Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and this is actually my first post.

I'm 24 and I've had a long and not so pleasant history with alcohol. Several car accidents and countless nights of behaving like a complete moron and socially alienating myself, I checked into my first rehab last year.

I started working the steps of AA and I've been sober for about a year. Unfortunately I am finding myself romanticizing about a drink quite often, and I feel like a relapse may be imminent.

I have done the Sinclair method once before and it worked for several months, however I ran out of Naltrexone and sh*t hit the fan really quickly. I couldn't find a doctor to prescribe me more, and I couldn't afford to buy it online. I told my family about this and at the time and they lost their sh*t. They were absolutely furious and viewed total abstinence as the only solution.

I don't know what to do. I'm 24 years old. I want to be able to go out with friends and hang out with people at bars. I want to be able to grab a few beers at the end of a long week. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in 12 step meetings holding hands and saying prayers with 50 year old dudes.

The spiritual growth I have achieved from the 12 steps has been amazing, and it has filled voids in me that I had my whole life. However I still find myself fighting strong urges to drink, with increasing frequency.

How do I get my family and S.O. on board with this after everything I put them through over the past couple of years? I can already see my parents crying their eyes out, and S.O. probably breaking up with me. I want to live a normal life, but I don't want to lose the support of the people I love.

Have any of you ever been in a similar situation? I really don't know what to do.

Thanks

For one thing I suspect they'd have a change of tune on this if they knew your odds or lack there of in AA - 7-10% success rate year one, drops to 1% at year five.). I'd ask them to watch Claudia's TedTalk with you as well as her documentary, "One Little Pill". That's your best bet IMO. The abstinence paradigm is so ingrained in our society it seems most of us have ignore group-think and blaze our own trail. Lest you do TSM again you need to set up a dependable means to procure NAL. No sense having a repeat of prior events which only erodes trust in the method.

Also, it is more important that you continue with TSM than it is to please your family who don't appreciate its efficacy.