After 4 months I an not feeling any gain in control. So far, I took 2 seperate weeks of AF Mon-Thu and both times when resuming the weekend, led to out of control drinking through the next week. Its just not acceptable, and with my wedding in < 30 days I have to quit until then. Last night was AF and all the misery of withdrawal begins.

I will drink at my wedding, and I will not take Nal. I can't block endorphins for that day!

My fiancee and I have a bad history of getting out of control on vacations. I'm praying that we don't ruin a $12k 3 weeks in paradise (Fiji). I'll resume Nal of course.

Baclofen is on its' way and I hope it helps. Sounds like it should improve sleep while abstaining. Does it help keep numbers down when drinking? How should I dose?

I gave the Vitamin Cure a fair, if short, trial... 1 week. I can't really recommend it as I didn't notice much help.... I'm trying everything here!

hey buddy i hope you are doing well. i first want to say im two month in the progarm and still drinking my eight beers evreynight but the first month my drinking was cut in half and that was amazing for me. you need to hang in there and try to order the book from beverl rayfiel "the woorkbook for the sinclair method" it will guid in a better directon. have fun on you honeymoon.

I am 8 days AF right now. It took about 6 before the withdrawal symptoms mostly subsided. I haven't gone long enough like this to feel the mental clarity, confidence, lack of anxiety & chills/sweats since January. It's nice. Cravings have been minimal even during withdrawals. Perhaps I got used to it taking M-Thu off a couple times recently.

I should probably stick to abstinence, but I am not there yet. Wine is an integral part of my very limited social life. My goal is moderation.

I've been reading The End of My Addiction and expect baclofen to arrive today or tomorrow. My plan is to experiment with using it to control bingeing and withdrawals while continuing TSM to allow extinction a further chance.

Things are coming to a head as my wedding is 2.5 weeks away, where I will drink, and shortly thereafter a honeymoon in paradise - come on. I am considering starting bac to ramp up the dose and experimenting with the next couple of weekends to get some sessions in and extinct/see what happens before the big day.

Kinda scary.

Finished the book. Received baclofen. 11 days AF, and tonight I'm going to a wine tasting. Have titrated up to 50mg today. Will be interesting to see what happens tonight.

11 days AF is great! Any side effects from the bac?

Very slight and pleasant sense of relaxation when I first started. .. quickly increased the dose with no real side effects

Matt,
Sounds like you are making some real progress, you must be in a very good place right now. Keep us posted on how you respond to the Bac, I know I for one am considering it as an option.

Diver

As usual, a mixed bag.

The baclofen seems to have a definite effect. It's not a miracle worker at this point, but noticeable effective. Friday night after ~10 oz. wine, I did not feel a compulsion to get another drink as quickly as possible. This was a continuing theme; Saturday I had ~ 2 oz. Jameson and a Corona light and then chatted for an hour comfortably before pouring more. Sunday I had a couple and then went grocery shopping, comfortably. I'll find myself getting engrossed in actions and drinking very slowly.

On the other hand, I did drink 10+ units each night. My girl at 115 lbs. had not ramped up her dose like I have (I've been sitting at about 70mg the past few days) and was downing wine when she wasn't spilling it on herself, sloshed. Saturday night I stayed up until 5:30a and got stumbly myself. Ameisen, the pioneer of alcoholic baclofen self experimentation, hit 180mg and leveled off at 120 before he became indifferent. Not only because of the cost, but also the principal, I'm loathe to accept taking a ton of muscle relaxers 3 times a day for eternity.

It's complicated because you're supposed to gradually increase dosage, and taper down if you go off them. So if I drink fri-sat-sun, that gets a little tricky to lay off them. I may experiment with a more PRN approach although it sounds a little dangerous, but I can always down some if I start to feel withdrawal symptoms, and if I hit myself with a sudden large dose on a drinking night and fall asleep because of it - who cares! No responsibilities anyway and I'll save myself a little liver damage.

While the worst superficial (i.e. not counting biological) consequences this weekend were having a bit of a foul lush in my partner and gaining 4 pounds after being suckered in by a pizza deal, I still did not really enjoy the drinking very much. Fiance went so far as to say "I didn't like it. I don't think I want to do it anymore." I can almost agree with that. Perhaps the nal is finally working. Perhaps the 11 days AF period broke the habitualness a little bit and showed the contrast was in favor of sobriety. Maybe both.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and not qualified to give medical advice. Treating yourself with prescription drugs in an unproven fashion can be a dangerous game to play. Swim at your own risk.

CONCLUSION: If your numbers are not coming down and you're scared of where you're at, order some baclofen. When you receive it, begin to take it 5mg 3x daily coinciding with beginning an AF period. Wonderfully, baclofen works to treat anxiety and other alcohol withdrawal symptoms. They'll probably be present nonetheless. In my experience, without baclofen but with xanax, they didn't appreciably subside for 6 days. Everyone's different, but that can be a guideline. I was blessed to both withdrawal and start baclofen while working from home. You may want to start it on a non-work day, but I never had any trouble with side effects such as sleepiness. Increase your dose as quickly as you feel comfortable doing, until you feel comfortable in your own skin and not craving alcohol (never go over 300mg and hopefully stay much lower). I increased faster than recommended with no side effects, but you'll have to feel it out. If you decide to drink again after a couple weeks, always take the naltrexone! I favor this two pronged approach of using baclofen to keep numbers down and naltrexone to extinguish the pleasure-reward response. Ask yourself the next day or the end of the weekend if you really enjoyed yourself at all. Consider at least limiting largely to the weekends from here on out.

I'll continue to update here. I'll report on alcohol withdrawal symptoms after that 3-day binge (currently none!) and also I am considering further increasing my dose towards this next weekend to see how indifferent to downin' em I become.

I'm a little worried because I will be on vacation (statistics point to getting hammered) for 3 weeks on the other side of the planet and a week after ordering, my re-up of nal hasn't shipped yet. And also, if I were to keep steady at the baclofen, I'm not sure that my supply would cover that period either. And it's too late to do anything about that. TTYS.

Last two days continued baclofen ~70mg, AF, no withdrawal symptoms. A slight craving seeing a cold beer in the fridge after working up a sweat, but no "real" cravings.

Another successful 4 days off last week. Increased baclofen to 100 mg Friday night. Lower than normal numbers for the Fri-Sun.

Monday cut baclofen dose to 60mg. No baclofen or alcohol withdrawal effects still.

This is pretty close to what I want to maintain long-term!