Or, you might suddenly find it takes no effort, like many of the Cured. One can hope, anyhow. Nice to see steady progress in any event.

here's hoping Lena!

I've done 2AF days - yesterday and today, and have something planned for tomorrow night to give me a distraction - which I always find helps. Hopefully that'll be 3 in a row, which is something I haven't managed in maybe 5 years (apart from 1 month of going cold turkey a couple of years back). I'm really going to push for AF till Friday night, but I won't be shattered if I don't achieve that.

Reading back through my records, I'm really amazed at the transformation. I can remember a week in September for example where I needed to be AF two nights (not consecutive) in the same week and how much effort it took to do that.

Now I'm doing 3 or 4 a week with no real effort - just 6 months later.

The timescale of progress is definitely longer than the book and Sinclairs papers suggest, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that introducing whatever willpower you can muster into the equation really helps as well.

feeling good, and off to bed now.

well I did it

4 AF days in a row. I made sure I was busy for the first three nights, so apart from getting home late and being a bit more tired than usual in work (but far better than being hungover!!), it was fairly easy. Last night was a bit more of a challenge and I did feel a moderately strong craving from about dinner time onwards. I debtated for a while and then decided if it was genuine cravings, that I was prepared to take a drink and not beat myself up over it - it was still 3 consecutive days and therefore more than I'd done since I started TSM. So I took my Nal about 8pm and got stuck into some work. I was still ploughing away at 9, so I made the concious decision to keep going for a while until any cravings/thoughts were significant.

Between one thing and another it was suddenly 10:30pm and I was thinking - hey, I can do this, so I did!

This is good to hear! These triumphs add up a build our self esteem. Also, your reflection on where you were just 6 months ago is a good idea to have any of us do. 9 months ago I couldn't manage consecutive AF days. Now, I effortlessly can go about a week AF. AF eventually becomes the habit replacing the drinking habit that was created by the AL addiction.

Bob

well back on the bottle again last night, but not much more than a typical Friday night these days - and about the same as I was having maybe 4-5 times a week 6-9 months ago. Going for a nice steak dinner later, so I imagine I'll have some wine with that, meaning today won't be AF either. Not a big deal, but I'll try and keep the quantities limited tonight and maybe shoot for an AF tomorrow.

well coming to the end of another week and I will have 2 or 3 (if I don't drink tonight) AF days rather than 4, which was the more recent pattern. That said, yesterday was a major national holiday and is traditionally a big family dinner (with drink flowing etc), and Tuesday night was the 40th birthday of a close friend - we went out for a big meal and night out.

I had a fair amount to drink on Tuesday night - although probably less than any of the ten others or so that were out. It was a good night and I was still buzzing when I got home, so decided to stay up for a bit before bed (with no work yesterday). I poured a drink and settled down in front of the TV. An hour later I was ready to go to bed and noticed that I'd only had about a quarter of a glass from my drink! Strange times these.

I was considering not drinking yesterday, but took a nal before going to my parents house just in case. When I got there, one of brothers had brought some vintage wine to have with the meal. I had two small glasses. Amazingly though, when I got home I had nothing to drink. That is truly a change for me - knowing I was going to be awake for maybe 4 hours after returning home and having already 'broken the seal' I'd normally have one or two more drinks. Instead I managed with relatively little effort to stay 'AF' for the rest of the night. That is a big step for me - not alone am I now at the point where I stop well short of the bachanalian levels of before and consume at a moderate pace, but if last night is any indicator, I can now stop after just 'one or two'.

My total units will probably be up a little this week, but overall I'm pretty pleased with this weeks progress.

well I didn't drink on Thursday so my units for last week were only marginally up. This Friday and Saturday - normally, my main drinking nights, were more moderate than usual, despite plenty of opportunity to do otherwise.

I'll be shooting for AF days today and tomorrow, and all going well I may even try to make it to next weekend, which would take me below the safe drinking levels for a week, for the first time since starting TSM. That would be cool if I can do it. If not, there's always another week to try. Feeling good about my progresss right now.

well I didn't manage 5 AF days this week, but I did manage 4 and also my lowest overall consumption since starting TSM (35 UK units).

The week generally went well, albeit I was pretty busy at work and had plenty of stress and (what would have previously been 'justification' for drinking). I must admit I was looking forward to chilling out in front of the TV last night with a drink - but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a craving - it was more like, mmmm, a cup of coffee would be nice right now.

wow, that was a quick 4 weeks without an update

My consumption went up a little over the last month, which I'm not thrilled about - but I'm not going to get too negative about either. Easter week I drank more than normal, with having a couple of days off work and lots of family, work and friends engagements to attend. I only had 2 AF days that week but did 4 last week and 4 this week, so things getting back to normal now.

Any time I feel a bit dispondent I just look back over my graph of the last 10 months and see where I used to be

----Then---------------------------------------------------Now
====================================================
6-7 days per week ------------------------------3-4 days per week
Cravings of 6/10 -------------------------------- cravings of 1/10
Typical weekend night drank ~ 20 units ----------- ~14 units
Typical weeknight ~ 12-15 units ----------------- usually 0, but if i drink ~ 7 units

feeling pretty good about things right now. Units dropped slightly last week to 41, despite taking a short break with some friends, with lots of going out, in France last weekend.
I just didn't have the urge to drink much (which was great), and was generally the first of the group looking to go home to bed!

Went to a wedding last Friday and again, despite have the opportunity and 'excuse', didn't really drink too much. A very quiet Saturday night - 2 glasses of wine and 1 drink tonight, after which I'm going to bed.

The last month has been my lowest consumption (by month) since I've started, as I start approaching the 12 month mark in my TSM journey. This week may well be my lowest consuming week on TSM too, even if I have a few drinks on some other night between now and Thursday (which I often don't these days). In fact, if I don't then my consumption will be within the 'healthy limits'

I'm not ready to call myself cured yet, as I still feel slight cravings on occasion, but I'd go as far as to say that I probably drink less than an average Irish person now (not sure how much of a boast that is , but it is still progress from where I was), and I'm well on the way to drinking like a 'normal' person.

If I can get the average level a shade (maybe 20%) down, and keep that over a 5 or 6 week period then I might be ready to declare myself cured