After a few weeks of compliant Nal consumption and daily drinking for extinction I am going AF today. I'm not experiencing any Nal hangovers, thankfully, and daily consumption has been in the 3-5 unit range, with three or four bad days, which immediately pays dividends with sleeping. (have gotten a couple nights of sleep/week, instead of a couple per month.) I continue to find the taste of alcohol dull and unremarkable, post-Nal, and I continue to find myself holding a drink in my mouth rather than hoovering it. I do not have cravings per se and have been planning, not waiting for, my daily alcohol dosage. Or, I'll take a pill and then not bother getting anything to drink for a few hours. So, some cautious optimism.

However, I have been (largely) sexually and exercise abstinent during this warmup period. Other anxieties are beating the crap out of me, and I want to start a transition back to regular exercise (for mood management). (I do start to twitch and think "alcohol!" when confronted with an ongoing issue I seem unable to solve, but it's not the breathless clockwatching and craving that characterizes habitual drinking, for me.) My one sexual experiment while on Nal was just plain weird, and I don't wish to create add'l difficulties with a girlfriend (she's a regular but self-managing alcohol enthusiast), but must also start her day with SSRIs and end it with Ambien. I'd say it's 50/50 that the relationship is already over, inasmuch as few women like to drink alone, much less with a guy who admits that he's hit the point of no return with the booze. I have never presented myself as a vulnerable person; going sober screams vulnerable. I've known her five months but she stated she was very surprised that I reached that conclusion (I didn't drink heavily in her presence, and let her pace control my own.) To simplify the management of this 'no-sex' regime I removed myself to my house in the country.

So I'm going to go for a long walk and garden this afternoon, and tomorrow (48 hours after last Nal ingestion) work out seriously.

At least that's the plan. As Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they're punched in the mouth." I nearly checked myself into the hospital two nights ago, and that's not a safe situation for a man living alone.

Summary:

1. Nal-compliant, save for one sexual experience.
2. Craving for and taste effects of alcohol reduced (per my first go-round).
3. Significant anxiety related to externalities but perhaps accentuated by withdrawal.
4. Attempting to force some AF now, in order to get some healthy endorphins while remaining compliant.

BuenaVista, just to clarify...You don't like to have sex while on Naltrexone, but the girls you hang with don't like to have sex with sober guys, so you either (a) drink with Nal but don't have sex, (b) drink without Nal but have sex, or (c) seclude yourself from both Nal/Al and sex. To some this sounds like a crazy, self-inflicted dilemma, but I can totally relate to it. I think this dilemma is partly how I ended up quitting the Nal because if I wanted sex after drinking, I wanted it to be without Naltrexone for two reasons -- the "ecstatic" nature of sex was diminished for me while on Nal, and there was a sort of weird feeling for me "down there" (as the saying goes).

I also get the whole "abstinence = weakness / vulnerability" thing. It is an obvious deficit when your lover / spouse thinks he CAN'T drink AT ALL or he might go overboard and get crazy. So, alot of it has to do with the frame within which you live your sobriety. That's why I always tried to picture certain sober celebrities and the frame within which they likely lived their abstinence while maintaining their swagger (e.g. Tom Cruise [you know, my man crush], Jason Bateman, Eddie Murphy, etc...). I'm sure some guys are able to make it appear a sign of strength and a source of attraction.

I think in your case it has a lot to do with mate selection. You are drawn to certain types, and these certain types seem to be 100% drinkers. Maybe try branching out to a more yoga / new age / hippee wannabee type woman who is into health and awareness and whatnot, generally doesn't drink heavily, but still is sexually liberal. Sort of along the lines of Gwenneth Paltrow.

TL;DR alert:



Both assumptions are 100% correct in my case, too. (Including the very odd disconnect, physically.) While my impression of advanced alcoholics is that they have found in the booze a fine alternative to sexual activity (as they have found exercise and even decent food to be optional), I have always remained sexually active. Put another way, I suspect that were I still married I would have greatly moderated my alcohol consumption; when I last dated someone seriously, I was rigorously "two and through" when it came to the nightly cocktail hour, if only to maintain my capacity for the manly arts. (She was always puzzled when I hinted that I needed to manage my intake, saying, "I've never seen you drink very much." I worked hard to maintain my cover.) What this meant in practice was a growing propensity to get hammered when we weren't together, or even just to calm down the following morning when I was alone. Obviously I have profound trust and intimacy issues that alcohol has assuaged, and it all became a vicious circle.

