Hi Generic,

Great start so far, and I really like your dedication to graphing your journey. I had a very similar first experience with Nal, in that I didn't feel overwhelming "white knuckley" but I still had some noticeable craving. That will gradually diminish over the next few months. Also, there's nothing wrong with drinking still being fun. Drinking IS fun for normal people!

Nice Matt and Kim reference - I've always loved the drum breakdown on that track. Good stuff.

You're on your way!

-H

Thanks for the encouragement brother, this has been an interesting weekend so far.

I would say that the honeymoon is officially over. Bottle of wine last night, the same the night before. Without this forum, I might have been worried about the effect of the drug wearing off... I'll soldier on instead. The old feeling of spinning out of control hasn't returned, so I guess I'm cool if this ends up being a plateau for a while.

I read through some of your posts Hesster. We probably drank together at some point without knowing it. I lived in Somerville for 8 years, and am a huge Sox fan. I was even on TV once after grabbing the camera after a playoff game and drunkenly yelling some nonsense about Ortiz and Beckett being invincible. I think it got played a few times because most of my lab saw it. That was fun to live down

Belated welcome and congrats, Generic. It's great that you are making this change. As has been said by so many before, hang on for a long ride. Just follow the rules, keep on charting and posting and seek support if/when you need it.

Didn't they include your silly TV scene in a romantic comedy about the Red Sox?

Cheers Tiller! Thanks for the encouragement. Follow the rules seems doable on this program. I still get the internal dialogue/argument about whether or not to drink tonight, but that is already subsiding as the answer is "yes, if I want to I can, I just have to pop my nal."

An interesting thing happened to me regarding the rules. My wife asked if I wanted a beer but I told her it hadn't been an hour since taking nal. She was genuinely surprised... and so was I, that I wasn't tempted to break the rules. I think she is surprised that I ACTUALLY DON'T WANT TO BE A DRUNK ANYMORE, but it's been that way for a while... I think she believed that any time I talked in the past about reducing my drinking, I was just trying to buy myself more time, more blowouts, more blackouts, more benders. I can certainly remember laughing off the benders afterward, and I sure seemed to enjoy bits and pieces of them, but benders are exhausting. For me it's like a never ending scavenger hunt, trying to thread that needle, trying to get as much EtOH poured into my belly before someone notices how fucked I am and tries to cut me off, trying to hit the afterburners and sneak another chug of whiskey before bed. Laughing it off is part of threading that needle, because if you admit to not being able to steer the rocket, they ship you off to faith healing. If you say you won't go, they all get together and threaten to leave you forever. No one ever staged an intervention for me, but it was probably only a matter of time... but anyway I digress.

I passed an interesting milestone last night. My last big binge was two weeks ago this Sunday. I polished off a sixer of beers and chased it with a full bottle of Tequila. According to my counting, last night the SUM TOTAL of my drinking for every day since that binge finally equaled the amount that I put down in that one day. It's no wonder that my liver was starting to hurt after some of those big weekends.

I hope nal works for me as it has for others and my drinking now starts to slowly decline. If I were to stay here forever though, and a big night is now redefined as a 9-12 unit night without the discoloration around my metacarpals, that's already good enough for me to call it a miracle.

I think that's a very healthy attitude to have. Basically, for a lot of us TSM doesn't "cure" us in the sense that we never ever drink too much again...it's just that we usually/almost always (depending on the spectrum) maintain control and have lives that don't spin around alcohol at its center. So yeah, I think you can look forward to a lot of really positive changes in the near future!

Yep, we're definitely livin' in the Miracle Zone. It's fun to read how "newbies" are reacting to the Nal, and starting to experience that miracle...and the best is yet to come!

Chrissie

Howdy friends. A miracle is exactly what it seems like so far. Even in my post-honeymoon bump up, I (rather unexpectedly) checked a goal off of my list. My wife said "our life is different now." My wife is an enormous skeptic in all things. She thought, and said, that nal seemed like a good excuse to keep drinking. I put it down on my checklist as number four because I thought it would take a little more proving. Last night when I didn't chug the rest of her glass of wine when she was done, she was absolutely floored. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I do not let good wine hit the sink. For that matter, I do not let bad wine hit the sink.

The kind nature of this pill makes me so sad for all of the people like us who have died or had their lives ruined in the past. I think I am going to wait another couple months to talk to my dad and brother, but if this keeps up, I know I will.

Alright, updating my goals:

1. Actually FORGET about a half-drunk drink (left a wounded soldier on the field, but didn't actually forget it)
2. A month without blacking out (halfway there)
3. Slope of the linear regression of my drinking trends statistically less than 0 (this wold have required a sustained precipitous drop or more pre-nal tracking, so may never happen)
4. Wife declares that she likes me better on nal
5. Cured (Who gives a ****?)

Once again, I'm really enjoying your sense of humor, your graphs, and your GREAT progress!

Chrissie

Way to go! I see on your list is to walk away from a drink. You will and you won't even notice at first!!!

Thanks again Chrissie and HF for being so supportive.

Today, I would just like to say.... What. The. F_ck?

Last night I drank 2.5 beers. Why 2.5 not 3? My wife and I have been trying to get on a little better schedule, so have set a time of 11pm to clear the living room. I had 3/4 of a beer left, which itself is crazy. I started drinking at 8. Anyway, I go to do my usual and just pound the rest of my beer. Took a big swig at 10:55. Totally not pleasurable. Went for another at 10:58 and pretty much stopped mid swig. I still love the taste of beer, but the magic isn't there anymore so chugging seems like eating a fist full of skittles all at once. Individually, skittles are obviously delicious, but a whole pile of them is overpowering. So yeah, that happened. I took a half a beer and put it in the fridge. I repeat: What. The. F_ck?

I'm having a party this weekend and right now my biggest concern is getting too drowsy and throwing everyone out early. In the past it would've been me and a select group of folks sitting around the porch at 3am, wrecking a bottle of Jameson, and chain-smoking American Spirit rollies. Then absolute pickled-brain anxious befuddlement all day Sunday until nighttime, when I'd down a bottle of wine to get rid of the shakes. Monday comes and my brain works well enough again to know I'm miserable, but that's about it. This pill is made of ground up unicorn horns.