Hi all,

I've been reading for about a month, but this is my first post. I drink 1-2 bottles of red wine/night. I've been doing TSM for about 2 1/2 weeks and have followed the golden rule completely. I'm not sure it's doing much so far, if anything my drinking has increased. I have been to rehab twice, and spent many years in and out of AA. If that works for you, great. It didn't for me. I read somewhere that this process can take longer for wine drinkers. Anyone have any experience with that. Any info/reply appreciated.

Still drinking,
Pixie

I've heard that, too, but think it might just be hearsay. There's no physical difference with alcohol in wine, but I'd say wine drinking can be difficult to quit because --- (a) it often becomes heavily associated with food, and you're always going to eat, (b) it's probably the most socially acceptable form of drinking, (c) it's often associated with one's self-image more than other forms of booze, and (d) wine drinkers often have "collections" in their house, making it ubiquitous in their lives.

On the other hand, wine seems like the easiest addiction to self-sabotage, which is something I always recommend. Self-sabotaging is when you do something while you're "strong" to make sure that when you're "weak," you won't have the opportunity to give into the addiction. For example, with porn, you self-sabotage by installing a filtered router and throwing the password away when you're strong. When you get super-horny, you have to find something other than your internet porn to satisfy you.

Regarding alcohol, the obvious way to self-sabotage is severely limit what's in your house to just what you want to drink that night. Do this, of course, when sober. Either have just one bottle of wine at home, or buy a cheap bottle and pour half out. Telling a loved one that you want to quit or lower intake is also a good form of self-sabotage -- it makes it way more difficult to easily continue the bad drinking patterns.

I guess it also depends where you live. I live in a state with hilariously strict alcohol laws, so it's easy to self-sabotage. (e.g. can't buy vodka or wine after 9).

Finally, try to change your mindset about Naltrexone. It's simply a tool, like a turbo boost, to empower YOU to drink less. If you're lucky, Naltrexone will make it very easy to not drink. At the least, though, it should make it at least easier for YOU to gain control over your drinking, unless you are one of those for whom Nal is not effective at all.

The thing about wine drinkers taking longer is just an observation "from the field." I don't think anybody has studied it.

It's not unheard of for drinking to increase in the earliest days. Some people are so happy that they finally have "permission" to drink that they start drinking more, and consumption increases until the curing process has a chance to work. Since you've only been doing this for two weeks and you've been doing abstinence-based stuff, I'd guess that's what's going on with you.

Are you tracking your consumption?

Hi,

Thanks for responding. I am tracking my drinking in a little journal. So far it has mostly stayed the same or increased slightly. Something interesting though. I read something about people who drink for extended periods at one time needing a "booster" dose. Actually Melissa1928, I think it was something you may have written in one of your posts. My tendency is to start drinking in the evening, and then stay up until 2 or 3am and continue to drink. For the past couple nights, in addition to my regular 50 mg dose an hour before I start drinking, I've been taking a 2nd 25 mg dose at around 10 pm. This has made a dramatic difference. I can really feel the Nal working now. Before, I would feel the effects of the Nal, and then when it wore off, make up the difference and get super wasted. I think it's called selective reinforcement or something. Now I'm barely buzzed.

Also, barryb3, thanks for your self sabotage recommendation. I'm not used to that term being used in a positive way, but what you said make sense. I sort of have been doing a version of that anyway. I never keep more wine than I'm going to drink in the house. If I do, I'll find a way to drink it anyway! My husband (luckily) is supportive of TSM and wants me to succeed, so he isn't keeping any extra wine around either. We'll see how it goes now that I'm on the booster dose.

RE: Self-sabotage

Then why keep enough wine in the house to get "wasted" until 2:00AM? That makes no sense. I'd say give it a week at most and then really start ratcheting down your units. Even if you have just 1/2 bottle of wine, the "extinction" that takes place is likely equivalent to that if you got "wasted" on two bottles. Once you get those numbers down, then you can start doing more and more AF days, stringing them together, etc... I know it might sound scary or impossible (I know both those feelings well), but the fear and despair are just the addiction trying to trick you.

What emotions or negative thoughts (if any) do you experience when you think about life without alcohol?

Allow me to posit something here please.

I occasionally drink wine in lieu of my much more effective path to ****-faced. In doing so, it has one of two outcomes: I either drink very very late into the night in pursuit of the sleepiness I *require* from drinking or I wind up drinking too slowly and just go around the clock until I am out and feeling so nasty and poisoned I just have to stop.

