Centre... That would get global press coverage for sure!

Now who has $2 million so we can buy a country estate?

Andy.

Miss Kris, I'm with you. I've found in my personal experience that CBT (and DBT!) and harm reduction therapy have been quite helpful, and that in conjunction with nal they have been very helpful. I also think that therapy helps us adapt to a life withOUT drinking - which for some is more difficult that it might seem. I also suspect that without the support of this group I would have given up on nal a bit ago, so I think some sort of community element would be nice.
But yeah, no 2 millions lying around here
EL

Totally agree the "spiritual disease" concept is archaic and treating it as such destroys lives. And I agree, we all could benefit from CBT. That being said, CBT is definitely not a required element of TSM, IMO. It may help speed up the process and it may help people cope with the disappointing roller coaster that is TSM, but I remain totally convinced that TSM's ultimate efficacy rate of 80% would still be there, with or without the resort and with or without social support. That's also what the studies say, which demonstrated an 80% efficacy rate regardless of therapy. It's also why TSM doesn't require therapy -- the efficacy rate without it was just as high as with it.

So, I'm not sayin' but I'm just sayin'. Right EL?

Now, when my drinking got to healthy levels after TSM did I still have underlying anxiety issues that helped lead me to drink in the first place? Certainly yes. Could these issues be helped by CBT? Absolutely.

Duplicate post, sorry.

I agree, TSM and CBT are probably the best treatments for addiction available at the moment, and a nice spa never did anyone any harm . TSM alone will help 80% of problem drinkers gain control over their drinking but that's "just" on a bio-chemical level, I think addiction is more than just chemistry. I wonder if doing CBT at the same time as TSM might not be more beneficial emotionally/psychologically for the addict? A lot of addicts have dual addictions or comorbid conditions- anxiety, depression, self harming, eating disorders etc...(be they the reason for our drinking or the result of our drinking, we still have to deal with them), perhaps without a therapy like CBT, someone following TSM might transpose problem behaviour to another addiction or another problem behaviour and never get to the root of their problems. TSM does not teach us to recognise and analyse our emotions and thinking patterns or our triggers...

Curi