There is still a lot of hope for you. There are many factors that impact how long TSM will take to work. Two key issues are how much you've consumed and how long you've consumed. The MINIMUM of three to four months referenced for the cure in the book is for people who "only" drank 35 per week. If you average twice that, it's a fair assumption it could easily take six months or far longer to work. Take a look at Bob3d's progress report. He is cured but at 14 weeks was drinking as much as ever. Look at Firebird here. He is way past 14 weeks and is just now experiencing AF days and appears to be on the verge of being cured. Check out all of the many folks on the cured thread. I can tell you for a fact that TSM works and is not a hoax. I have had personal contact with several of the cured members here and they are real people with real lives, just like you. Naltrexone works for the vast majority who take it (approximately 90% who take it correctly). However, almost no one here was cured after just fourteen weeks. Moreover, those cured often saw zero improvement regarding their numbers until a sudden "light switch" went off and they suddenly no longer wanted to drink. This could very well be you any day. It's far too early to give up on this miracle cure. I sincerely hope you stick with it and that you start seeing results soon.

My best,

Nick

You'll be okay, I promise. It's interesting that you're at 14 weeks, check this out: http://www.thesinclairmethod.net/community/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=690&sid=df090097b720ebd29d317d0672c52547

Just hang in there.

Please don't give up. Those less in the process are totally rooting for you, those beyond your time frame and CURED know what you're going through.

It sucks that it's not a miracle, quick cure but it is a cure..

D2x,

We refer to TSM being a roller coaster ride because there are ups and downs all over the place. This isn't a linear path, and things often get worse before they get better. I know it's hard not to doubt, especially when you seem to be doing so well, and then WHAM - everything sucks again! But that's what has happened to a lot of us, and we're still winning the fight. There will be lots of battles along the way - sometimes the beast wins, and other times you are victorious. This cycle is common, even though it's frustrating as hell. In the long run, you WILL win.

[quote="drink2much"]

Every morning I take my Nal - 50mg.

Every morning, except Sundays, without fail, I start drinking, and although I never get blind drink, I never fall down, I never pass out, I never even get giggly or happy or sad; I don't slurr my speech or act stupidly - despite all that, I drink far far far far too much.

And I can't stop.

Every day at 6am I look at yesterday's total, and am determined never to drink again
Every day at 8am I take my Nal
Every day soon after that I have a glass of wine
Every day at 10pm I go to bed, knowing I've had about two bottles of wine to drink
Every day I get on with life, do what I have to do
Every day I am a functioning alcoholic
D2x[/quote
I am there with you, and I have been doing this since Feb 09 and my changes are slight and irregular.

I completely understand your writings.

But just like you, every day, I reach over from my bed and take my Nal, thinking, Oh Please, why can I just not drink at least till noon?

Let's just keep the faith, maybe, hopefully we shall succeed. Best to you, I so very well understand.

Hi D2M,

On your thread, viewtopic.php?f=7&t=612&p=7722#p7722, I posted about ambien. In my post, I quoted the following:

"If you have been taking a benzodiazepine or Z drug long-term (for more than four weeks) then it can be difficult to stop it because of withdrawal effects. However, this can be overcome by switching whatever drug you are on to an equivalent dose of diazepam. You can then gradually reduce the dose of diazepam at a pace that suits you. This keeps any withdrawal effects to a minimum. The dose reduction is commonly done over several months before coming off diazepam completely". and

"If you have been taking a benzodiazepine or Z drug for over four weeks and want to stop it, it is best to discuss the problem with a doctor".

So, I'm now thinking about what you said in your weekly progress thread when you stated that "This week was the worst insomnia I've had in yrs - where I was seeing people/things that weren't in the room, shaking, jumpy, alert, anxious but worst of all was the hallucinations". That's scary! I don't know whether you spoke with your doctor before you stopped taking the ambien but it's obviously not too late to speak with him/her so that he/she is aware of what you are going through.

All the best.

V.

D2M - my heart is with you. I do not drink the same way you do, but I feel the same negative self-worth thoughts the same way you do.

