Hello everyone, quick introduction of myself. I started as a weekend drinker at 12 years old. Turned into a daily drinker at 17. I was also addicted to cocaine and played with other drugs as well. The damage I did to myself gave me horrible depression and anxiety so I was also taking a ton of benzos and was on an ssri for 3 years and gained about 60 pounds. I have had many run ins with the law because of my drinking, lost friends, lost jobs etc. Tried the abstinence route but always ended up relapsing. In the last 5 years I have come off of antidepressents, completely quit benzos and have not used other drugs for over 3 years. I have lost about 50 lbs and I am in oretty good shape. I still have trouble with my drinking. I started the Sinclair method in September of last year so kt has been about 7 months. At first it seemed to stop the endorphin rush and I cut down a little. Then my numbers shot back up. I admot I have not been keeping track of my drinks because I just forget when I start getting buzzed. I have tried both kinds of Naltrexone and find the Nodict works best for me. I bite it in half 60 minutes before drinking. Tried 2 hours but doesnt make a difference. I definitly drink a little slower on Nal but I just end up drinking longer. For example yesterday I drank from 3pm till midnight and drank about 12 cans of beer. I drink heavily 2 or 3 times a week. It just doesn't seem like I am making any progress....is it too early to throw in the towel? If I drink at home I am ok but when I go out I get absolutely hammered and it is the same as bedore I started Nal. I acrually blacked out last month. Any suggestions would be great.
Thank you
And I would say I am drinking at or close to pre nal levels now 7 months later. Once thing it has stopped is I do not start drinking in the mornings anymore.
Thanks everyone and best regards

Sorry about the typos, big fingers/small phone

Aorry I should also add I take 50mg nodict and I would consider myself a binge drinker. It is not that hard for me to go a week without drinking but when I do drink I drink alot.

Hi, TunneLight, welcome to TheSinclairMethod!

If you had been taking benzos while doing TSM, that would tend to set you back (benzos often accelerate drinking anyway).

I'd suggest taking another run at tracking, there's a phone app called Alchodroid and there's also a spreadsheet/graph combo you can get here:

http://optionssavelives.freeforums.net/ ... graph-tool

It's not unusual for there to be an initial honeymoon period, a sharp drop followed by a sharp increase. Usually, your numbers roll off more slowly from there. As you're not tracking, it's difficult to say much more except the up and down action tends to continue throughout TSM, new lows followed by a reaction high, followed by another new low. I've had 8-9 week periods where I bounced around in a range.

Bingers can take a longer time than others as they (from what I've seen) lose the connection with the conscious part of the brain that might say "Enough for tonight". Sounds like you find that a bit easier to find when you drink at home. Social situations are a tough nut for a lot of people, so you're not alone there. You might look up the reports from "Chatterbox" on the other board I linked to above.

Leaving the morning drink behind is a big step. Have you found that overall, you're blacking out considerably less?

Hello Joe thank you for your reply. Yes I feel like I am blacking out less. But I do not go out much anymore because I am scared to make an idiot out of myself or get into trouble and I never really ever blacked out at home before. I have decided to try to add Kudzu, NAC, L'glutamine and L'taurine
I never took benzos regularly but the day after I drink I always get panic attacks. I have recently found great success with Inositol and Phenibut and I no longer take benzos at all which is a great victory for me. I am very careful with the phenibut because of dependence and tolerance. I did screw up and drive drunk last week... I was not hammered but I had a few and wanted more. I am really dissapointed in myself for doing that so I was considering abstinence again. I really do not want to just give up though so I feel like I am in hell right now. I want a better life for myself but I just do not know which doors to open and which doors to close. I will try to track my drinks more but my short term memory is horrible and after 3 or 4 I just forget to do it. I just wish I could be normal. At 33 I feel like alcohol has robbed me of the best years of my life. But thats life I guess and I have to be thankful for other blessings I have. Best of luck to everyone fighting the fight.

I understand, Tunnel. Good for you for getting to that point at this stage in your life, I strung it out for 30 years.

The phenibut might also affect TSM, (just guessing because of the GABA receptor action), so that might be throwing it off too.

Have you worked with a doc on this lately? There's something called Gabapentin which might be able to help the panic AND it works well with Naltrexone. My doc gave me an Rx for it as it also helps get you down into slow-wave sleep. Despite the name, it doesn't work on the GABA receptors.