For the really big drinker (*and no, I don't begin to think that in comparison to myself, one or two bottles a night is unless we're talking the magnum bottles), insomnia becomes a real issue when in pursuit of moderation.

In my experience and at my level of intake, it is about a week of AF before I can even begin to approach a normal sleep pattern. Instead, I wind up in bed all night polishing off audiobooks and missed public radiocasts in a state of - at most - significant drowsiness.

Drinking right now for the first time since mid-day Friday when I crashed after drinking Thur nite and Fri morning, I can report having slept about 5 hours last night and scarcely any real sleep in the entire intervening period though I spent the time in between either reading (binging really) on a terrific travelogue I fell upon or laying in bed listening to an audiobook I am plowing through and enjoying a great deal as well.

In short, I can suggest - whether true for this user in week three or not - that the need to keep drinking is for many the need to get a night's rest every bit as much as it is to get sloshed.

Fortunately, sometimes my hungry mind finds other interests that exclude the sloshed part. Too bad for me, this is vanishingly rare in recent years. Less bad is that my eyes ache from spending the whole weekend when I was not in bed reading online the amazing blog of some folks who have not let alcohol wreck their potential for a fantastic voyage, either literally or figuratively. Their travels and lifestyle are so awesome, I had to keep a clear head to drink it in as much as I could once I got started on their four year saga of buying a sailboat and traveling the globe without ever even have been on one before doing so.

Suddenly, I am reminded of another thing that also made a difference for me for many years even as I drank and (then) smoked dope more than your average bear...

So besides this mention of the matter of insomnia let me also add here a few words about that thing.

In short addition must be part of the program as well as the necessary subtraction of alcohol from our lives. In a way, I think this is what you are alluding to when you talk about the medication being an arrow in our quiver rather than a panacea.

Before I let myself go into the depths of a level of alcoholism I wouldn't wish on a convicted terrorist, my life remained on a pretty even keel owing to the hotter pursuit of other interests that often replaced what has now become today's addled, chronic condition.

I always sought to add good things into my life which were to the exclusion of the bad ones. That really worked and, so far as this guy is concerned, really matters even now, as this weekend's great diversion indicates.

Indeed, I might never have wound up going down the drunken bunny hole had I not torn up a knee in a work accident and been forced to leave behind a running lifestyle that had kept me happy, healthy, and - despite all efforts to the contrary - a frequently sober guy. Even more than the love of a good book or time with other people, etc., running was something very, very important to my life before getting hurt. Of course, I couldn't do that when drinking to great excess. Not at the level of running I was doing = 3-5miles/ day x 5 and a half marathon (solo) on one day of the weekend.

I don't think I'll ever be able to run dozens of miles a week again, but it is already in the works to get on a bike or in a pool or something very soon. IOW, to commence once again ADDING as I do the work to subtract this robbery of my days by drink.

Just sayin'

Melatonin might be a better choice than alcohol.

Sleep is important, and the cluckheads who chortle that nobody ever died from insomnia all need to be rounded into a pen and kept awake for at least 48 straight hours, but there is usually some option other than alcohol. Benzos are out because they interact with alcohol, but melatonin is safe stuff, and there are other options like hard exercise around 4:00 PM.

Seconded.

I have found melatonin helpful as well.

It is worth taking note this is a natural hormone that attends DARKNESS in it bodily production.

All the brightness of our many gadgets, like say the one you are reading this on now folks!, are best avoided in the period preceding your bedtime.

As of course is any tell tale light infusion into your sleeping chamber.

One further note, most tabs of this substance - available at any large-ish supermarket - are on the order of four times more than one needs to get help from it.

Read up and, like any good drunk, remember More Is Not Always Better.

On edit - it is however relatively useless if one doesn't have the willpower to use melatonin to the exclusion of drinking, at least in my experience. In short: Too little alcohol to get sleepy and melatonin /= able to rest. Man up for a night of three and skip the hooch. You can always get in a TV binge on Downton Abbey or Orange is the New Black to get you through those evenings when you need something to focus on other drinking, even if you won't get out of that dangerously Regular Chair.

just wanted to check in. it's week five now and my drinking has begun to decrease significantly. right now i'm on my 4th drink, and last night i only had two. i still haven't had an af day, but i have been tracking and i'm down about 15-20 drinks/week. the shift happened when i began taking a booster dose of 25 mg 4 hrs after taking my first 50 mg dose. i guess because i drink for a long period of time, the initial dose was wearing off. your diagram helped, @melissa1928, thx

That's great news. I'm happy to hear that you're doing well.