Hi St. Jude - Yeah, I could use some time at the gym. Before I started drinking 10 years ago I was a work-out addict and in really great shape. I always went to the gym to work out after dinner and in the summer I would take a 3 mile walk with my dog after dinner. Now, I'm a couch potato or should I say "chair potato!" So, if I did it then I suppose I don't have an excuse now. Because of my drinking I started cooking dinner later and later so that I would have my wine time. Maybe I will start cooking dinner early again and rejoin the gym. That would shake things up.

Hi Sticky - Glad to hear from you. Sounds like WJ, you and I are all in the same place right now with managed units but not a significant reduction. I had my 4 glasses of wine last night so I will give it a go again tonight. It is starting to get really wam here in Denver, Colorado so there isn't any reason I can't get out and walk rather than sit in my chair and drink. I hope to do that tonight as well.

Have a great week you two and thanks for the encouragement.

You can do it, I know that you can. We are re-training our brain and this is part of the process. The pill makes it easier, but we all still have to put forth some effort.
Best wishes with the experiment and keep plugging away!

Hi All - Well, where the heck have I been!? Licking my wounds that's where.

I committed to doing 4 units a day last Friday and things went well with that until Sunday night. I got a cold on Sunday and I drank 7 units that night. You would think getting a cold would assist me with reducing my units, but I learned that is not the case with my alchy brain. Any discomfort, and I do many any discomfort puts me in a place where I crave and drink more. I don't like being uncomfortable at all ever. So, after last Sunday I kind of gave up. I quit formally tracking and I quit posting. Perhaps I was discouraged. Perhaps I was embarrassed that I couldn't keep my intake at 4 units a night which I had committed to. In any case, I'm back. My only tracking for the last week has been to notice that I'm still consuming one bottle of wine a night. I put my journal away and haven't gotten it back out. Last night I know I consumed 6 units so I imagine I'm still tracking but in my head.

I will resume my formal tracking. I was feeling pretty discouraged until I finally decided to pop back on the forum today and got encouraged by everyone still being here. I now realize this is going to take more time than I had hoped it would take and it may not work at all. Geez, I hope that last part doesn't become true, but even if it does Nal has changed my life so far. I still don't get drunk, drive drunk, yell at my kids, yell at my husband or make a general ass of myself. I did yell at my dog the other night though, ugh! However, in the last week I have had one major change......I had a real shake-up in my routine and found myself able to not drink for long periods of time. One night I waited until nearly 9:00 p.m. to have my first glass of wine. However, I stayed up until after midnight so that I could have at least 4 glasses of wine.

I will post my numbers for last week later and revisit to catch up with everyone. Glad to know you are all still here! I would really miss all of you if you weren't.

Welcome back. It's all part of the process. At some point in my journey I stopped tracking numbers and stepped off the board for a week because I didn't want to discourage others. A few weeks later I had regained control. And there is no way TSM won't work for you -- as you point out, it already has. It will get better and better, but gradually, and inconsistently. You'll see!

Welcome back. We missed you too.

Hi HG, i can totally sympathise with where you are at the moment. I feel exactly the same way. You summed it up well in your post when you said "units are stable but no significant reduction". I've just had a big backsliding week (up 18 units!) and feel a bit despondent as well. Having said that I still feel confident you and I (and Sticky, et al) will get there. As you yourself said TSM has significantly changed our lives, for the better. The other positive is change in attitude to alcohol which, unlike units, cannot be measured but is very significant IMHO. Keep going, we would all miss your encouragement too much if you gave up!

Hi HG

Sorry to hear you left us for a while. We sure would miss all your encouragement and I need my buddy at the same stage of the process as me. It seems like it was a bad week for a few of us!
You may still be drinking your bottle of wine a night but the effect it has on you is not as extreme as my drinking. I had 4 AF days last week but it was all negated by my Tues nite/half of Wed binge which wrote me off for Thurs as well. Was basically near useless as a mum and in the office. Luckily hubby thought I had the flu, but I don't feel good about that.
Let's hope we can all make some progress this week and here's to a great weekend.

