Melissa, thank you for the comments and the compliment. I would suggest a couple of divergences to consider:

"My only potential concern about your approach is that, with no AF days, you won't get the contrast. "Quite a while" isn't the same as "forever," though, so I suppose it'll work out."

To the contrary, the experience of drinking on Nal is not like drinking (all statements are merely personal observations). No rush, no pleasure, no urge to drink more. I have to force myself to begin, and to complete the dose. When not on Nal I have to force myself NOT to start the day's entertainment. So this is the inverse of the drinking life. I actually set my alarm to tell me to take the pill. Then I have to remind myself to start the dose at 60 minutes. Trust me, these are not concerns I had when I was doing 8-10 units a day.

"Is there such a thing? Extinction is negative, not positive. Once conditioning has reached zero, it can't get any lower."

In the neuroscience of habit, the more we execute a new habit, the deeper we establish the new habits. The metaphor that I use (for myself) is I am 3D-printing layers and layers and layers of new circuits in my brain. Effectively, there is no ceiling to the number of new circuits; there is a threshold at which I forget about the ZING! I enjoy so well with the first two cocktails, but there is no ceiling on the number of new connections I make in my head that bypass the pleasure impulse. (For example, I am drinking my daily dose right now as I write this. I have had a mouthful of bourbon for a few minutes, I just realized -- because it doesn't taste good enough or promise enough pleasure, to swallow. It's just sitting in my mouth as I clinch my jaw and respond to your post. There, I swallowed it. I have 4 oz. to go.) I do suggest that your on-off, binary description of rewiring pleasure responses in the brain is incomplete and belied by Eskapa's research. But I am no neuroscientist and admit my disinterest in digging deeper into this subject. I'm just going to dose for another month, and then carry a pill around.

Breaking a habit isn't the same as forming one, though.

If you're thinking about alcohol, by all means take nal and drink some. That's what'll train you not to seek it any more -- no reward. We don't have to keep reinforcing "no reward" once the alcohol-seeking is gone, though.

Still, I can't see how it would do any harm to have one or two drinks per day. My only concern was that you would have no higher-pleasure no-nal days to reinforce the experience of enjoying abstinence, but perhaps nal doesn't clobber your other pleasures the way it did mine.

Welcome back barryb and BuenaVista! I'm not surprised you are back, and I'm glad you are willing to share your experience.

I'm also not surprised that you experimented with drinking without Nal. I've done the same thing a few times and fantasize about doing it in the future after extinction. Typical alcoholic thinking..... I can't guarantee that I won't do that ever again, but I see what Nal has done for my drinking and I know that it will never be the same again.

I'm hoping when extinction occurs to the fullest extent, I won't care and won't have those thoughts. We'll see....

Barry,

I'm glad that you came back. Your insights and wit were missed on this forum.

I remember warning you about starting to drink again without NAL. The good news is that you came back and that you respond very quickly to the protocol. I think BuenaVista is right in saying that drinking has forever changed us. I remember reading a story in a book called "Moments of Clarity." It's a collection of addiction stories. Ed Begley Jr. was telling his story and at one point his wife told him that his thermostat was forever broken as it related to alcohol. This was while he was lying in a hospital bed recovering from a bender, so she probably had the facts on her side. That is certainly the case for me. My thermostat keeps telling me I want alcohol, regardless of whether it is cold or hot in the house. With or without NAL, alcohol has ceased to be enjoyable and to continue to drink is going to shorten my life considerably. That is why I am so grateful for the miracle of TSM. I now have hope, although I am not as fortunate as you or BuenaVista or Melissa in that it is taking me a hell of a lot longer to achieve extinction.

We are funny creatures. I want what you achieved so quickly and you want to continue to drink. Go figure! Keep working on that frame and keep us posted.

Thanks for your responses. I'm not sure how this will all play out. That one episode of Nal+Drinking seemed to "snap" my funk I was in. I didn't even feel like drinking and had two AF nights and one night with, I think, a beer (no Nal -- don't hate me). I'm leaning towards BuenaVista's method in general, whereby I take Nal and drink outside of my normal routine, purely for the sake of extinction / control (he does it at noon, I was considering doing it after a night shift before bed and sleeping off the yuckiness). Naltrexone is super-powerful for me. I'm pretty sure it's mostly an aversion effect at this point.

Still, I definitely would say it was a slow process for me to start acting stupid again -- about 4 months off Nal to get back to 75% where I was pre-Nal in terms of quantity and compulsion (with 5 months of strict TSM).

No hate, but . . . is that wise?

Is that wise? Hmm. Not sure.

Look, everybody is different when it comes to (a) their self-control, experiences, situations, and (b) their reaction to this very strange drug. I'm thinking it's quite possible that I can use Naltrexone sparingly in order to achieve very moderate drinking (let's say, 1-3 drinks, 1-3 times a week), without being tied down by any protocol or pill. I realize that it's not "The Sinclair Method," but it's still awesome. Without any Naltrexone, I've demonstrated that I cannot (or, rather, don't) really drink moderately. So, I'm trying the "middle way."

I too believe there could be a middle way, but I'm not there yet!! Best of luck!! x

Google "intermittent reinforcement and extinction".

What you are doing is worse than just quitting nal and drinking anyway.

There should be a FAQ on why this is bad. It should include that fudging on the one hour golden rule is the same and causes intermittent reinforcement.

I realize that everybody's different, but isn't that what you tried before? It didn't work out so well.

I can't help wondering why it's so important to you to be able to drink without nal. You must want it pretty badly, since you keep trying it. Do you just really, really miss that high?