I found this very interesting Video that was posted by a friend on Facebook. This about Drugs but it can refer to Alcohol addiction too. This really hits home for me as I am a bit of a loner and drink by myself. As a lot of us refer to Alcohol as our best friend well this rings very true. Give it a watch...

https://youtu.be/ao8L-0nSYzg

I'd heard Hari's "Ted Talk" mentioned earlier and I think there's certainly that component too. I've typically been a lone drinker and when the GFC hit, I really started hiding out in the cave (and my numbers started heading skyward).

I have issues with this video. I've seen it in the past as well as the TED talk. There are a lot of very good ideas in it but at the same time they make it look like physical withdrawal isn't real and I'm sure most of us know, I certainly do, that it is. I can only speak from my own personal experience but I've never had a lonely, bored, depressed, or sad day in my life and yet was a raging alcoholic. Ok of course we all have sad times but I am saying in general I'm a very up beat person and I have always lived in rat parks. I'm involved with all kinds of people, groups and activities and so was/is my father who recently just received a big award for community service and who is also a very bad alcoholic. We are very involved with family, friends and community it's just that we drink the whole time doing it.

The only reason why I drink is because I drank. If I had 10 beers last night then by about 3PM the next day my body and mind would start to go into crisis mode. I would physically experience heart rate problems, nervousness, anxiety, and other physical manifestations of withdrawal and the only way out of it was to drink.

So IMHO this is, like a lot of TED type things I have seen, an over simplification of a bigger problem. Or to put it in a better way, it's actually one very good part or piece of a larger problem. I don't disagree at all with the premise that putting drug users in cages (prison) or that people living in depression and squalor have a much harder time with addiction then others. But I know from experience that you can come from an upper middle class text book white American family with menial first world problems and be rife with addiction.

And BTW I've gone on opiates for pain on many occasions. Racing bikes involves crashing and crashing usually results in a trip to the ER or at least the doctor. And I can tell almost every time that when my pain meds run out I feel withdrawal. That very well may be related to alcoholism too. In fact reading Eskapa's book and Sinclair's work was an eye opener to me as I was always one who had my own personal hypothesis on opiates and alcohol. The best way for me to get over withdrawal from alcohol was opiates. I never really got into them but I knew that if I needed to end an alcohol binge if I could get my hands on some opiates it would take care of it. That's the whole relationship that Sinclair discovered and started TSM.

I guarantee you anyone that does heroin long enough will suffer physical withdrawal and just like alcoholism there are some people who are more biologically susceptible to it then others. I'm not sure anyone would even argue that some people 'catch' alcoholism and addiction more then others and that susceptibility in it's self is indicative of a biological cause rather then a social one. i.e. There are some groups of people who become addictive faster then others regardless of thier social backgrounds.

It was the same way when I got into cocaine too. At first I could take it or leave it. I could do one line of coke and it would be ok no problem. But after so many times doing it then one line meant that you would be up all night like fiend till the sun rose and the birds started chirping. And just like with alcohol, it's been 20 years since I have done coke but I bet a million bucks that if i did one line right now then I'd be right back where I left off.

Interesting utube - like Joe and Ocean I have heard this theory before - and your post was really food for thought Ocean .....

Hugs, Maggie

Hi Ocean
I have cocaine+Alcohol adiction.
I started TSM 2 weeks ago and I'm hoping that this will work in my case
I read your post above and I was very curious
Have you managed to quit cocaine+Alcohol with TSM?
I apologize for my english, I'm speaking from Brazil
Best

Welcome, Mac! Glad to see you joined the community! Your english is a lot better than my Brazilian/Portuguese, for sure.

While Ocean gets back to you, I have a question: If you had your choice of only one or the other, would you choose alcohol or cocaine?

I expect that TSM might have an impact on the cocaine, if you do it while Naltrexone is in your system. I really haven't seen much in the way of studies on this, but Cocaine does result in dopamine release in the addicted part of the brain (the "reward system") similar to the way that endorphins released by drinking result in extra dopamine in the "reward system". Do you notice any difference when you do cocaine after having taken Naltrexone?

Hi Joe,
Thanks for the welcome.
Those are dififcult to answer
I've been drinking for the past 15 years and cocaine for only 1 or 2 years.
But now I think I feel more kravings for cocaine although I never use cocaine without alcohol.
I do feel a little diference with the alcohol since I started NAL but with cocaine is very hard to notice any diference. And this is my main concern. I don't really know what to expect. I still get drunk/high but in a subtle diferent way
And since I started NAL (2 weeks ago) I've been drinking/using with the same frequency but less alcohol and cocaine, although I don't know if it's the NAL or my will power.

Hmmm. I guess it's going to be a bit of an experiment then.

Are you working with a doctor?

Yes.
But not familiar with TSM

Hello mac. No I did not use TSM to quit Cocaine. I did Cocaine in the late 80's to early 90's probably for about 4 years two of which were pretty heavy use. I found quitting Cocaine to be a lot easier than alcohol for a few reasons. First I removed myself from the scene and since it was harder to get I used less of it, second unlike alcohol it's not generally socially acceptable and ubiquitous in all walks of life. And 3rd it had really dragged me down which I think just built up my determination to get over it. And another inserting point in my personal experience with Cocaine. I kind of felt like I was only addicted to Coke if I did coke. Same as alcohol like for example if I had one drink then it would trigger this reaction where I had to drink all night. I call that immediate addiction. The same with coke, one line lead straight to the next one till it was all gone. And when you live with dealers like I did it's never gone! But the difference between the two was that after a day of recovering from a coke binge I'd be fine, I would just get over it. But after a day of drinking I would start to suffer withdrawal which would require the medicine, more alcohol. Coke did definitely have some longer lasting psychological addictions but it was nothing like alcohol. Perhaps it was because I was younger at the time.

One thing for sure though whenever I did coke I would drink like a fish too. Probably sowed the seed of alcoholism in me at an early age. The two definitely compliment each other. Having said that though I don't believe TSM will work with coke as it's not technically an opiate nor does it work in that opiodergic system like alcohol does.. I could be wrong though so don't take my word for it. But in any case you have to be very very careful. Heroin addicts for example who want to try TSM for their addiction can easily overdose. It takes a lot of alcohol to kill someone so if you start TSM for alcoholism then you drink and feel nothing so you drink more and more then that's okay for the most part. But if you are doing TSM for heroin then when you take your first shot of H and feel nothing and then take more you can end up dead. Because the H is still doing it's thing to your body you just don't feel it in your head. So I would imagine if it had the same blocking effect for Cocaine then one could find them self in a bad situation.

Good luck.