Reboot, I admire you for the ease of your AF days. That is still a challenge for me. Lately it is easier for me to drink moderately than to be AF.

Good luck with the convention trip. You will do it; you don't want a repeat of last year.

Newlife

Well I am in week 50! I have not been on the site for a month and I have sorta been a little casual on my thoughtfulness when drinking. I also have not been keeping count which seems to really help me limit and be mindful. And my AF days have definitely been less. So I guess you can say I have been slipping a bit. If I had been this lax in any other program one would call it a failure -and the results probably would have been a free fall into a relapse of binge and daily drinking.

But I am just back from the same conference that last year pushed me to look for something to stop or curtail my drinking. And although I drank way more than I have been recently and drank way more than 10 units a night for a week straight, I had no black outs, no incidents, no embarrassments and was on top of my game while working. So even a lax TSM has worked better for me than any other method I have tried to use in the past. And I attribute that to the fact I followed the golden rule and for safety's sake took a booster each night around midnight.

Realizing that I have been slipping and that checking out this site, being mindful, keeping track of drinks and having a lot of AF days makes me feel better, I am making it my goal to finish out the year by getting back into the swing of things. And though I feel that my mind and body is continuing to heal on my current path of just following the golden rule and carrying on - I do not want to chance slipping into the haze and horrible habits that I was in just one short year ago.

As I have said before, I will probably never hit the cured list. But if I can keep things as close to "normal drinking" as possible I will be extremely happy.

As I have said before, I will probably never hit the cured list. But if I can keep things as close to "normal drinking" as possible I will be extremely happy

Reboot - I am sure that you are familiar with self fulfilling prophecy? If you say you won't hit the cured list then you won't! I think you WILL hit it - I have faith in you even if you don't! As your numbers are quite high, have you considered going up in dose - just for a month, to see if that makes any difference? I am glad that things are better for you from the way they were though - hang in there!

Good to see you here .....

Hugs, Maggie x

You should be feeling great about the convention. Congrats on that. I believe that tracking makes a huge difference and really need to get back to that. I just don't seem to be as focused on alcohol as I was at the beginning, though, and I forget to track. I guess that is a good thing. I have kept track this week and I have to say that seeing the number 4 next to a day does give me pause.

nice work on the convention reboot! keep it up!

Maggie - you are probably right about me putting myself in a spot of self fulfilling prophecy. But my history of attempts and failures always make me worry that sooner or later the wheels are going to come off this train and I will return to my old ways. I have had some nights that I have done that - but thankfully they are counted in nights and not months or years at a time of AL having total control over me! But I am so grateful that I have had a year of feeling like things are getting better - and my body, wife, family and friends (probably a few enemies as well) are certainly much happier.

Cured - for me is not abstinence. Cured to me is taking back control from AL. Cured to me is being able to have AF days without thinking about it or at least not struggling with it. Cured to me is being able to stop after one or two or at least not getting to 10. And I meet the first several parts - it is that last one I still struggle with. I have a couple in a social situation and if it stretches into a later night - I occasionally continue on longer than I should. And I am not worried about just the one night - but the next morning IF I ever wake up and decide to go old school with a hair of the dog and don't take a pill because I am careless. I will swear I will never drink without the pill ever again. But I swore many times I would never drink again and was never able to hold to it.

Ya think maybe I am over thinking being "cured"? Yeah, probably but for a heavy daily and binge drinker for 4 decades it is very scary to think that I may screw up. Plenty of history doing a great job of screwing up!

But your point is well taken and I will try to be as positive going forward that I can and will reach my cure as I am positive for all the success I have had in just one very short year!

xx

Looking at my signature I realized that this will be my last post of my first year. Wow what a journey! I started out averaging over a 100 units a week and was waking up hungover every morning prior to starting. I had multiple blackouts in the weeks before starting and I had just had a scan of my liver that showed (surprise surprise) that it was a fatty liver. My wife was pissed because I could not control my AL and I even offered to leave if it would make her life better. And then came the NAL and TSM!

Being able to drink to stop drinking! What a concept! Right up an Alcoholics alley. Just take a pill and then wait an hour and drink as you normally did! How easy is that. It was science behind the extinction process and not going cold turkey that really hooked me. I started on June 24th of 2015 and my first post was titled something like "watching the clock" because as soon as I took the pill the first time I hit the stopwatch on my phone and waited - I was in a hurry to drink to stop drinking.

I will not bore you with the details of my journey but a lot of it is documented on this thread. It has been some what typical of other posters on this site. Lots of ups and downs with the numbers. Good weeks and bad weeks. Highs and lows. But some how along the way I dropped my drinking intact from over a 100 to a 1/3 or a 1/4 of that and I went from no AF days in months to 2-4 AF days a week. I had my blood work done recently and the first time in over 15 years the levels were all normal. Redid the liver scan and that was normal as well - wow! The body is an amazing thing! Oh yeah I lost 15 pounds without changing my eating habits.

My wife is happier! As we all know a happy wife is a happy life! But along the way I noticed that she drinks a lot! Never noticed it before because I was to busy drinking myself to death. I notice a lot more things when I am not pickled!

I am not cured by any means! But as a doubtful Thomas who never could imagine that I could gain control over my drinking by taking a pill and drinking - I am extremely happy with the results so far. I say so far because I have no intention of ever not taking a pill and drinking. If over the course of the next year I continue the downward trend of AL intake all the better. If I totally stop drinking that is great but not necessary for me to be satisfied with the results.


Thank you my TSM angels and the rest of the support group here on this forum. You have answered a lot of my questions, taught me lessons through my reading of your posts, and have been an enjoyable group to interact with.

For those just starting out, my only advise is to have patience, follow the golden rule, and pay more attention to your victories than your setbacks.

Reboot - I read your post with a big smile on my face - it made for lovely reading! And I do not think that you did overstate the what being cured is for you! I loved it - I like the way that you write! I too thought that cured would mean having control over AL - I am still in total disbelief when I just do not want to drink! It is 7 months now since the nal kicked in for me - and about 6 months since I had a drink. Just Do Not Want One. I am going to UK in September and will be visiting my brother who REALLY has a problem with AL - I have sent him the book and told him about TSM - he said he can do it his way! But I wonder if I will drink when I am with him? I will take my Nal just in case ....what I told you about that for, is you saying about the social angle and your wife drinking - I do not have that problem - we are totally antisocial anyway, and hubs gave up too! I will be interested to see how the next year goes for you.....

SO happy that your life has changed so much for the better! Isn't Naltrexone amazing?

HUGS, Maggie x

Way to go Reboot...just awesome!!

Excellent, Reboot!

Another case of "slow and steady wins the race"! Thanks for your post and for sharing your journey with us, you are an inspiration!