A miniature horse walks into a bar walks to the opposite wall and walks up the wall and across the ceiling upside down and down the front wall and walks straight out the door. A stunned guy sitting at the bar asks the bartender, "what the hell was that all about?"

The bartender replies, "oh, don't take it personally, he never talks to anyone."

ba-da-bing?

David

Great stuff !! I'm still laughing over the toilet paper between the boobs joke wherever it was...

I have just read all 4 pages of this thread and I have to say a welcome to David and wish you the very best! I also have to say thanks for the hilarious jokes. Some of these I will be using. The other thing I want to mention is I love the discussion about disease concept vs abusers and all of the ridiculous ways we have been percieved in the past is so great. The discussion I mean. I Love that there are such smart people here to discuss this stuff. The idea of walking into a AA meeting with a bottle of Naltrexone in hand is something I actually thought about before but shook off as soon as I thought of it. Great idea tho!! Bob. I believe that issues with alcohol and the medical community is still in it's infancy. Doctors mostly guess and say what they have been taught to say generally. The general public just says what they are told by the media or otherwise. The doctors Sinclair and Eskapa are exceptions and thank the universe there are exceptions!!! AA is just plain strange to me. The things I have heard and seen there can only be called " Yuckky ". I have never been on a forum where I truly felt that I could connect or "get on board " with the people. I do here and it is great. Cheers pioneers.! Tater.

I agree 100% Potato.

And by the way, when I'm cured I fully intend to take my bottle of naltrexone and invade AA meetings. Assuming they don't shoot me summarily the same way some abortion doctors get whacked, I think some people will benefit.

I have a very good, well-intentioned doctor. What I'm learning about her is that doctors -- even the few with humility like her -- absolutely squirm when they realize their patient is far more familiar with a certain treatment than they are. My doctor -- who is allowing me to proceed with TSM after consulting an addiction psychiatrist who told her that naltrexone is benign so why not try it -- tried arguing with me that TSM and AA would be a good thing hand-in-hand. I then had to explain that pharmacological extinction only works when the endorphins that cause us to have positive associations with alcohol are blocked when we drink on naltrexone and that AA directly contradicts the method with its abstinence-only rule. The resulting expression on her face looked like she got struck with a bad case of gas so I let it drop. But trust me, doctors are even more haughty than we lawyers, and they will welcome us like a case of herpes when we try to explain to them TSM.

Some thoughts on our healthcare practitioners ...

Dear All, especially Houston TX (yeah!), Potato (does that need n 'e' at the end?) and Minneapolis Nick.

Thanks folks for your many encouraging words. I too, feel as though we all here share great empathy and maybe also feel that we have a great opportunity to help many people far outside this forum to discover TSM and to evaluate its effectiveness. I can finally state that I believe "IT IS WORKING" slowly for me after about three months of daily TSM. In coming to grips, first I had to learn that my usual "drink" is at least two and now I measure each very precisely.

So, now I'm down from 10+++ drink units/daily to below 8 honest units/day and I feel something good is happening beyond just my "wishful thinking." I try very hard to be objective and scientific about this "experiment," allowing room for either outcome: maybe it will work; maybe it will not work. Most importantly, I'm going to do everything to give it a fair shot! Remember, FAITHFULLY take Naltrexone one hour prior to that first drink of the day. Not fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. If you are in a situation and must drink prior to the one hour since taking the Nal, grind the Nal pill up and take it as a powder which will quickly dissolve and kick in much sooner. My coach/therapist told me that trick and I thought it worth passing along. (Shhh.. it tastes REALLY BAD that way!).

On reflection, it seems to me that we should not criticise our primary healthcare providers for not embracing TSM for alcohol treatment. Let us remember their very first pledge to us and to themselves is: "to do no harm" which has formed the underpinning of western medical practice for thousands of years. (Check out the Hippocratic Oath on wikipeadia for some very interesting reading regarding changing medical practices and societal views on morality).

Anyway, when I walk into my primary care lady and announce that I have this new book about alcoholism and a "cure" which requires my further drinking, just imagine her reaction. ALL of the accepted mainstream training regarding treatment for alcohol addiction suggests that immediate and total lifelong abstinence is the ONLY TREATMENT for this unfortunate condition -- which of course was caused by ME, the patient. My doctor, probably just like yours, is 101% skeptical of any such claim, based upon the current state of the art in medicine, but also because I'm asking her to take a chance on violating her most sacred oath to do no harm. So, let us all recognize that we cannot expect our primary care doctors to understand TSM enough to be willing to try it out. Instead, probably we should be glad they are currently so very reluctant to take a risk of "DOING HARM," to us, their patient. It is fortunate for us all that there are persons willing to help us try this unusual method and whatever we discover here, will benefit millions.

