Hi all,

After a long wait, my naltrexone should be in my mailbox tomorrow so I figured I'd get in a baseline post before I officially begin. I can't wait to start.

A little about me: I'm 28 and for the past 3 or so years I've been unhappy with my drinking. It's not debilitating but I know I have a problem and I don't want to continue down this path into my 30s. As of right now, I drink on average 2-6 beers a day. Sometimes I drink wine instead, between half a bottle to the entire thing in a single evening. And of course, there are nights when I drink a bit more, mostly on the weekends.

I've always enjoyed the euphoric buzz I get off of that first drink, especially on an empty stomach. My nightly ritual is to drink while I cook dinner. My ex-boyfriend is a very heavy drinker and that's where a lot of my habits started. Fortunately he's an ex now, and I'm ready to break the cycle of guilt and overspending on booze.

I really hope the SM works for me. One of biggest fears is that it won't, and then I'll have to admit I have a problem to my friends and family.

Side note: Did anyone else have trouble creating a login for this site? Jeeez the anti-spam question and the captcha were ridiculously difficult. I tried three separate times! (End of rant

Welcome Gabby,
Lots of good info on here with people willing to help and share their experience.
I have been using TSM for 2 1/2 months, so I am still somewhat new.

If I could do anything different I would have used the mindful drinking techniques from the beginning.

Hope all goes well!

Thanks so much for the reply and tip! I'll definitely try to be mindful along the way. Right now I occasionally have one AF night every couple of weeks. Going to aim for two a week moving forward. Today I only had two beers and I had a brief moment of wishing I had more but the feelings weren't strong enough to get me to the store in this weather.

No real updates from the past week because I wasn't able to start. Today's the day though. I have the pills officially and I'm feeling pretty depressed about binging on an entire bottle of wine last night. I've been perusing the forum about mindful drinking but if anyone else has tips for success they'd like to share, please do.

Quick update after my first two days.

So far so good! It's probably the honeymoon phase everyone's been mentioning, but on day 1 I had two beers, and didn't finish the second one. I definitely noticed a difference in how I felt drinking. My brain kept waiting for that buzz and it never came. The beer didn't taste as good as usual. I also felt the alcohol more, as in I felt my face flush a bit and I could just feel that I was altered a bit. Normally I'm distracted by the buzz and don't even realize how the alcohol is affecting my functioning, unless I'm super drunk. The second day was similar. I had a pint with lunch and didn't finish it. Then later I had 1.5 bottles of light beer in the evening and had no interest in finishing the last bottle. Amazing.

In terms of side effects, I was SUPER irritable after the first dose. A total bitch if I'm honest. I also had some stomach cramps. No side effects at all on Sunday though. Hoping they're gone for good.

Glad to hear the Nal is helping you cut back, Gabby. I was pretty irritable after the first dose too. Seemed like it passed after a few days. Most of the side effects quiet down after a couple of weeks, if they're even around that long.

Yeah Gabby progress is good news.
I remember in first week, I was in the middle of a conversation with potential customers and had a cramp so bad that I just had to excuse myself and walk away! All side effects seem to be a thing of the past now and moving forward.

Thanks for the responses all. No side effects to report today or yesterday other than maybe slight irritability.

I feel silly posting so much because this forum gets so little activity and I'm so new in the process but today was a good day. I didn't drink less than yesterday (in fact I drank slightly more -- 2 pints vs 2 bottles of beer) but the context is important. Today I met a good friend for happy hour after work. This friend is great company and also quite the drinker. Many times I've downed 5+ cocktails with him on a mid week HH. He's sort of a bad influence but we always have a great time and though unspoken, I think we both recognize the alcoholic in one another.

Well today I enjoyed the conversation and hardly thought about my beer. We hung out for 2.5 hours and I casually sipped and that was that. I still think the beer made me more gregarious than usual but it didn't give me the manic buzz that makes me want more.

Here's to hoping this isn't just a honeymoon phase.

Progress update:

I started on January 7th. My pre-TSM levels were 30-40 drinks per week.

Week one went pretty well. I landed at 17ish drinks (a few of the beers were pints so maybe 19). In general, I felt pretty good and definitely noticed a difference with the medication. I was drinking slower. My interest was less. I felt less obsessive.

Sat: 3 beers
Sun: 3 beers
Mon: 2 beers
Tues: 2 beers (pints)
Wed: 3 beers
Thurs: 3 beers
Fri: 1 wine

Week two is also going well; similar sentiments except for tonight. As of right now, I am slightly more than half way through a bottle of wine (in less than two hours). I'm stopping now, but I feel a little disappointed. I know my expectations are too high and I should be happy I'm not chugging the entire bottle. I drank while cooking which is one of my biggest triggers. We'll see how I feel tomorrow... In general, I've been trying for an AF night. I can't seem to commit quite yet. ALMOST did tonight.

Sounds like you're coming along fine, Gabby!

Don't force the AF day, let craving set the number of days you drink and use willpower and mindfulness to limit the number of drinks per day. You only need one drink after you follow the One Hour Rule to progress another step along the path. Any and all techniques to disrupt the habitual part of drinking after the first one are all fair game. Generally, the AF days will come to you, no need to go to them.