Howdy

Of course, I've seen this term here a million times. I have searched, but since this is a stock phpBB forum, you cannot search for terms 3 characters or less. So while it turned up many hits on "nalover" I didn't find any real sort of explanation, just that people had suffered with them.

So what is the definition of NAL-over? What is the proper term that will turn up search hits?

From what I can glean, it seems to be when you outdrink the good effects of NAL so that it's just like you went on a bender without it?

OR is it a sort of hangover from the drug itself?

Thanks,

Zk

I have wondered for some time, I see lots of people talking about NALover and little talk of withdrawal on this forum. Maybe some of you think you don't have withdrawal?

I guess what I'm saying, is that many of the symptoms I've read are consistent with alcohol withdrawal, but nobody is referring to it as such. Every boozaholic knows that the solution to withdrawal is alcohol.

I don't know how this works with NAL, I suppose if you drank thru your NAL and binged/bendered, maybe you'd have to take more NAL, wait an hour, and then have a drink to calm yourself.

If your blood pressure is thru the roof, and you are starting to feel anxious, can't sleep, can't think, are in panic, etc etc that is classic withdrawal, and you're not doing yourself any favors keeping booze from your body when this is happening. It's called cold turkey, the very thing you're trying to avoid. So more alcohol with ease these symptoms - Either that, or you take some kind of depressant to calm the nerves.

When I did cold turkey, I have used librium and valium. I also had been prescribed a beta blocker for high blood pressure that kept BP down, and in turn helped some with anxiety. Both are a miracle for the heebie jeebies, but you should not use benzos in conjunction with alcohol as that is dangerous. You wait until you've sobered up enough that you're getting really uncomfortable and then you take the librium / valium. Librium is a time-release valium. These are both highly addictive so you will not use them by habit, you would use them only to get where you need to go, and then you taper off and stop.

In the early days though, when I first started to encounter detox after a GREAT weekend, (and I feel that some of you are suffering these minor withdrawal symptoms) tapering down with beer on ice can help. Now, minor symptoms feel major to the un-initiated, but trust me they are minor compared with major symptoms like the DTs. And I've only every had minor DTs.

If I had to do it again, I'd beer down a day or two and then start the librium. It takes more will power because after you start feeling better you might just feel like you can justify continuing like this (I just won't drink so much next time) kind of thing. I did that over a series of years here and there, and it gets progressively worse. BUT this is WHY you're doing TSM, to avoid this hell of detox, so you mustn't let yourself detox if you want to avoid it.

Abruptly stopping as people do when they've had enough is very very hard on the body and mind, there is a real risk of some brain damage to cold turkey, with or without librium/valium.

No, the librium/valium isn't for you folks that just have a hangover, but you'll know it's you when you're there.

For minor withdrawal, At bedtimes or when you just need to sleep it off, and have only minor withdrawal symptoms like high blood pressure, minor shakes, minor anxiety, you can take an over the counter sleeping tablet or two like diphenhydramine (benadryl) to get you into sleep and I promise you'll feel better when you wake. I've also used NyQuil to sleep, but it can raise blood pressure....

Withdrawal take a tough toll on body and mind. You need to be mindful of this, seems to me the whole purpose of TSM is to stop drinking without the hell. I wish I'd researched this before I cold turkeyed.

IF I'm wrong let me know, but as I said there seems to be little talk of withdrawal, and many of you have never tried to reduce your intake before and seem surprised at it's effects. There are even a few stories in the book about this very thing - you take NAL, you don't feel like drinking, and if you cut your intake too quickly, too soon, you are bound to have physical symptoms.

I haven't even tried NAL yet but I'm an expert in feeling like death while my body detoxes from alcohol. I think some of you are suffering withdrawal and seems like you think it's a side effect of NAL.

For what it's worth,

Zeke

TSM usually results in gradual reduction of drinking, so withdrawl isn't really an issue - the person drinks as they feel.

I was lucky enough to have had the first 5 days of my TSM AF - I'd been using high dose baclofen and felt so ill I most certainly didn't want to drink. Baclofen is something that can help with withdrawl, so perhaps that's why I didn't feel anything, I don't know.

A nalover is a very bad hangover experienced whilst using naltrexone as per the TSM, which bears no relation to how much you drank, it just appears and it really rotten. For me my normal hangovers were very much like nalovers, but pre-TSM I'd need 30 UK units (3 bottles of wine) for that to happen. Once I started TSM and started drinking I never went over 16 units, and my nalovers were experiences on very low amounts, around 4 or 5 units suddenly without warning.

I think the identifying characteristic of a nalover is the splitting headache.

I have written about nalovers on here in the past.

Thanks for your reply UKB.

OK, so the nalover is actually just a side effect, and one which appears at random.

I do understand that TSM's whole purpose is to avoid withdrawal/cold turkey, but I have read enough accounts of withdrawal here and a few in the book to realize that there are some here that don't realize that it's happening to them, probably because they had never tried to cold turkey detox before, and/or hadn't yet crossed that line with their drinking.

Something to think about. Conventional wisdom for the uninitiated is that you don't drink more alcohol when you wake up feeling sh!tty but if you're going to slip into withdrawal/detox and you aren't purposely doing that, then you're putting yourself thru that for nothing. Just sayin.

Any other descriptions of NALovers? I want to know what I'm getting myself into....

Thanks

ZK

I think that NAL overs suck! I have had several. They are the type of hangovers that you usually go straight for the hair of the dog pre-NAL. Nausea, head aches, stomach pain, dry mouth all at much higher levels than your "normal" terrible hangover. So bad, that even for a highly functional alcoholic who is used to getting out of bed and to work after a few hours of sleep and stinking of booze, it was impossible for me to get out of bed. SO bad that the thought of drinking to make me feel better did not get past the thought process. In fact, the first several AF days on TSM I had were from NAL overs because I could not stand the thought of having a drink to get my body and mind on track.

