Thanks for the update, hapful. I'm a newbie to TSM and posting on the board, but your posts and experiences were really helpful to me while I was lurking around and thinking about starting TSM.

I fully agree with what you said above, especially "on 2nd thought." I'm only on week 3 of the process, but I have noticed this - I never gave drinking a 2nd thought before this. Oh sure, I wanted to cut down - intellectually - but when it came right down to it, it felt inevitable that I would have that first, second, third drink... Now I'm starting to feel more wiggle room in my drinking and am actually able to have that 2nd thought, "Do I really want to drink or try to get drunk or feel drunk for that matter?"

Thanks again for all the great posts

Hi SerenitySeeker,

Thanks for the reply. Yes its funny, I probably tend to put too much thinking into things. Think rethink, think again!

I meant to be alot more active on this forum from the beginning, but it seems as things progressed, life just gets in the way. Literally. Beause AL is becoming less and less important to me I tend not to think of posting here, Im thinking of other things. But I know there are many people out there that need TSM, and my posts may relate to some passers by, as I related to those posts of Nicks and Firebirds that helped me in the beginning.

But again, sorry I wasnt here to welcome you aboard and any others who have just joined us. Welcome you came to the right place, thats for sure!

hapful

Thanks for keeping in touch hap, the cured seem to be a dying breed around here...bittersweet.

Hapful I completely agree with the sentiments of your post. Good hearing from you. Hope you will stay in touch.
The force be with you.

Great post and I entirely agree with everything you said. I think your car crash analogy was a great one, as is your reference to "The Force."

And congratulations on your Broncos, although they came back down to earth this week.

Thanks again for your words and congratulations! I think this may be a subject for another thread, but the word "cured" is not doing a lot of us any good around here. At least not at present. I think the new term should be something like "empowered to exert control over alcohol." A lot of us have it, but still can fall into old habits. That may be as good as it gets for a lot of us, which does not mean TSM doesn't work. It means our expectations should probably be re-shaped based upon some real-world reality.

My best,

Nick

Ok, so I went out for Monday Night Football (MNF) I think I had 5 beers, maybe more. But what I was looking for specifically was that nausea feeling I seem to have been getting lately.

I know there has been some question as to the quality of NAL from any given online pharma. My first batch I got from River, this new batch I ordered from alldaychemist.

River brand is called Nodict and is generic for Revia manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in India. Alldaychemist brand is called Naltima (not too sure what its generic for) manufactured by Intas Pharmaceuticals of India.

Mind you, Ive only taken one pill of the Naltima and one time does not establish a pattern. I didnt get the same nausea feeling that I had been getting on previous occasions. I did feel the starting of nausea but it seemed to coincide with being bored, lame conversation or just lame company. I kinda noticed this before too on the River stuff, while I was nauseous, I became even more nauseous when not having fun.

So Im thinking now, if i get nauseous while talking to you, that means your probably boring or lame. Im also thinking, that if this non-nauseous pattern continues, ill seriously consider it being due to quality issues of the Nal and where it comes from.

Anyway, not sure if you placed an order yet Firebird, I know we were asking about alldaychemist and needing a prescription. In answer to that, No you do not need a prescription to order from there. And its waaaaay cheaper than River.

Oh yah, and the past few times of taking the River Nal, Ive noticed a very irritating metalic taste in my mouth for days. I dont have it now after taking the Naltima brand.

Im wondering though if it could have been that metal plate I was sucking on too? Just kidding.

Ill know more after taking a few more pills.

I just had a bad thought with all this pill talk, fake, quality etc... what if they ever quit making this stuff? Oh man.....(play Psycho music here).

Well a triggerful weekend I think.

Friday night bachelor party.

Started as usual, eating and taking my nal atleast an hour previous to my drink.

I drank more than I should have, and woke up with a slight bit of a hangover. If I stayed away from the toasting shots, I would have been completely fine. Funny thing is, they had the bachelor party the night before the wedding, running the risk that the groom might not actually make it lol. I wont go into details of events that occured there for obvious reasons lol. But I havent laughed that hard in a very very long time.

Anyway, normally in the past, a long car ride between drinks would not go over too well, but this time, it didnt bother me. After the evening, we got back to a friends house, I wanted another beer. So I got one, but this time, I drank only a few sips, than said....what are you doing? and poured it out.

While I may have over drank a bit, I still did not act the fool, and remember the evening with a certain clarity.