I also understand your frustration with no progress at this point. You are not alone - many of us upped the doseage at about 6 months, feeling like that was a good benchmark not feeling anything, to tweek it. Going to 75mgs at first seems the going rate. But I want to encourage you to keep the faith. I am one who is hoping against hope this works for me & soooooo afraid I may be in the 20% it doesn't. All I know is, I am doing SOMETHING about my drinking. I am counting, I am taking medication, I am keeping a journal. Should I drop dead tomorrow, I feel like the ones I love the deepest and care about most will have some comfort knowing I acknowledged my problem, and was trying to do something about it.

So be easy on yourself. You are doing the same thing!! Get a blank book and make notes. I hope it will make you feel better - it does me. "Bad thing" is, I keep all my notes in the same little book - notes on my match guys, notes on my thoughts/feelings/kids & this. Oh well. It's all for me. I am careful not to write anything that would be detrimental to my children. But I do especially want them to know I TRIED -

Try to be easy on yourself, D2M. I know it's easy to get relief when on this site...it's when I'm looking in the mirror the next morning and trying to remember what happened last night (nothing major, more like, huh? did I take a shower? LOLOL/JK!!!) or feeling my high blood pressure, rapid/irregular heartbeat or whatever else that makes me feel guilty...and just wondering about it...that I really beat myself up for being a failure, and plummet into my low zone.

Since being on here, I feel soooooooooooo much better. I think about mis amigos on this site ALOT - can hardly wait to log on everyday and get my dose of acceptance!! Seriously. I wish the same for you. There is hope in this world and many of us are finding alot of it here.

Hope you do too - we are here for you, my friend. Hang in. It wil be ok! XO

D2M -

I'm right there with you. You and I both started about the same time. I had hoped that I could claim victory by Sept, however this is not the case completely. In the beginning I drank everyday and white knuckled during the week for work only to binge drink after a few day and going to work the next day with the shakes. The weekends were bad and Monday mornings always came with the shakes and sometimes still buzzed.

I am a binge drinker, it appears it's all or nothing with me. Once I start there is no stopping me. I used to drink wine but for the last few months I switched to beer (I have no clue why I hated beer before).

What I am finding lately is that I don't suffer from the shakes anymore, I don't have hangovers, and I find my AF are easy and come without thought. I no longer panic if I don't have Alcohol in the house or wake up on Sunday without some because I can't buy it until noon. If I have to go out or attend something I don't panic that have to stay sober or sneek out to the car to take a drink.

So something is happening on NAL that never happened before, keep the faith with me. I have doubts all the time. I battle with the emotional triggers. Now that I have the AF days under control it's time to start dealing with all the triggers.

It might take longer with us but we were heavier drinkers then the study cases were.

This is going to work for us! it has for other. Don't beat yourself up because some got there on schedule because others on the board are still work on progress for longer periods too.

I think like this when it starts to get to me. So, I'm still drinking at week (fill in the blank), the worse that is happening is I'm taking NAL, so I will just continue because it's no worse then it was before Nal and if the light switch goes off completely then I win and all I did was take my Nal.

I've been taking Nal faithfully every day at 4 pm, one hr before starting on my wine. So far, the units haven't decreased, in fact they have INCREASED.

I think the paradox here is that I don't really feel any effect, or after-effects of the wine (except it does make me more relaxed and removes my head tremor--but I don't get drunk) hence basically just drink it out of habit like grape juice.

As a result my average units of wine per evening have climbed from 8 to 12. I'm not buzzed when I go to bed (around 11:30 pm, nor do I feel hung over when I arise (about 7:30 am).

I have a hunch that now it's the habit more than the addiction that I have to kick. I know those two closely connected and difficult to separate.

Yet my urge remains at a 10 and the reward is not a buzz but a sense of relaxation and sociability. I don't slur or see double or feel drunk. I wish I had a breath analyzer so I could tell what's really going on, because I feel perfectly sober throughout

A bit befuddled.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Please remind us how long you've been doing TSM.

Many thanks.

V.