I'm such a newbie at this, I seem to have a lot of questions and confusions

In the past I have drunk great quantities of alcohol, then quit for about 10 years, then got hooked again. Over the past 8 years or so I find that it only takes a very little to get me drunk. One sip and I can feel it throughout my old bod. So I'm drinking every day, with cravings about 8 - however I'm only drinking at most two glasses of wine at a time. If I drank more than that I'd really be drunk and have a terrible hangover. MOST of the time I just stop. But, of course, have slipped over plenty of times but not regularly.

My questions are: is it true that it does not matter how much, but how often? Could I have gotten super-sensitive to even a little alcohol? If I'm taking naltrexone to lower how much I drink, how low can I go? I don't want to quit drinking altogether - just to drink when it's appropriate - like a dinner party, birthday, holidays etc. And I'd like to be satisfied with one or two max.

My doctor seemed to think I was not abusing alcohol because I was not drinking large quantities - that seemed to be his criteria....the fact that I "had" to drink did not seem as important to him. Advise please!!

Your Dr. is either an alcoholic in demial or someone who has no grasp of this as all. I suspect the former.

If you aren't happy with your drinking patterns and are having a difficult time changing them, then TSM will very likely help you.

It really doesn't matter what you Dr thinks or says. Your Dr probably doesn't know much more than you do about problem drinking.

Following TSM certainly isn't going to harm you in any way, but will very likely give you a new control over AL that you don't currently have.

BTW, I would be VERY careful what you say to your Dr about drinking problems. Even if you don't have a problem and are not diagnosed with a problem, entries made by your Dr in your medical records about what you tell him/her could come back to hurt you later in ways you don't even know about now. There are some very scary threads on this topic posted by me and Bob3d (maybe a few others). Read them before you say anything else to your Dr.

Q

Hi all. Don't know how this very old post of mine suddenly became current! Anyway SpringRider and Q thanks for chiming in. As you may now know I've put myself on the cured list...so my old question is moot except as it may hit a mark with someone else.

I was not surprised when my doc didn't believe that I "had a problem" when I described the little I was drinking. Poor old doctors - they are trained but not trained in many things that we seem to think are important. As a general practitioner he just knows the falling down drunks in his practice - I'll bet I'm the first person he's ever had come in looking and acting normal, someone he's seen for years, someone he thinks he knows - but is a high functioning alcoholic - someone who has a definite problem with one or two a night...so he's off the hook as far as that's concerned.

As for the insurance thing...well, Q, you may know that here in Canada we have government sponsored health care. That means when I'm sick or need to see the doc I just go. It's free. I have to pay for drugs unless I have a plan at work (which I don't as I'm old gal long retired). I don't worry one little bit about anyone "knowing" about my drinking problem because I can't be kicked off the system. Now if I was working and had a plan through my employer I still wouldn't worry as they couldn't kick me off either. However, that said, if I now decided I wanted Blue Cross or Blue Shield or whatever as an extra insurance for drug payment or whatever I might have a problem with a pre-existing problem but as I don't NEED anything extra from the national health plan I'm ok there.

I do wonder about the American system though. If it's all private it seems to be that's the difficulty - total profit motive makes it hard for them to want to insure sick people!! If you had a national system payed by you but through your tax dollars you could not be hassled when you are sick!! Why do you fear such a system so much? Our system has lots of problems but not getting care when you need it, or fearing being kicked off are not problems here. Sorry for the the blah blah.

Congrats, BGH!! So happy for you!!