Ok OK - it takes me awhile...helps when you sign in - then the panels show up...sigh...I am a wee babe :-)

Blowing through Naltrexone doesn't seem like an accurate statement. Naltrexone should be blocking our brains response to endorphins regardless of how much we consume. Just because our endorphin receptors are blocked doesn't mean the neural pathways that cause us to drink don't make us continue to drink. Some of us have built some "drinking super-highways" in our brains, so we should expect to be driven by these pathways until we get rid of them. The whole point behind Nal+Drinking is to slowly get rid of the drinking neural pathways over a ~4month period.

This "honeymoon period" that we all seem to experience when first starting Naltrexone isn't mentioned at all in The Sinclair Method Book and is a bit confusing. It would be interesting to get Dr. Eskapa's take on this.

Q

When I talked about "blowing through" the naltrexone, I explained right after that what I meant. I meant blow through the effect naltrexone has on your desire for additional alcohol after consuming some. For me, the naltrexone made it so if I drank a single drink, I could take or leave another one. But if I had another drink or two anyway, at some point the "one drink leads to another" would kick back in.

Dr. Sinclair said the phenomenon of not wanting more after a drink or two is neither persistent nor reliable. I think the "honeymoon" everyone seems to be experiencing is caused by this effect. You have one or two and don't want more, so you don't drink more. This goes on for a little while and wow, your drinking is down. Then the effect disappears or you learn to drink through it - honeymoon is over. No big deal. Nobody should expect a real decrease in drinking until at least two months. Anything that happens much earlier than that is a combination of honeymoon, placebo effect or something else.

RV

Actually, Eskapa does warn about what some of us have coined the "honeymoon period."

Eskapa says, "Be alert that, even very early in your treatment, you may occasionally experience a surprising ability to stop after only a couple drinks. However, this decrease in drinking and craving is merely an artifact of the treatment. . . . . It is a beneficial but weak effect. . . . The powerful effects from pharmacological extinction develop much more slowly and cannot cure you in a week or two." (p. 117-118)

It may be a weak effect but my liver appreciated the break. And, it was a sort of preview of life without the alcohol monkey on my back, so it was a motivator.

N101CS,

I knew what you were getting at, but wanted to clarify.

I think one of the hardest things coming into this is wrapping your head around what is actually taking place with The Sinclair Method. Most of us are used to taking medicine and getting results fairly quickly (i.e., days). Even anti-depressants, which take time to "do their thing," gives results in 3-4 weeks. A medication that requires 3-4 months to produce real results is something none of us have every likely had experience with.

There is most definitely a psychological component to this that could make us question if The Sinclair Method is really working because of our experiences with taking medication and getting results in a fairly short period of time. 4-months in the big picture is a very short time to un-addict yourself from alcohol, but it seems like a REALLY long time when you are actually doing it.

I feel the more that we all post our experiences, feelings, progress, etc. here, the more it will help the rest of us and those who join our little group.

Q

There is a chapter in The Cure for Alcoholism for medical doctors - all about how to prescribe naltrexone for addictive drinking and why it only works according to pharmacological extinction - Naltrexone + Drinking (over 3 to 4 months) = Cure but Naltrexone + Abstinence = Failure. Naltrexone is not an 'anti-craving' medication if taken with abstinence. It is not a 'get sober' pill either. This chapter can be downloaded from www.naltrexonecures.com or www.thecureforalcoholism.com if you click on the "About the Book" section. The chapter also refers to relevant studies backing the correct way to use naltrexone. The PDR does not refer to the Sinclair Method as explained in chapter 4 of the book.

Educate your General / Family Practitioners! Download - download and print this for them

http://benbellabooks.com/cureforalcohol ... m-Ch17.pdf

Dr. Eskapa -

We've got the book chapter you referenced right here on the forum under the "What is the Sinclair Method" section!

RV