On a lighter note, sometime I will disclose here a secret regarding my much earlier "abuse" of PEANUT BUTTER! Oh, it's true! Believe me, both Skippy and Mr. Peanut know me only too well and they still cringe as I walk down their isle at Stop & Shop. But, that's another chapter...

Best regards to all here -- David

Very interesting thoughts David and as one who has been especially critical of physicians, your points are entirely legitimate.

That being said, there are competing elements to the oath that, in my opinion, are being violated by any doctor who refuses to even consider TSM for her/his patients. Here is an excerpt from the modern version of the oath:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

There is concrete, scientific evidence, both in the states and aboard, that shows that TSM is at least 80% effective. I don't have the cites handy but they are contained in Eskapa's book. Once you accept the fact that there is legitimate, concrete science behind TSM, the doctors who refuse to prescribe it are arguably violating their duty to "respect hard-won scientific gains" as well as their obligation to "apply... all measures that are required" for the benefit of their patients. This latter point is especially significant in light of the dismal failure rate of AA and its attendant 5% success rate. In light of the fact that AA and abstinence-based treatments have such dreadful success rates, doctors should be paying special attention for alternative methods that are proven to be effective. Instead, they stubbornly cling to AA-based treatments, which in addition to having no foundation in science (and in fact, are directly contradicted by the science behind conditioning theory) have proven time and time to be highly ineffective. Less effective, in fact, than spontaneous recovery rates for people who simply quit drinking on their own. For more about AA's dismal success rate, I refer you to The Orange Papers, readily available online. (I should also note that while AA used to keep public records of its success rate in the 70s, when the facts showed it to be a dismal failure, they stopped publishing the results of the efficacy studies.)

The fact of the matter is that Hazelden and the Betty Ford Clinic -- the two leading treatment centers for alcoholism in the US and both here in Minnesota -- DO NOT EVEN INFORM THEIR PATIENTS THAT NALTREXONE EXITS AS A POSSIBLE TREATMENT. The fact that they are profiting handsomely from the failure to make this disclosure -- the relapse rate is high and a one-month stay is $50,000-- is borderline criminal, in my opinion.

David, I sincerely appreciate all of your extremely thoughtful posts. And I agree that doctors are first and foremost concerned about "doing no harm." But I do think there is a competing argument here that doctors who refuse to even consider TSM -- especially for patients who have shown a high propensity for relapse -- may be violating their oath to follow scientific precedent as well as to offer the best treatment available.

Hi David - very thought provoking post (and very funny ones prior to this)...


I agree with Nick - I appreciate where you are coming from but in my mind, they are doing harm by not taking the time to research this and at least help us try to use it, instead of reverting back to suggesting anabuse or AA. One of the most humiliating experiences of my life was going to my GP...3 times...to try to get Nal. I brought the book, I printed out studies, I took tests for her, journaled, calculated units, wrote out my goals, went to a therapist and she still winced and said, 'You know...I just don't know. Have you tried going to AA? What about antabuse?" I left my last appointment & came directly home and ordered online, which she knew I would do. That to me is not 'do no harm'.

Again - very much appreciate your point of view and it made me forgive my own doctor for a minute...and then I thought, 'no...she had the power to be brave and help me through this...and she turned her back on me.'

Thank you for the tip on grinding up the tablets! I frequently take my pill < 1 hour before with no ill affect but it would help ease my mind if I knew I was sending it into my bloodstream more quickly.

Glad to see you are doing so well with the method - keep going!

My family practice doctor would trust me and prescribe. I am ever more thankful after reading what some of you have posted. Sadly, I just cannot risk having it on my medical record for insurance purposes.

Happy, I hope the next time you see your m.d. you can educate her (I want to say "shame her") with your success.

I detest the talk of doctors practicing "defensive medicine" to avoid lawsuits. I have seen little of that here on this board, if at all. But you all should know that it's a myth. The profit margin for medical malpractice insurance for the insurance companies is obscene.

I too am fortunate. I switched to a female doctor new to the practice I am with. I first shared the info on Topamax and she was responsive and gave me a script. Six weeks later I went back and shared my info. on TSM and again she took that chance, even being a new doctor with this highly regarded practice. Somehow I knew the head honcho would not have taken that chance although he is quite a pill pusher for his own benefit from the drug companies. I lucked out this time since my experiences with doctors dam near killed me in the past. She is too good to be true an I am afraid that she will move on for this reason.