Here is what I learned from that evening. There is a point that I can go beyond that I can see leading me to drinking very heavily if I dont catch it in time. But thanks to TSM I have a better ability to stop at that control point. Normally I dont find myself with that much drinking time, maybe just 4-5 hours, so my AL intake is time limited. But this time we were at it a few hours longer than usual. So ill have to figure on dealing with longer time spans of drinking in the future.

The next day was the wedding and the reception. After a couple hours of feeling a bit hungover, it actually went away pretty fast and I felt fairly energetic. I was to help with set up break down, moving things from ceremony to reception. The whole time I had a pill on me. My plan was to eat at some point previous to the reception and take my nal, even though dinner was to be served there. I wanted to start out the festivities "primed" for social activity. But...as the time grew nearer, I actually went home to eat somthing in order to take my pill. I ended deciding that Id rather not drink and just see how the evening went. I kept thinking I wanted to drink, but as time creeped by, I was thinking of that hour wait. And kept pushing it back. Eventually It was too late. Ultimately I was AL free for the reception.

In retrospect, I wanted to drink (almost regret that I didnt), to join in on the fun, dancing letting loose etc... but I really didnt want to deal with being drunk or drinking or having to watch myself for fear of hangover. Pre TSM would have found me drinking a ton, potentially making a complete ass of myself and still recovering from a hangover today. As luck, or will, would have it, I am happy feeling quite energetic and refreshed and ready to take on whatever comes.

Heres a funny bit, I had a few inquiries about if I felt ok at the reception, as I didnt drink. They found that odd of me lol. My reply was, hey do you have to drink to have a good time?

One common factor in all of this from friends is, I am very much more outgoing than I used to be. Ill chalk that up to not having to deal with hangovers and bad behavior from drinking too much. In general not having to deal with or recoup from my AL addiction. A new lease on life?

Good stuff all around.

Wishing happy thoughts on all of you,

hapful

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season starting with a great Thanksgiving, an awesomely Merry Christmas and blast off New Year’s.

It’s been 134 days roughly that I started on TSM.

Before I do this, let’s go back on a bit of history. I am or was a binge drinker. Meaning I could go many AF days in a row no sweat, but when I picked up that first drink WHAM watch out, the national storm tracking center goes on alert and a hurricane warning is in affect. After each binge I would feel horrible. Wondering why I did what I did, who I offended etc, drunk texting, drunk calling etc…and the emotional toll this took for the next several days was relentless. When the bad feelings went away, the cravings to go out and drink again came on like a tidal wave. It consumed much of my thought process and valuable energy that needed to be focused elsewhere. (How much energy did I waste thinking about alcohol?) Yet, after each binge the next day I would vow to quit drinking, get my life together. We all know how that part of the story goes; broken promises and low self esteem because we can never seem to stay away from the AL.

So again in an attempt to keep my sanity, off to AA I went. After 2 meetings I quickly learned why AA didn’t fit me the first time around. (I had been sober for 10 years previous, not much thanks to AA) What a let down. Because I was sober for a good period of time before, I thought maybe that I could get on the wagon again. The second time around it was more difficult, and by now, after only a short period of time drinking again, my binging was worse than ever. Surely I would eventually end up losing everything because of this; a binge always spelled potential danger in many ways.

In more effort and less belief to quit drinking, I joined an online community that had a live chat room, this place preached abstinence. For many months I would visit this place, normally after a binge to try and find some understanding and consolation. I had many days and weeks of being AF during this whole time, but all the ground I gained sober was quickly consumed by just one drinking binge. Truly, I was living a nightmare. It was like being bipolar. The swing of emotions the binging would cause has surely aged me beyond my years. It was at this online chat that someone mentioned The Sinclair Method to me. Sending me links to information about it, it seemed far too good to be true. Cure for alcoholism? Drink yourself sober? What was all this? It went against everything I had learned in abstinence programs. But after reading further, it made sense to me. Pharmacological extinction of a bad habit…..intriguing. Could it possibly work and could it possibly work for me? Hell…I tried everything else. And to tell you the truth, in the back of my mind, I’m not too sure I really wanted to quit drinking all together, the beast is strong, but I knew something needed to be done. At this point, I was almost ready to give in to a life of ups and downs living with this alcoholism. My searching lead me to this great forum and community of TSMers. I sought out members threads that I could relate to the most, those that were binge drinkers similar to me. If it wasn’t for their honesty and sincerity, I may not have taken the plunge into TSM. After several weeks of reading I ordered my Naltrexone.
July 29, 2009, I took my first dose of Naltrexone. 25mg. I moved to 50mg after that. Immediately I felt the side affects. (These went away after a few sessions) TSM started working for me the first time I took my Naltrexone. Take my pill at least one hour before drinking and then drink. From the beginning my consumption levels dropped. But what I was looking for most was to NOT display the destructive behavior that caused so much grief, and not have hangovers. For the most part there is no destructive behavior to speak of and a few hangovers. Hangovers are much greater for me on TSM. To my amazement and several close friends and family members, my behavior while drinking has gradually gotten better and better. Through all of this, my belief in TSM has not waivered, mainly because I knew it was working from the time I felt the initial side affects and I believed in the science behind it.

