Ned, thank you for your interest in this. I got the recommendation to take another after 6 hours from my MD, a professor in ContralClinics, Helsinki Finland. http://www.contral.com/english.html . The treatment consists of five sessions cognitive therapy by a psychologist and three meetings with medical doctor within about five months. NAL has taken effect on me, I am going to make a graph in the (near) future, and convert it into US units.

Joanna from Helsinki

Hi Joanna, I would love to hear more of your experience with the staff at the medical facility as you experience your program.
It would be very interesting to all of us here as most of us are doing TSM without Dr. supervision.
Just your information about the added Naltrexon is interesting and helpful.
I did early on, have a question as I can be a 24/7 drinker and Dr. Eskapa suggested I take 5o mgs twice daily to accommodate my 24 hour habit.
I tried to do this, but I had a fear of taking too much medicine, along with the AL.....so any more info you have to share about this is very much appreciated.

Thanks! ART

Joanna, maybe you can comment on how widely TSM being used in Finland?

I saw numbers 100,000 which don't make any sense since per some statistics estimate for total alcoholics is 500,000. Supposedly government insurance does not cover due to high cost of treatment. Number of hits in ".fi" domain for "sinclair method" on Google is far smaller than number of hits for AA.

Is it well known method, do many people use it, does it have long history in Finland?

Thanks much in advance!

Hi Joanna,
Welcome! It's wonderful to have you on board. So many of us are looking to Finland's widespread usage of naltroxene -- as it relates to The Sinclair Method -- for hope in treating our alcohol addiction. I have been on naltroxene (TSM) since May 09, and have noticed marked improvement in my behaviour while drinking and a lessoning in the craving for alcohol. However, I am still at pre-Sinclair drinking amounts and want to reduce that. I am wondering if my dosage needs tweaking or what...but in any case, we're glad to have you here! As with previous posters,I am interested in how widespread TSM is used in your country and what the success rate is.

Hi,

You asked how widely TMS is being used in Finland? I´ll find it out ASAP. But numbers must be much lower than 100,000, because the population of Finland is only 5,3 million, 5,300.000.

I´m going to visit The Clinic and MD at the end of January. I´ll ask about the added Naltrexon and weather taking it (every 6. hour) is a recommendation only in Finland and why.I´ll let you know then!

When I visited the Clinic for the first time on Aug.2009, I was recommended:

1) Always take a Naltrexone one hour before you drink
2) If drinking goes on, take an other Naltrexone after 6 hours
3) If you have been drinking in the evening, do not drink in the morning (not even on NAL).
4) Avoid very strong drinks like alcohol shots (I don´t know how you call them in English)

This the advice I got. Don´t know if it was just for me who used to drink 45+ units a week or is it a common advice.

Good luck everyone
Joanna from Helsinki

pre TMS 45 + (Finnish units)
1 Finnish unit is 0.8 US units.

wk 1 - 4: 23,14,24,24.
wk 5 - 8: 14,11,12,11.
wk 9 - 12: 15,31,18,27.
wk 13 - 16: 11,20,21,5.
wk 17- 20: 15,24,16......

Joanna, this is really nice to have you on this board, because you are in the place where TSM was originated, because you are on supervised treatment program and most importantly because you are so willing to share your experience.

I looked more at statistics, and found one reference going back to 2000, where Contal states that they have treated 700 patients but overall figure for Finland is 25,000. It is somewhat believable since TSM has been in existence for some time.

100,000 number comes in 2009 or earlier, and it is attributed to Dr Sinclair himself. People in Contal probably will restate the number when asked. Contal appears to be one of the flagship clinics, so it's a bit surprising that they have single percent share of the market. My bottom line is that I have to question Dr Sinclair estimates.

Folks who are in touch with Dr Escada or Dr Sinclair, maybe you can pose the question. It is simple math. 5.3M people, say life expectancy is 70 years, so adjusting for new drinkers coming online roughly 1.5% of total population, including people below drinking age, have been treated with TSM. This seems too high. In US there are only 0.4 of population in AA, and in Finland judging by number of links AA presence is around 100x of TSM.

Damn these newspapers laying off pofessional journalists who are supposed to do their homework and fact checking before quoting, why should I do their job ?. Or should I blame Internet for killing newsapers in the first place?