Eskapa makes very, very plain (as does Sinclair) that one cannot release positive endorphins when under the influence of Nal, and for me, that is the sole, discouraging aspect of naltrexone. I tend to go for the complicated, sex-positive, liberal chicks with a self-medicating habit: rulebreakers, artists, achievers, operators. And given my present circumstances, as you note, there's simply an incompatibility with that impulse, and my present requirement to get healthy. I'm sure, when I told my present Mrs. Smith that I couldn't do it with her for awhile, because I take this pill that she never heard of for an extinction protocol she considers unspeakable (her daily routine is an SSRI, 12 hours in her professional crucible, nightly cocktails, and a horsepill doping of Ambien), that her image of me as lover, protector and provider fell several notches. You and I both know that men are permitted one, or maybe two, admissions of frailty each decade; nightly discussions are the stuff of the eeeek! 12-Steppers -- walking disasters white knuckling their way down the street of shame.

I confess resentment at the popular ostracism of men who are deemed less manly because they stop drinking; no one ostracizes us if we stop smoking cigars or stop eating french fries and ice cream. Whether or not there are hippie yogisti vegans in my future (likely not) I will have to take this issue off the table completely. Likely this means that my current flames will flame out and I'll need to start anew with someone who has only known me as abstinent, disinterested in any self-reflection about alcohol's former purpose (and purchase) in my life.

I think this is possible: masculinity may be expressed many ways, and the many, many virtues of sobriety (fitness, unusual work and achievement, freedom from night terrors, better skin, self-conquest and self-control, reductions in self-sabotaging behavior) will have to be enough. The price of that, as I see it, is mimicking your plan for absolute alcohol abstinence, and some momentary monk-like chastity.

That is, if I make it. "Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth." (But it's probably now or never.)

Kierkegaard: "Life must be remembered backward, but lived forward." (It's time to abandon what the shrinks call the "provisional self" -- the adaptive self that has encouraged my own self-abasement.)

Gospel of Thomas: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." (No one will make our choices for us, and certainly a little pill is no proxy for agency, and can be, misused, merely another evasion of the necessity of agency.)

For a Jungian perspective on this, which I have found helpful this week: _The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife_, James Hollis. I'm of the camp that views Jung as more of an anthropologist and literary man, than as a prescriptive therapist, but Barry, I think you will find this book intriguing, on many levels:

"What we may call the provisional personality is a series of strategies ... to manage existential angst. Those behaviors and attitudes ... are elaborated in an astonishing range of strategic variations with a common motive -- self protection. ... His adult life, seemingly the choice of a rational, free person, was a coerced compliance with the overwhelming pressure from that Other, couple with an unconscious rebellion seeking failure as a passive-aggressive protest."

Field report:

So, I largely waltzed through the AF day yesterday, putting 12 hours in at my desk, not obsessing about the first cocktail, not panicking at the removal of my daily, soft embrace of nothingness. There was a brief moment at 7 p.m. when, after a solitary day, I longed to sit in the farmer tavern and talk with friends, but such longing was not accompanied by the visceral desire to feed the animal. My reward was the first full night of sleep, with no sleepwalking or 3 a.m. existential panic, in days. And so I must do it again.

Good ideas. I think the big advantage you have is the ability to just recreate yourself. When you meet the new woman, you can just present yourself as a non-drinker (not a struggling, recovering ex-drinker, which does appear weak). I don't have that luxury because my wife knows that I have a kryptonite and a "deficit" (i.e. too weak to drink moderately and sanely; not an attractive trait). My only hope is time, which heals all wounds and colors all memories, and the frame in which I live sobriety -- turning it into a positive versus a negative.

