I would second what Minneapolis says especially if you go without alcohol for a few days even with the nal it is so much easier to go way overboard with vodka. It would be much easier to gain control of that stop button on wine or beer.

All the best

Hey Pixeldoll,

I used to be anxious all the time and I thought that was part of why I drank. Now the anxiety is gone and I realize the alcohol caused it. I can't imagine ever going back to the way I used to feel all the time.

And to cap off the week... FIVE AF DAYS! I can hardly believe it, but there it is. So, in summary:

DAY 1: 5 units
DAY 2: 10 units
DAY 3 - 7: 0 units!

Making for a respectable 15 units this week! Considering that in the past, my average week would have been something like 70+, this is a definite, definite improvement. However, there are other factors to consider; the panic attacks brought on by the alcohol withdrawal (which is far worse when you're on NAL) have been so severe that they HAVE scared me off of drinking somewhat. Regardless, I intend to carry on with the plan, and I've been given some benzos in case of emergencies, just for dealing with the day-after panic attacks.

I'm very, very proud of myself. Let's hope next week goes well, too!!

Welcome Pixeldoll - Your progress has been amazing so far. That is great. You are clearly serious about TSM and want to succeed which will really help you stick around once the honeymoon effect is over. That is a clear sign TSM will work for you. Glad to have you with us and so glad to see that you found TSM at such a young age.

Keep tracking, keep posting, and just remember Nal one hour before Al. Other than that, you don't need to worry too much in the beginning. Your AF days are truly an amazing feat to accomplish so soon in TSM and you should be very very proud of that.

Great news!

Okay, wow-- two weeks of AF after those gruesome panic attacks. For me, that's a HUGE feat, guys. But I started seeing a psychiatrist who is a big fan of Nal-- however, he has a different theory on how it should be taken. He believes that one should take it EVERY day, just in case one gets a desperate urge to drink and doesn't want to wait the full hour. I find this pretty wise, given that Nal covers you for twenty four hours. He's also handling my benzos, which, given the terrifying panic attacks I've been having, is definitely for the best for the time being.

But anyway, last night was my first drinking night in a while, and, as Nick suggested, I decided to switch from my beloved vodka over to beer. I found myself drinking slowly, and I got a nice, pleasant buzz, but I stopped at four beers, and that was that! No hangover, no more Nal side effects... I'm feeling really great! Tonight will be another test, as I'm going out to a club with my brother and cousin to meet up with this Spanish/English Group (I live in Chile, and as a foreigner, I'm always looking to meet fellow English-speakers, as well as improve my Spanish). My plan is to have one beer, maybe two, and then have a couple more when I arrive back home. I'm starting to come out to my extended family about my return to drinking with Nal, and so far, it's been met with a lot of support and love.

I'm feeling very, very positive today! I hope everyone else is having a good day, too!

pixeldoll, there are two schools of thought on naltrexone. One is that it works as an anticraving drug and in that case you would take it everyday to reduce cravings while you pursue a goal of abstinence or reduced drinking. If you do drink then the naltrexone is supposed to lessen the return to heavy drinking. There is research and data to back up this point of view and naltrexone's effects in this manner can be described as moderate to weak. The other school of thought is the pharmacological extinction approach of the Sinclair Method that suggests taking naltrexone only before drinking to try and break the association between drinking and pleasure (at the endorphin level). Taking naltrexone daily just blocks your opioid receptors continuously so when you do have endorphin releasing drinking stimuli (see AL, smell AL, get off work etc.) they should be blocked. The only problem is opioid receptor upregulation, which is where your body increases the sensitivity of the opioid receptors (and produces more of them) as a temporary response to the receptor blockade of naltrexone. Where people get into trouble is when they do decide to drink they often say f***-it and don't take their naltrexone and then get an additional reward from drinking with upregulated opioid receptors. (for examples of this see Nick, Q, Firebird, and Crowns threads about drinking off naltrexone and see what happened to them). So there's the really important part taking naltrexone when you do drink and not messing up which seems to happen often for some reason when people take naltrexone as an anticraving drug. Best of luck in your journey and please report your experience on the board it may help someone else.

Awesome news. You should have your doctor read The Cure for Alcoholism, which lays out a pretty compelling argument that naltrexone should be taken one hour before drinking only. I'm not a doctor and can't/won't try to override his advice, but Dr. Sinclair argues that you only take the drug one hour before drinking and not every day.

Glad the beer is working for you! When I switched from vodka to beer/wine, my consumption dropped tremendously. You are on your way!

Pixeldoll - You are doing so great! Glad to hear that Nal is working for you and that you are making such early and amazing progress. Hope tonight goes as well as you hoped for.

Hi guys!! Long time no see!! Well, I've officially been almost two weeks on nal, and not only has my drinking gone down from my previous consumption of, say, 55-75 units a week, now that I've discovered light beer, I seem to be drinking something like 3-5 units per night, which is a miracle for me! I've had a couple of rough nights (fights with parents and so on), which sparked a couple of spikes in my consumption, but for the most part, I'm just sticking to the rule-- nal + alcohol + a bit of effort = CURE.

So, my weekly consumption for week 3, unfortunately, I didn't chart very precisely, but I know there were no AF days, and I'd say it was around 40-50 units. This week, so far, it's been even less, PLUS one AF day!! Hooray!!

I'm so happy I have you guys to report to. Oh, by the way, that Spanish/English exchange I went to-- I had an incredible time, didn't embarrass myself, didn't end up puking the bathrooms, didn't end up having someone call me a cab to go home. I had two or three beers and made a lot of new friends, then went home and had another couple of drinks. I went to the same meet-up the next week and had an even better time-- I'm in illustration major, so I was doing sketches of all the people there. It was a blast.

I'll check in when I finish my official count for this week (which I'm doing more scientifically, thanks to my mom-- ha).

Love you all.