When I began to seriously consider taking naltrexone to curb my drinking, I discussed my plans casually with a few people.
All of them made comments to effect of "You don't need that", "That's a bit extreme" and my favourite "All you need to do is not drink so much". Well bugger me! Why didn't I think of that last one? Pure genius!

My question to them was "Why don't you say same to smokers who are on nicotine supplements?". The only response I received was that it is possible to drink at safe levels unlike smoking.

Why these double standards in regards to smoking and drinking? Has anybody else had a similar experience?

Interesting topic - but you're forgetting the elephant in the room: for most people alcoholism is a MORAL issue. If you really wanted to you'd just stop, no? Why don't you just stop? Do you like acting like an idiot in public? Do you like hurting your family? There must be something wrong with you to act as you do. You like being that way!

Get the picture? Poor old smokers are just victims of the nasty tobacco companies. But we drunks are just immoral, evil, slobbering sinners who drink poison by our own choice!

Get it now? And AA reinforces this perception year after year. That's why when you go you have to introduce yourself as a "sinner" - you know, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I'm a sinner, er, I mean an Alcoholic." Then you hang your head, grab a coffee, and a smoke, and sit there for two hours and listen to the boring stories of all the other sinners!

So along comes Dr. Sinclair who says - hey I've got a pill for what's really wrong with these folks!!! Well, we can't have that, can we! Can't cure sin!!!

I'm joking. But in answer to your question, we are simply not ready to see alcoholism as a physical problem YET. It's coming, in the research community, but in the public perception it's got a long way to go.

Hmm. Yes, very interesting and complex. I suppose the truth (as usual) lies somewhere in between. Surely there is some moral culpability on the part of drinkers. I've met many, many alcoholics and, yes, a good % are selfish asses. For people (like me) who never experienced real, physical addiction (ie withdrawal symptoms if not drinking), I can attest that many of my decisions were what one might call "sinful." At the same time, I can also attest to how one experiences a complete lack of control over alcohol at times, whereby the moral faculties aren't really a part of the equation.

Still, I don't think it's much better to disparage AA's fatalistic disease model while, at the same time, saying that the drinker has no choice but to drink since it's all a biochemical reaction that can be solved by a pill.

Sorry, barryb, that my humour did not come through well in my post. That's the downside of computers. Of course, I was trying to explain the attitude that we still have to face in the general public mind - that amorphous "they" out there, not my own opinion, and not the opinion of any thinking individual. The addict is not sinning in any way at all, even though he/she may have had a moral choice in the beginning. But that discussion is for another board. Once 'control' is truly lost, moral choice is not an issue.

There are two, or more, things involved I think. First it does not matter how much one drinks in volume for actual physical addiction to occur. Second physical addiction and psychological addiction usually exist at the same time. I'm happy to be corrected on this by anyone who knows what I may not.

That said, a tool, like Naltrexone, gives us the space to take back some control. I'm of the opinion that Naltrexone works in the physical sense. I don't see how it cannot. It just does what it's supposed to do. While it does not completely take away all desire for alcohol it does decrease the rush we are used to getting. It can be subtle and we can drink past the signal. But that's not Naltrexone "not working."

The difficulty lies in my opinion with the other part of our addiction - the psychological - we still drink. Anyway, I was trying to be funny and missed the mark. In my opinion the "public" is going to continue to see alcoholism as a moral problem for a long time and we need to just ignore it and get on with the business of controlling our own behaviour so we at least are out of the loop.

As for AA bashing - I would not bash individuals there but the whole concept of a philosophy that denies there are pharmacological aids for alcoholics, and insists on labelling people and keeping them talking about and thinking about their alcoholism for years on end should be bashed.

Right on target. People who can drink normally just can't understand what it's like for those of us who can't. My wife admits as much to me. She drinks normally. She can nurse a glass of wine for hours and be content with that, and even when she's "drinking" it's two glasses or so and she's done. If I got two glasses of wine into the night, forget it. I'm in for the long haul. And while she's been very supportive and as understanding as she can be, she doesn't really get it, and admits as much. She can't wrap her head around that craving, that inability to say "I'm done," that terrible longing for "just one more drink." She doesn't know how powerful it is.

