Hello Everyone,

My username is Virgil. I was one of the first people to sign up to this forum. I started my naltrexone journey four years ago but TSM did not work for me. I gave up after 38 weeks.

I was interested to gauge the current success rate of TSM. A quick check of the Cured list indicates 50 successes. The TSM forum now has 1350 members. So, the success rate of TSM is 50/1350 x 100% = 4%. Clearly, this is considerably less than the 75 - 85% success rate quoted in "The Cure for Alcoholism". What is the official explanation for these very different figures?

V.

Virgil,
I think that there are several reasons for the disparity in the numbers; firstly I know that there have been some members who have reached success and their names do not appear on the “Cured List”.

While that may or may not be a significant number I believe that the bigger contributor is that many people have had some success getting more control over their drinking but are not comfortable with saying they are cured. I am an example of this, I have regained some level of control over my drinking, I do not drink in the mornings anymore and I have not had any blackouts in over a year. However after 19 months I still have problems with binging nearly every single weekend, so I am nowhere near what I would define as cured.

I am still practicing TSM and three weeks ago I have added Baclofen to my regime. I am up to 160mgs per day and have not seen any significant impact on my consumption as of yet. I plan on continuing to titrate up until I achieve indifference to alcohol.

Diver

Hi,

I am cured but I never put myself on the Cured List. Also, I have two user names as I lost my pass word for my first one. So, I am One Cured person but in your stats I appear as 2 Non-cured people. I suspect there might be more like me who are either cured and didn't declare it or have more than one user name.

Hope this helps.

Curi

Hi Folks,

So it looks as though there are at least three categories of success:

* those for whom TSM worked 'according to the book' and chose to add their names to the Cured list.
* those for whom TSM worked 'according to the book' but chose not to add their names to the Cured list.
* those who benefitted from TSM but continue to drink at a reduced rate.

Perhaps this might raise TSM's success rate to, say, 10% but that still falls way short of the 78% published figure.

If I find time, I will contact Dr Eskapa and ask him to comment on this disparity.

V.

There is something else different than the classifications you offered: most of us took significantly longer than the book. When you say it didn't work for you at 38 weeks, was your drinking the same, somewhat or significantly less when you quit? At 38 weeks, I was nowhere close to being done.

Another observation about successful TSM'ers: most don't come back here. They sort of just disappear. I wonder how many of our posters start, get to a point they are happier and just quit worrying about it?

Unless I'm missing something, the Cured List hasn't been updated since October, 2011. Also, I don't see any of the names from the last year, such as Half Glass, Heavy Fuel, Ketchikan, etc.

Hmm. I would probably interject that it is very likely that people in Finland where the "80% success rate" largely comes would have a higher success rate than people in, for example, the United States. They have nowhere near the cultural and societal problems we have in the U.S. and (don't hate me) probably have much more personal character, communal support, and general well-being than we do in the United States. I would bet their diets and lifestyles are simply much healthier than ours here.

Who knows what the actual success rate in the U.S. or Western Europe would be. Rats=100%, Finnish=80%, Americans=?.

I think you raise an interesting point, Virgil. There might also be another category: Those who have claimed to be "cured" but who in fact are not. There seem to be a number of people who have pressed the "cured" button too early ...

I consider myself cured and tried several times to add myself to the cured list, but the admins failed to do so.

Not sure if there are others like me.

Incidentally, it took me well over two full years to achieve control.

TongoB

TongoB,
Did you try to PM ~Q~ to have your name added to the "List"?
Diver