Well I'm over half way through my 4th week of TSM, and I'm taking the plunge in the "Weekly Progress" section here, and will use this thread as a diary. I hope to be able to look back at this thread in the months to come and see how far I've come!

As I described in my introduction a few weeks back, I am trying to break a very heavy drinking habit - worse than most even by this board's standards. My drinking has gone down quite a bit immediately upon starting TSM, and seems to have stabilized at about 65% of what I'd grown accustomed to drinking on a nightly basis. This is great, and I've already experienced improvements with my health, my clarity throughout the day, my relationship with my girlfriend and my self-esteem. However, I still drink way more than I should and (from reading other board members' signatures) even significantly more than many -- if not most -- people here did when they realized they had a drinking problem and turned to TSM for help.

Last week I did an AF day, which was challenging, but I figure I can't just sit back and expect Naltrexone to do the work for me. I'm gonna have to put some effort in to break my drinking habit and treat naltrexone as a tool, not the entire solution. So I've decided to take one AF day a week for now and build from there. Tonight, Thursday, I'm doing my AF for this week.

The other thing I've been thinking about is my weekend drinking habits. When I don't have to worry about getting up for work the following day I stay up later, drinking. When I have days off, I used to start drinking at noon or earlier. Now that I'm committed to taking this pill an hour before drinking, I've pushed my first drink back until around 4 or so; and that's better, but still 3 hours earlier than my first drink on a week night; plus extra hours on the other side staying up late on Saturday. Both pre- and post-starting TSM I consume about 60-75% of my weekly alcohol intake between Friday and Sunday. I think if I implement a rule for myself of no-drinking until 6 or 7 on Saturday and Sunday (except special occasions), on top of my 1 AF day, I'll see another nice drop in my weekly intake.

This has become a pattern for me as well. It's spaced out over a long time, so it's not that I'm getting drunk, but it still really adds up when you're keeping track. My worry about a start time is a lot of times on the weekend, the best time to drink isn't at the end of the day, like if there's a barbecue or picnic in the afternoon. Maybe limiting by count for the day would be a place to start, but then you run the risk of the "once I start I can't stop" effect. Argh, it's difficult either way!

Let us know how your weekends go. I'm looking forward to following your progress!

The more you delay the drinking, and make days alcohol free, the less you'll drink. That's what we want to do with TSM.

Good plan !

I agree with the delaying part. I don't work as hard to "catch up" with my drinking when I'm on Nal.....

Thanks for everyone's responses!



Right; if there's a special occasion, like a barbeque or something I'll make an exception. But most of the time, those afternoon drinks are consequence of me thinking to myself 'hmm... why not have a glass of wine? I don't have anywhere to be...' when its a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, I'm just doing stuff around the house. Like you point out, even though I pace myself (by my standards lol) and my level of intoxication may not seem that bad, now that I'm keeping track of my drinking, I see how much that decision adds up to my total week's intake.

For me, I know a strategy of "I'll just have X number of drinks today" is not going to be effective. As I drink, I get less committed to my willpower. Naltrexone has not eradicated the pleasure I get from the activity to change that yet. If I start drinking at 3pm, it's a pretty sure bet that by the end of the day, I'll have had more to drink than if I start a 6pm.

I'm hopeful that with TSM I'll reach a point where those thoughts don't even enter my brain because drinking becomes less of an appealing activity. However I'm not there yet. In the meantime, I'm trying to come up with ideas to implement 'gentle acts of self-discipline' along with my naltrexone.

featherfoot, I think your ideas are good ones.

Also, don't beat yourself up by comparing your drinking levels to others. Everyone's lifestyle, body, tolerance and habits are so different. The important thing is that each of us knows we want to either cut back or quit to improve our lives. Let's help each other to do that.

Hoping the weekend is going well. I have the same "wouldn't it be nice to have a glass of wine on Saturday afternoon" problem........

Nal on!! Newlife

Featherfoot,
I can relate a lot to what you have shared. I've been at this for about 8 weeks and have played with various strategies in attempting to cut back on my consumption. Like you, the initial drop in my drinking came without even trying, but after that I found it a little more difficult to reduce further. As others shared, I think starting later in the evening did help me somewhat to reduce the number of drinks. And AF days helped me to realize I don't have to or need to drink.

You think it might not be effective to say "I'll only have X drinks today", but I think this is helpful because even if you don't end up sticking to it, in the back of your mind you are intending to achieve a specific goal and if you keep trying for it the results may eventually come even if there are some failures along the way. What has been very effective for me was actually going all the way and telling myself to limit it to just 1 or 2 drinks a day (rather than gradually cutting back from 12), and surprisingly it has worked for over 2 weeks now.

Bingo !!

Drinking less leads to drinking less and that's what we want with TSM. It's not as hard as it seems. Perhaps tally up the positives and negatives of high drink days, vs limiting to 1 or 2. Do that for drinking in general.