Here's a link to a list of doctors, the ones under the Verified section know how to prescribe per TSM.

http://www.cthreefoundation.org/find-a-physician.html

That could get you a prescription that would be considerably less than overseas, usually around $40 for 30 tabs. Some have noted that Costco sells 90 for under a buck per pill and you don't need a membership to use their pharmacies. The Gabapentin (if your doc thinks it will help) is pretty cheap too. Mine prescribed 300mg and I just used one or two per night, so not a big deal to back off them. I had an exchange with a person that was way hooked on benzos and her doc gave her Gabapentin to help her get off (after the usual protocol failed). She was having great luck with it. It's also an anti-alch med in it's own right, but in rather higher doses methinks.

If you mainly drink at home, maybe set a cleanup time so you put that night's bottles away (or the next morning). Might be easier to keep track.

What do you usually drink?

Thanks I will check out the Gabapentin but I would like to stay as holistic as possible. I struggled with allowing myself to use naltrexone but I figured if it could help me quit or moderate it was the lesser of two evils but I will definitly research it. I only take the phenibut the next day 8 hours after drinking and I never ever drink on it. I use it once or twice a week. Inositol and taurine increase gaba activity too will that mess me up? I thought it was ok because natural vitamins and aminos. I always drink beer because anything else and I get too drunk too fast although when I am out at the bar I always grab for salty dogs and tequilas...

Dunno about the phenibut, since you don't take it every day it may not be a problem at all. That may be where tracking would be handy, but you could look at your intake on days when you take it and see if you get a bump in your consumption. SSRI's can cause an increase in drinking too (just a "for instance"), but a particular SSRI might cause one to drink more, the other to drink less and the next one, no effect on drinking at all. So in that context, what's true is what's true for you.

I haven't heard about people taking inositol, taurine, GABA powder or L-Theanine (a GABA precursor) suddenly starting to hoover up the booze.

When you go out, try switching back to beer only for a few nights and see what your results are. Part of the battle here is to try to maintain a connection to the conscious part of your brain (frontal lobes, for our purposes) so it can pop up and vote. Eventually, as TSM attenuates the love for booze in the addicted part of your brain (the Striatum), the conscious part (that isn't nearly as taken with the stuff) will begin to win out, so you want to watch for that moment during the evening when you get that "Meh" attitude towards the next drink, then validate that by putting a halt on drinking for the night.

Also, work on breaking up the habitual part of drinking. Don't keep your drink in your hand. Try taking a sip and then leaving it in the fridge and walking away. Get up to some little thing that needs doing, 10 or 15 minutes worth, then ask yourself if you want another sip. If no, pick another task, surf the net, etc. If yes, then go back and have a sip and be aware of how you feel as you're being pulled back to your drink. Take a sip, put it back in the fridge and then find another diversion. Just keep repeating that process through the evening and keep on watching for the "Meh" moment. Recycle any delay/divert techniques you've learned in the past. They don't have to help you maintain abstinence this time, they just need to give you an extra ounce of conscious control that day. Anything that tilts the scales in your favor is fair game.

Do work on tracking and come up with a way of quantifying when you're at home, any trick that works for you will do. When you're out, take the tab and see they call out the drinks there. If someone buys you a drink, mark that down and add it to what's on the tab. It might not seem like it, but it really boosts your conscious game, and let's face it - the conscious part of your brain has gotten dissed through all of this and has gone off into the corner to eat worms. Fish it back out, encourage it, pat it on the back, feed it, buy it a coke. Keep an ear peeled for that moment of indifference towards the next drink (or even the next sip) and act on it.

Also, have a look at this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2442&hilit=time+to+cure

Here's a thread I started about Gabapentin:

http://optionssavelives.freeforums.net/ ... heck-study

Keep on checking in TunneLight! Check out the action on the other board too.

Thanks,,, I think I may stop using the phenibut because I experienced a horrible crash today and did not even use that much. I started tracking my drinks with the alcodroid. How do I show my weekly units at the bottom of my heading or profile?

You can access your profile by clicking on User Control Panel at the upper right, above the text "It is currently (current date and time)". Otherwise, just type it in below your post. Unfortunately, this message board doesn't support much in the way of formatting and getting things to line up can be difficult.