I have only been even able to start drinking again the day of a NAL-over a few times and it took a lot more than one or two to get me back to feeling just miserable.

Unlike several others, I have only gotten NAL-overs when I deserved them. Which means I had more than 15-20 units the night before.

Hope this helps -

I think I've had a hybrid nal-over so far. I got up the next morning (after drinking less than my usual) and was still drunk. But that was my first night on Nal.

Zeke - I cannot talk about withdrawal symptoms and the nal helping that because I never drank enough to have withdrawal - I was a daily drinker and did not do hangovers! However - a Nal Over is a different thing - they would appear out of the blue -one never knew if one would get one or not. They are far worse than any hangover. I had a nal Over once on THREE Guinness - was sick as a dog and spent the day in bed. I also had a nal Over on 6 Guinness - but other times could have 6 and not get one. Jaba was thinking about going to the ER with a nal Over once she was so ill and her Nal Overs have stopped her drinking more than 3 drinks pretty much.

As for hair of the dog - I have NEVER understood that - if I had too much the night before, it would not send me running for AL - when I used to get hangovers (years ago before I stopped doing them - LOL), I would be gagging if someone suggested AL the next day - I have never understood that.

I am curious as to why you keep asking about the withdrawal and how Nal can help? It is taken before you drink - and I do not think has anything to do with withdrawal. But I could be wrong and am happy if anyone can explain it to me in how nal can/cannot help with withdrawal.

Hugs, Maggie x

Howdy Mags

Thanks for your description of a NALover that kinda puts it in perspective, from your experience. Didn't drink that much, but felt extra terrible anyway.

I have read some accounts here where people have asked about NALover and from the description of their symptoms, it very well could be they are not just having a NALover but instead are having withdrawal symptoms because they have removed the alcohol too quickly. Anxiety, sweating, high blood pressure, sleep disturbance, all of that is very common for someone that is at that point in their relationship with booze, and then removes it too quickly. The "too quickly" could be because they are one of those "fast responders" to NAL, and even though they are daily drinkers that wake up at 3am for their first drink (because booze can make you do that) they just didn't feel like drinking, and their body wasn't ready yet. There is a story in "the cure" that is exactly that. In that particular case, the guy was desperately trying to quit and inadvertently strayed into acute withdrawal territory and ended up on valium to ease his re-entry to the world of sobriety....

hahaha, I'd have assumed that it would be obvious why I ask about withdrawal and how NAL can help? Because my relationship with C2H6O is at the point when I drink more than a few like most of us will, I have alcohol withdrawal symptoms if I stop drinking abruptly.

Unfortunately, I did not discover TSM before I quit and went thru the hell that is detox. Along the way, I detoxed on my own many times, each one getting progressively more difficult. Each one setting you up for rougher waters ahead. I had to do this because there was no way in hell I was every going to cross the line and drink before I went to work, or sneak out at lunch and drink. Didn't really realize what that might do to the long game. In the end, before I decided to "quit" I wasn't working since I had just moved cross country and so I started with the maintenance beer in the morning whenever my body insisted I do so, and then every 2-3 hours thru the day whenever it insisted, so that I was "mostly sober" till evening, and didn't have to deal with withdrawal. This is what it's like being an early stage 4 alcoholic. Although I didn't have the drama with my drinking that some did, it wasn't readily apparent to most other that the quantity I could drink.

"Hair of the dog" you must understand is not always a decision that people make. If you have already crossed the unseeable line, it's about survival. Keeping the withdrawal at bay.... You are fortunate that you were not there, but many folks don't realize how close they are to crossing the line - OR that they have already crossed it!!

Once you do, it's not as simple as waking up feeling sick and saying "I'm not going to drink today".................

So how can NAL help/not help?

From what I can gather, it can help one taper off your drinking from where it's at today, gradually so that you don't have to suffer alcohol withdrawal.

What I haven't yet figured out is whether this process of "de-addiction" with NAL involves just tapering your drinking off, or if it actually rolls back the clock on your addiction somewhat.... I'm an engineer so I have to overthink everything thru.... From where I'm at now, the worry would be having a spike and drinking a little more than moderately and then having to deal with withdrawal the following day.

For you for anyone else that may not be aware, I'm currently a non-drinker who has recently dabbled a little bit. The teetotaller position for me seems to be an untenable one, I am, like every other big drinker who went cold turkey, white knuckling it and just surviving keeping the urge to drink at bay.

It is really difficult to reduce your drinking - everyone here knows that. It's another level of difficult to get to non-drinking without the help of this medicine.

What I'm trying to gather information for, is a pre-emptive strike against the boomerang. Statistics say I'm going to relapse and relapse harder than ever and I just got my life back in line. I know it's a risk to try moderation with NAL, but I guess I'd look at it more like dismantling a ticking time bomb - the bomb *might* go off while you're defusing it, but you know it's almost certainly going to blow up if you don't try.

There's another guy around here who recently made the same move and it seems to be working for him. The relief that it's OK to have a drink, and with NAL having your back to help you from going crazy.

If this actually works, it could really be a life changer for many of us that are just barely functioning socially because we can't have / shouldn't have a drink.

I know it sounds crazy, but I've done "crazier" things like climb a 2000 ft wall of granite with just a few ropes.... Calculated Risk vs Actually Crazy....

I hope that satisfies the curiosity - and if it doesn't ask away. Like the rest of you, I'm here to get help, and also return it. If my experience can help someone else then it won't be for nothing.

Zeke