Cheers
Sticky

Hi HG,

I am glad that you are back. As a notoriously inconsistent poster, I get so much encouragement from you as I read about your journey. I'm three weeks ahead of you, and I'm down to 2.5 units a night, this week anyway. Some weeks I do get discouraged; when am I going to be "normal" like others that don't have this problem. I have learned to stop and ask myself "okay, when was the last time you stumbled on the stairs, blacked out, forgot conversations, etc", things that used to happen pretty frequently. Not one single incident since I started NAL. I can go outside after dinner and play soccer with my kids now, something I was totally incapable of before. That is what I have to remind myself of. Counting units religiously is good, but we have to keep the overall big picture in mind too. It took me over five years to get into this spot, it's not going to reverse itself overnight and it's normal to have setbacks. Please hang in there and pick yourself up and keep going. I know you can do it!

Hi All - Yep, I'm back. I had a rough week 18 but 19 is going better. I finally got a chance to post my updated numbers in my signature and you will see that I only had 36.5 for week 18 despite my trigger of a cold and increased numbers. So, I'm still at a steady 36-37 units for a week. I believe my numbers stayed at 36.5 for week 18 because I had a few 4 glass nights.

Things are still changing for me in an amazing way despite the units not coming down dramatically. Like last night. I was busy doing something and looked up at the clock and it was already 4:30 (my old witching hour). I got up and took my Nal. Then, I went back to what I was doing and didn't have my first glass of wine until 6:30. That was because I didn't have any wine in the house and had to go get some. After one glass of wine I went out for dinner with my kids (hubby was working). They wanted to go to a Thai restaurant that we had been to a week earlier for lunch. I had remembered that they served wine and beer so that wasn't a problem for me. When we got there no beer and no wine. The restaurant doesn't serve alcohol. It didn't even phase me. We had a leisurely dinner which included ice cream sundaes for the kids after dinner which I sat and watched them eat while sipping my water. This is the part of TSM that has amazed me over the last couple of weeks. I can walk away from alcohol and go do something else without a panic feeling. After dinner, we came home and I finished up the evening at 4.5 units. I have noticed that I can't quite get to 4 units a night but I can do 4.5 to 4.75. I will end week 19 this Tuesday and my weekly units will likely still be at around 37 because my trigger of a cold (of all things to trigger over, my gosh!) stuck around until about Thursday of last week.

So, that's it. Things are still going well for me. Nal has definitely changed my life. I am no longer tied to alcohol the way I used to be. I obviously still have a way to go, but I am confident now that I will get there. So, Server, WJ, and Sticky....we will get there together.

HG, the things you are feeling are a preview of the greater control to come. Prior to TSM I would not go to a restaurant that didn't serve AL. Now I don't care if there's booze or I can sit a the bar eating with bottles of booze staring at me and drink water with no problem. You feel the changes before they show up in your numbers so it seems you are your way.

Hi All - Week 19 done with 37 units. Nothing spectacular to report. I knew that my units would stay the same for this week as I had a few 6 unit nights at the beginning of the week when my trigger of getting a cold was still active. In week 20 I'm going to shoot for 4 unit nights. So far all is going well although I still need to get my nightly units down and start AF-ing. Hopefully, that is right around the corner. I am so satisfied with the freedom that I am experiencing right now on TSM in the following ways:

-I start drinking when I feel like starting. If there is something else more important I can forego drinking until later.
-I don't get drunk anymore....at most slightly buzzed, and even that is rare.
-My life seems to be more in my control. I can stop at a glass of wine and go do something else if I need to.
-I no longer panic anymore when one of my kids tells me we have to go somewhere after 4:30 that takes me out of the house and away from my wine. I know I can do it.
-I don't sit in my chair and drink wine until I am sufficiently buzzed before I am willing to do anything else like cook dinner! Eating seems to be more important than wine these days. Whew!
-I can say good night to my kids and they don't look at me like, "Mom, you are drunk."
-I can remember the night before.....all of it.
-In short, my life no longer revolves around drinking. My nightly units are only high because every night I have the same routine. Now that it is nearly summer that can change too.

Hope you all are having a good week.