Oh, Sticky! I'm really glad to hear from you, and hope you have been following the board some. Poink is a "newbie" trying Nal & Bac and keeping good notes on that. Anyway, you are sounding much more positive (except bronchitis is SUCH a drag ). Please stay in touch - we want to know where your journey leads next.

Good luck Sticky! I really hope baclofen works out for you - that was what was originally prescribed to me by my doctor but I was too afraid of side effects (as you saw, nal even gives me terrible SEs...I'm a delicate flower lol).
But Poink, as Chrissie says, seems to be having a grand old time with it! Best of luck,
EL

Hi Sticky,

Just catching up with you and I'm so, so sorry to read what a hard time you are having at the moment, but I want to implore you, I BEG you on bended knee, DO NOT to give up TSM!

I believe it is working for you. TSM works by blocking the endorphins we produce when we drink or plan to drink, over time the "physical" desire to drink decreases and we drink less and less often, that's the medical/physical/bio-chemical theory and I believe it works and I believe it is working for you.

What TSM does not do, (and never claimed to do), is to solve our psychological problems, the psychological reasons that push us to abuse alcohol in the first place. A lot of addicted people (most, I'd wager) have some sort of mental health problem: anxiety, depression, ADHD, or have been abused or were subjected to some sort of trauma, these are very real problems that COEXIST with addiction, and we have to deal with them too, because if we don't, the impetus to abuse whatever substance or activity, will always be there.

Something is driving your behaviour and I personally don't believe it is addiction, something is making you unhappy, I feel that you are trying to avoid or get away from something, I don't think you spent days in your car just because you want to drink, there's something else going on, something deeper that your drinking is a symptom of, not the cause of.

Let TSM continue to do its job and attack the parallel problem, get to the root of what is driving your desire to "escape".

When I stopped drinking I had to learn to recognise my emotions, it took a long time, I was so bad at it that I didn't even recognise when I felt angry (for example) all I knew was that I wanted a drink, now! My first break through was realising that my need to drink was a message, it was telling me that something was wrong, I was feeling some uncomfortable emotion, but what was it? anger?, sadness?, frustration?, shame? guilt? what? the next step after learning how to recognise the emotion was to learn to figure out what caused the emotion, did someone say something, do something? Did I do or fail to do/say something? After that it was all about realising that those emotions were justified, to my astonishment I was right to feel what ever it was I would feel at a given time, not only was I right to feel angry about something but it was my right to feel !

Ok, I'm going to stop here before this turns into an all-about-Curi post, what I'm trying to say without coming across as all preachy, is that, after years of alcohol abuse and misuse, it's likely that you are no longer in touch with your emotions, it's possible that you don't properly know how to recognise them and how to deal with them, which means that, as would happen with me, they build up into an unbearable blur of confusion and despair, which in turn become guilt and shame because of the resulting drinking, the guilt and shame take over until the next unrecognisable emotional trigger, and round and around it goes...

The good news is that by learning to recognise and deal with feelings, you will also learn how to avoid situations that lead to events or words that cause hurt in the first place, which means that you don't have to deal with them anymore.

Another suggestion I would like to make is that you stop AA, I don't think they are doing you (or anyone) any good in general, and the fact that you are following TSM when they prone abstinence might be causing some emotional conflict in you. They say we are powerless over alcohol and the only way to be well is through abstinence, but you are not doing that, you are doing TSM, Dr. Sinclair says the contrary, he says you CAN take control of your drinking, as does Stanton Peele and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

AA say that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result, how long have you been trying AA? has it worked? Is it time to change? Stick with what's working - TSM and dump what's not - AA.
Not that I'm saying your mad, you're not, on the contrary, as Dodes says in The Heart of Addiction, abusive drinking is the unhealthy manifestation of a very healthy drive to take back control of a situation/your life.

Something is eating at you, sweetie, you've got to try and figure it out. TSM is working for you, it's doing what it should, but sadly, it can't do it all, but YOU can!

You have the power and the ability to figure it out and to fix it, it might just be that you don't believe enough in yourself, yet.

Hang in there, believe in yourself, you can and you will do it!

Curi

Hi everyone

Thanks Curi for your support. Really I have to say that TSM did not work for me though. Taking nal seems to have no effect whatsoever now. I have still mostly been taking it while starting on low doses of baclofen. I generally go off in the car when someone says something hurtful. Or sometimes I'll have a couple of drinks, then can't stop. Until more recently (thanks to my AA friend/ex sponsor) I had learned not to overreact to things people said and to realise that it was more about them than me. Lately I lost my ability to recognise that again as my drinking spiralled out of control. I recently got stopped for drink driving AGAIN and hubby asked me to leave for 10 days, so in the meantime I am having to do more AA meetings and some counselling to keep everyone happy. Hubby was not pleased to find out today that I might still be able to drink with baclofen. After what's happened recently he doesn't believe that's possible. I'm hopeful and looking forward to becoming less anxious. Having said that, I still have a couple of months worth of nal left so will probably continue with those until they're all gone.

Only up to 50mg of baclofen so far. Not getting overly tired, but I've a long way to go before it'll start to work.

Cheers
Sticky

Good luck with baclofen Sticky. It sounds like you are going through a rough patch and I wish you the best of luck. I wish I had something to recommend, or advise, but it really seems like you are trying very hard and yet things are not going so well hopefully baclofen will be a success!

Hi Sticky - Well, I'm so sorry to hear that TSM didn't work for you. You certainly did work TSM hard and deserved to get free of the ugly beast, alcohol. I'm rooting for you with the Baclofen. Something has to work, so hang in there.

Regards, Half Glass.

Sticky, I'm really glad you are staying in touch w/ the Forum You've certainly been through the wringer, and who came blame you for trying something new? Have you read any of N101CS's posts? It sounds like baclofen provided the answer for him. Keep an open mind, keep the faith, and keep checking in.
hugs to you!

Hi Sticky, sorry to hear about getting stopped for drink driving. I can relate to that and its consequences which seem horrendous at first but become bearable even positive in some respects (I wish I had a dollar for everyone who told me at least you'll get fit!). I have to say that I do agree with many of the sentiments in Curi's post and think that it is a very well written and well intended post. That said, I have heard positive things about baclofen (and the combination of baclofen/naltrexone). However, I agree with Curi that you may do well to try to discover whats "eating" you and fueling your reliance on alcohol which we have all used as an emotional crutch for a long time. Whatever path you take to discovering that is a completely individual one Sticky. I wish you all the luck in the world and encourage you to believe in yourself wholeheartedly, I know I do.

Hi Sticky, how are you? Please post and let us know.

What brand of Nal are/were you using? Was it Nodict?

Curi

Hey Curi: I'm not sure how much Sticky is here these days. I've seen that she's active at mywayout and is doing the baclofen thing.