I have been battling back and forth in my mind about using the word “cured” to describe where I’m at. Because the result is not exactly what I thought it would be, I am hesitant to use the word “cured”.

Let’s take a look at the definition of the word cured as it relates to alcoholism:
Cure:
1. a means of healing or restoring to health; remedy.
2. a method or course of remedial treatment, as for disease.
3. successful remedial treatment; restoration to health.
4. a means of correcting or relieving anything that is troublesome or detrimental: to seek a cure for inflation.
8. to restore to health.
9. to relieve or rid of something detrimental, as an illness or a bad habit.

Now let’s take a look at the definition of the word alcoholism:
Alcoholism:
A chronic disorder characterized by dependence on alcohol, repeated excessive use of alcoholic beverages, the development of withdrawal symptoms on reducing or ceasing intake, morbidity that may include cirrhosis of the liver, and decreased ability to function socially and vocationally.

And finally let’s take a look at the word addiction:
Addiction:
The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

1. More often than not, I drink less than most of my friends.
2. I do not display bad behavior when drinking.
3. Alcohol does not consume my thoughts when sober.
4. I can go a week or weeks without having to drink.
5. When drinking I can stop with 1 drink or ten. It’s my choice.
6. It’s my choice when and how much I will drink.
7. It’s my choice.
8. It’s my choice.
9. Its not a bad habit anymore.
10. According to the definitions above I no longer am addicted to alcohol.

After reading posts and proclamations of “CURED” from several members much farther down the TSM path, and 134 days of TSM, I have come to the conclusion that I am really am CURED.

Everything that I wanted to get out from TSM has happened for me.

Now here are the caveats:

There is a point that I can go beyond that will lead me to drink more than I intended. However, the bad behavior still does not occur. I basically get a hangover. (I dread the hangovers)

I will have to take my pill at least one hour before I drink for the rest of my life if I choose to drink.

Because I have never learned how to drink like a “normal” person, my relationship with alcohol will always be different.

If I go beyond a point when drinking it would be considered alcohol abuse, not addiction, abuse.

There is a bit of effort that goes into saying no and saying when. But not a lot.

Some people will go on TSM in hopes to continue drinking but at a normal level, or as normal people do. I do not think we will ever be “normal” in our relationship with alcohol. Our consumption levels will come down to “normal” levels or better, but our perspective on alcohol and drinking will always be different. We may always have a tendency to abuse alcohol. But with some effort, that too can be controlled more often than not. Hell, even normal people at times drink more than they intended.

Advice that I need to continue to follow:
When you reach your goal, Do not take it for granted. It is a gift of new life and freedom. Freedom from alcohol and thoughts of alcohol. It’s a chance to go out and do all those things you’ve always thought you couldn’t do because of alcohol. A chance to recognize and admire beauty that we couldn’t see due to the fog of alcohol.

So YES, I will use the word CURED. I am cured, thank the lord, thank myself, thank the good Drs. Sinclair and Escapa, thank this forum, and thank you TSM.

Here is the part where I go WOW! Never in my wildest dreams before finding TSM did I think that it could be like this. The freedom. The control. The new life. A fog has been lifted and I now can see.

*For anyone struggling or frustrated because its taking longer than they had hoped, please believe in the science, it will work eventually. We have to take this pill before we drink for the rest of our lives anyway, so just continue to take the pill an hour before you drink and push ahead. It worked for me, why not you?

I know Im missing so much from this post but I didnt want to wait any longer.

And just to get people in the holiday spirit, here is a link to the Weezer rendition of O Holy Night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIOfgAeS1vQ&feature=player_embedded

WOOOOOOT!!

Can we add you to "the list"?

edit: Not that it's at all important but you and I started on the same day, which was exactly 134 days ago.

Terrific summary post hapful. Congratulations!