I second that emotion!

-M

Chances are it will work for you! Good luck - hang in there

AND....

GO HORNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dad was a Flanker for the Crimson Tide back when the Bear was coaching. And I have two degrees from UGA, which is an SEC team. So, I feel I have to politely say... Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Roll Tide!!!

Houtx,

Roll Tide Roll. Loved your team's resilience and your receiver, Shipley, was great! So sorry about Colt, your quarterback. Much respect for your coach and wishing you nothing but the best for Texas has a great team. With Colt, it might have been a very different game.

PS. And I really like your coach. Class act.

Bamabeachin

Sorry to hijack your thread with football Maenads.

As you can see, you WILL move past the side effects of Naltrexone, and start ranting about the same old things that your life was about before you started taking this mysterious medicine. You WILL get back to normal my friend.

Chin up!

Thanks everyone for your continued support! I almost felt like not taking the Nal tonight, buying a bottle of wine and calling it a night but instead I forced myself to drive by that liqour store, come home and read this forum. I knew if I got on here and retouched with others going through what I am, it would help.

The nausea is gone, finally. I am still at 25 mg. and last night thought about having a second glass but didn't so 25 mg is still working. Hey it's been 8 days since I last drank a bottle of wine in a night, woo hoo! Saving the other 25 mg for the possible ending of this honeymoon. Part of me actually enjoyed lying on the couch vegging out, even if I was sick.

Thanks Pisces for filling me in on the Horns being football, I was just about to google it to find out what type of sport it was. I am sure there are lots of female Canadians that would know, just not me .

I have to agree with what was said above: from my observations here for the past seven plus months, naltrexone does work for the majority who take it. In addition, I agree that the people who have no side effects typically end up in the small group who report no improvement. So, the nal is working for you and you are probably well on your way to far more control and far less consumption.

Yes, Maenads - sorry about you feeling blue, but you will reap maximum benefits from this in the end. Hope you are feeling better soon & much luck to you along the way.

Thanks for undulging my cheering - sniff, alas, a great team that deserved to win did. It was an awesome game!! Altho did not go our way, there must be a "losing team" and TX played an awesome seaon. So much fun along the way & yes, so happy for the Tide!!

XO

Thanks Nick, the Nal does seem to be working for me so far. Although last night I took a Nal only twenty minutes before I had a drink and I felt a buzz. Whoa! Had forgotten that feeling, almost got excited. When I got home I had another drink and by that time the Nal was in my system so no buzz, so no more drinking. Part of me was kind of excited about that buzz......whoops!

Sorry your team didn't pull through Houtx. Your cheering for your team brought a smile to my face, I needed some good positive energy!!!

Maenads -- I'm kind of concerned that you seem to think of naltrexone as an anti-craving med; it doesn't work that way. You are experiencing what we have termed the "honeymoon effect."

Here's what Eskapa says: "Be alert that, even very early in your treatment, you may occasionally experience a surprising ability to stop after only a couple of drinks. However, this decrease in drinking and craving is merely an artifact of the treatment. The naltrexone is blocking some of the effects of the first drink and from stimuli that have become conditioned to release endorphins; this helps block the 'first-drink effect.' It is a beneficial but weak effect. The powerful effects from pharmacological extinction develop much more slowly and cannot cure you in a week or two. It took you a long time to reach your current drinking levels, and it will take at least three to four months to reverse the addiction." (pp. 117-118; emphasis his).

My concern is that, as your consumption goes back up, as it has for the vast majority of us, you will be disappointed. Mine shot past pre-tsm levels for a while. Nick describes this as an "extinction burst." Think of the bird, taught through classical conditioning, to receive a pellet of food after pecking a lever. When the pellet one day does not appear, the bird frantically pecks at the lever for a time before abandoning the pecking behavior (i.e. extinction).

Two nice things about the "honeymoon effect": Those who experience it on this board have tended to be the ones more likely to see success on TSM; and, it's a nice glimpse of what the future will be like.

So enjoy it for now, but do remember that it's very likely only temporary. Glad you made it through the nausea!