Still, when the new stack of plates comes along, they can all think you are one of those guys who is awesome without alcohol. Statements like, "I never really needed alcohol," "Well, it's not like I've never had a drink before, I just am happier without it, no big deal," or "Meh, alcohol's a depressant and makes me feel weak and lame" are all vague enough and technically true, so you won't be building a new relationship based on lies, but you will be able to take control and lead the relationship in that arena. If she presses too much, or freaks out about sobriety, just next her. Most women, as you have probably figured, really just want a good narrative in their head about their men (e.g. "He's really cool and into health and stuff. He doesn't even drink.") and won't press beyond the point of having reached an acceptable narrative that satisfies their hypergamy.

Barry, when I was sober for a couple of years (15 years ago), I just told everyone "I got tired of it." "Because I like to sleep." (Then I poured the wine down their throats, and all were happy for a spell.) I did get gold stars for chirpiness and more than one person remarked, "You're so cheerful!"

But I think it's an inevitable constraint in a society that thinks AA, and it's attendant shaming and near-inevitable recidivism, are the natural condition of anyone who doesn't drink. But I drove down this road so it's time to deal with it. I think that AA is particularly harmful in that it denies that most people mature out of their addictions, at far higher rates than they do 12-Stepping.

If somewhat like Peele (or Sinclair/Eskapa) presents this science, they are immediately shouted down. The brittleness and insecurity and aggression of AA enthusiasts is really the best description of its inadequacy: if it's so great, why don't the AA true believers walk in peace, joy, and kindness? It's another example of folklore science: the pseudo-science of "consensus."

So, net: I'm prepared for choppy waters, socially. It's better than the booze-lubricated alternative. In seeking or asking nothing, we often find what we always pursued, as well.

I'm slain by your ability to express yourself. Please do consider the exquisite sublimation that can come from writing. There will be benefits beyond the personal, that much is very clear.

Just sayin'

The Iroquois, like most of their social-developmentary contemporaries, operated out of consensus.

The way we live today, it is unimaginable to consider even the participants in this thread to come to any.

Ergo, my sigfile quote - for me, the best one-liner ever. And further demonstrated as so by the content of the discussion above. That said, one can absolve themselves of merely contemplating our individual conditions as solely an individual outcome.

I'm grateful for the social change that just reading along here represents, however tangential to my daily IRL activity.

Cheers

Wow, this thread is becoming all fancy-like.

HopefulDrunkard, you should have seen BuenaVista's original posts (which he later removed). Quite long and erudite. Writing is his thing.

I often point out that alcohol consumption and intelligence are very highly correlated. I deal with a lot of really mentally slow people at our inner city hospital, and to the one almost none of them drink (almost 100% of them smoke, though). Nobody knows exactly why there is this strong link, though.

HD, I would disagree, at least so far as I understand your remarks on consensus: I think there is significant consensus here, as well as a group regard. Paradoxically, it's because our common denominator is confidence in the science of TSM -- a true science of hypothesis, experimentation, and measured results. Those results are robust and reproducible, hence they inspire the confidence of fair-thinking individuals. (Again, perhaps I misunderstand you.)

TSM was demonstrated absent any "scientific consensus" whatsoever; however as true science, which is dependent on measured observation and the critical element of being falsifiable, TSM generates rational confidence. I use consensus as a pejorative when terms like "settled science" or "everyone agrees" because it, by definition, describes anti-science. For if we are rationalists and subscribe to the scientific method, we know that many people agreeing, for whatever reason, is meaningless: we know that a single, verified proof is all that is required for scientific knowledge. (Galileo achieved no consensus.) The mystery of AA's hegemony is that it offers neither a falsifiable scientific method or body of work (measured results) demonstrating success; while I'm happy for my friends who are happy with AA, I'm also happy for my friends who worship Gaia or small-block V-8s or the Unification Church. Cults make the world go round, and that's cool, so long as they lack the heft to discriminate against me.

I don't really get the Iroquois reference but note that a pre-industrial culture valuing communal strength of necessity prizes consensus -- to the exclusion of falsifiable science or individualistic innovation.

Thanks for the compliment on my texts. Just thinking out loud here, in respect of a subject I have found difficult to discuss with others.

It's no mystery. AA requires its adherents to "carry the message." Any religion which evangelizes will grow over time.