As long as she supports me in trying to overcome it, though, that's okay. She doesn't need to get it, she just needs to support what I'm trying to do. Same goes for anyone else in your life.

Most people who really know me know how bad my drinking was, the question I get asked the most is "Why isn't this publicised and used more widely?".

This has been a huge challenge for me. My family just doesn't get it and are against me "taking a drug to quit a drug". Just quit drinking they say! I quit after a month the first time I tried Nal because of the lack of support. I resumed my heavy drinking for 6 months or so and the decided I don't care what they say, I'm back on it. So I'm being watched like a Hawk with my drinking (and tolerating the dirty looks from my 17 year old..even though she has not seen me drunk since starting the meds) and hoping they see the improvement that I do....it's just that for them at this point, they want compete abstinence, so it's harder for them to see the progress of what would have been 5+ drinks is cut down to 2........

I guess my advice is ignore the nay sayers and do what you feel is best for you! And look to this board for support, the people here have been so supportive!

If I even have an inkling that I'm not gonna get support for something I'll keep it to myself.

Its so messed up its not even funny people saying stuff like... "taking a drug to quit a drug"

Lots of people take drugs to quit smoking... opiates... meth..

Granted they might not be cures, more along the lines of substitutes but if they're giving you some control back over your life then why not?

This will be my second time out with TSM. First time I got my drinking under control but was always shooting for abstinence which sadly never came and I messed up. I was drinking 2-3 beers before I backslid.. Jesus... 2-3 beers isn't gonna kill you. Looking back... I should have been happy. Who knows AF might have came?

I''m currently using Baclofen to the same effect. I have control but the SEs are crippling. This time out with TSM if I get back control I'll be happy. Maybe I'll never make it to full AF but as my GP always says.

As long as you have it under control.

Sorry for getting off subject:)

I told my parents a few weeks ago. I asked them if they knew about naltrexone and they both said they hadn't heard of it. But I noticed a perplexed look on my dad's face. I said to him "You think naltrexone is only for heroin addiction, don't you?"
He answered "Well...Yes."
I assured him that it was more effective for alcohol than anything else and went on to explain TSM. I also assured them that I was not taking smack.
This is another issue I have faced when telling people about my medication. Where I am from naltrexone is thought of as being primarily a treatment for heroin addiction.

Oh, my. What fun I had the other day.

In Australia, Naltrexone is (usually) only prescribed for hard-core alcoholics who take it daily and try to abstain - a method that Sinclair has proved doesn't work. However I have convinced my doctor to prescribe it for TSM.

So I go into my conservative small rural town's only chemist (drug store/pharmacy/whatevs) to fill my prescription. This was the first time I have had my Nal script filled locally and I'm wearing what any middle-aged country farming lady wears when she goes to town - nice clothes, a charming summer hat, a touch of makeup etc. I am happy and cheerful (hangover free!) and proud to be taking control of my drinking via TSM.

Because this is a small town, I know some of the chemist shop ladies by name (one is the mother of my hairdresser) or at least by sight from frequent customer service. I watched closely as I handed my script to a sales lady. She twitched a little when she read it, then handed it to the pharmacist. He looked up and gave me the once over then turned to another pharmacist and whispered something. She took the script, looked up, gave me a longer once-over and whispered something back to the first pharmacist. I smiled broadly, turned and wandered over to the perfume counter.

When my script was filled, I noticed that it was generic and not the Revia brand I'd had before. The generic had a coating and imprinted once-a-day schedule on the packet like birth control does. So I began a conversation with the pharmacists over the counter about the generic, its coatings and if the Revia brand would be available at this chemist another time. They looked at me strangely but answered my questions as best they could. As far I could tell, they were totally puzzled by this woman in front of them who didn't look anything like a hard-core alchy, and furthermore, didn't have the slightest hint of embarrassment about having a prescription for Nal filled locally.

Hopefully, one day, especially in my hard-drinking town, scripts for Nal won't be that uncommon an occurrence and pharmacists will not look at every script holder as a dead-beat alchy.