Ives, I did NOT return to as high of usage after the Honeymoon as pre TSM. I had a few nights where I binged real bad (and paid the price with the worst hangovers I ever had!). But overall my weekly totals never went up to pre-TSM levels, not even close. But don't sweat it, just let it happen!
Dave

Third day on 25 mg, still can't eat after taking the pill. Feeling fine otherwise. Drinking is creeping up to the 7-8 range each night once again. Still taking the naltrexone, no plans to stop. Will bump up to 3/4 pill dose after 25 mg becomes more tolerable.

Hey Ives,
How is it going now? Any reduction in SEs?

Updated log entries on the first post.

The side effects dropped off enough that I upped my dose to 37.5 mg starting yesterday. On 25 mg, I was noticing less side effects with each passing day, both in terms of symptoms such as nausea and itching as well as the effect of the naltrexone on the subjective experience of drinking and being drunk. I took today's dose about a half hour ago and the itching is making itself known. I am going to stick with 37.5 this week and probably move up to 50 next week.

My drinking is creeping back up toward the level it was at before I started TSM, which everyone warned me about and which I expected. My first week on naltrexone, I had 45 drinks, and I counted 56.5 the second week. I am now typically having eight drinks per night. I have also not been very good about waiting an hour after taking the dose before drinking. I think I will start bringing the pills to work with me so that I can take my dose before I head home. That way, by the time I get home, I'm only 15-30 min away from the one-hour mark.

good idea ives! taking the nal early to ensure waiting an hour or more is key.

Hi Ives & welcome

It sounds like you are off to a good start. Given that you are so young, I hope TSM works quicker for you than some of us older ones!

All the best
Sticky

Hey Ives,

I am in the same spot though I haven't really let my numbers creep too much. I have noticed it is getting easier to drink. I am hoping an increase in dose prolongs the honeymoon and makes it easier to continue to limit my units avoiding/minimizing any spikes.

Good luck!

Week 3, 63 drinks.

Basically, everything has returned to normal. I am now taking the full 50 mg every day. I typically take 25 mg when I get home from work and the other 25 an hour or two later to minimize the shock to my system. The naltrexone still ruins my appetite to some degree, but fortunately just about all the other side effects have faded to the point that I don't really notice them much.

Unfortunately, my drinking is right back where it was before I started TSM, which is of course what everyone predicted and warned me about. I have been having at least 8 drinks per night for the last week, and over the weekend we had a party (a kegger, in fact) which resulted in me having about a dozen drinks on Saturday night, the most I've had in one night since I started TSM. At this point, I'm just holding on to the faith that TSM will eventually work for me, even if it takes a few months. I have my second batch of pills on their way now, currently sitting in customs. I'll continue to keep checking in here every few days and updating the first post of this thread with my drinking log.

Ives, do you notice any subjective changes in your drinking, even if your units aren't down? for instance, I just find that on nal, alcohol is not as tasty or exciting...and yes, I can keep drinking, but there's less of an urgency there. Any of this ring true?

Ives I'm also curious about your experience with taste now like El asked. As a homebrewer and I assume fellow beer geek guy, do you really have the full taste back for the high gravity/heavily hopped beers? Like you, I dropped almost all of the SE, and I do have a much normalized taste experience as compared to the start, but it's not like it used to be. I haven't touched IPAs much at all in the last week, and frankly I'm not missing it. I got some budmillcoors light canned beer last weekend, and that is actually my grab of choice for the last few days. I would NEVER have predicted that I would be saying that now. SNPA still tastes better, but I'm not drawn to anything stronger or hoppier at the moment. Crazy. I will be visiting another city and going to a couple of brewpubs this weekend, and I fully expect I will be more interested in their wheat beer and pale ales instead of the IPAs, which will be really strange and really liberating in a way. I was always just going for the IPA for the extra AL before, which was limiting. Good luck man...I committed to it on the outset for a full year even if I did not have positive results on the way. If I didn't do this, I would be no better or worse off in that timeframe anyway apart from the nal cost, so it was a nobrainer for me.