The second interesting thing to watch for: Does it immediately affect your ability to have an alcohol free day? (any noticeable/obvious craving?) Since I have been on 25 mg for a long time now, I am very interested in your report. Thanks, lou

Hmm interesting idea. Today has been effortlessly AF, but then again AF days are not necessarily much of a challenge for me in general, unless there is a social outing planned that day. I'll keep you posted if anything develops diver.

Weekly recap time! I'm really pleased to come in at 17 units this week, which is quite low !! The strange thing is that the less I drink, the more exorbitant the number of units I used to think were normal or not so bad, seem! 17 would have seemed ridiculously low a few months ago, and although I am pleased with my tally for this week, I still drank four nights and got drunk one of them - so there's still room for improvement! My outlook has really changed and I credit nal for this, as I was trying to reduce units for a long time before but the mindset never quite followed the behaviour even if I white-knuckled it. My goal now is to get to consistently 14 drink weeks or fewer. That's pretty much the recommended amount in France, where I'm from, so I'm choosing to disregard the US's much lower levels for now Clearly, the fact that recommended levels wildly vary from country to country means there's a significant margin of error, so I'm pretty sure 14 drinks a week, without binges, should be perfectly fine for me right now.
Thanks for all of the ongoing support guys - I think I would definitely have given up on TSM weeks ago if I hadn't had you guys to walk me through the spikes. And I'm not out of the woods yet - though I strongly hope I don't go back to pre-TSM levels again.
Every once in a while I have a flash of the old mindset/behaviour (usually when already drunk!) but that is becoming the exception and not the rule. I feel so radically different than I did in early March, when a disastrous bender led me to take a month's sobriety and then start nal. I'm almost getting back to a point where I feel like a couple of drinks is JUST FUN and nothing else. I think I'm always going to like drinking to a certain extent, because I'm always going to like social situations and fewer inhibitions, but I'm getting to a place where I neither desperately crave drinking nor fear and shun it. And if I get really drunk in celebration a few times a year? That's probably fine too.

Good job, EL!

I'm also having the lowest week I've had in a long time. It's nice to see those numbers going down!

Fantastic EL - way to go! 17 per ***week*** ???!!! That's amazing and inspirational

Hi EL

Congrats on only 17 units - well done!. I thought 14 drinks per week was the recommended max in the US too, even though your drinks are 1 1/2 times the size of ours. Obviously I was wrong! I agree that if us alcoholics can get it down to 14/wk that is good. Keep up the good work.

Cheers
Sticky

A series of doctors have told me that 14 drinks/week is the max for MEN, but that for women it is only 7/week, and that anything above that is "problem drinking". Also, more than three drinks in a night is "binge drinking". I have to say that those guidelines absolutely refuse to take reality into account - most of the people I know who drink and have ZERO problems with alcohol exceed those limits occasionally or even regularly.

Hi EL I agree. Limits/guidelines/targets/goals (of treatment) are created with a very broad brush. I think your doing great and being realistic. Your'e doing great.

Hi El - You're doing great.

What are your plans for the weekend? Karaoke?

This is your song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex1qzIggZnA

Thanks guys! No, no karaoke (planned, at least!) for this weekend, but tonight might be boozy - a friend of mine just took his board exams to become a medical doctor, so there will be celebrating and blowing off of steam. I'm not too keen on getting drunk today though so hopefully I will be able to keep it under control. I'm planning on taking 25 mg an hour before drinking and then another 25 at drink 3. This is my new strategy to try and get the 50 mg without vomiting :/ We'll see if it works!
Have a good weekend guys!!