Happy Birthday, Ocean! You're right... you DID give yourself the best gift!

Your success story really helps those of us that continue to struggle every day...

Ocean,

I have been trying to get caught up on the postings, and I wanted to wish you a belated happy birthday.

If you are not a prefect model of what the book claims should happen to all of us, then I should be struck by lighten! You are one of the lucky few that the book claims should happen. I am jealous, but ecstatic for you! Even though the book simplifies this process and progress, if I had not seen your progress I would have thought that this entire process was a farce. I am glad you are here and I do hope that you continue to post, for I believe that it helps newbies to see the book is not lying!

Keep posting,

Jaba

Ditto what Jaba said. Your posts are thoughtful and extremely helpful. Please keep posting.

I hope that you had a wonderful birthday celebration! Happy Birthday!

Happy belated birthday. And happy rebirth as a sober person! please keep posting as you have a great way with words and your success is uplifting.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was a beautiful Autumn day and my wife and I went out for a nice hike in the woods. Afterwards we went to dinner at this fantastic Italian restaurant with beautiful views. I didn't have my Naltrexone, didn't need it, but normally would probably have enjoyed a bottle of wine with my lasagna. Afterwards that night I had two beers while we watched a movie. Two beers... laughing... I still laugh to myself about this. I still have to remember that I don't remember any of my birthdays since I was about 21 years old because I drank them into oblivion. I still have to pinch myself to believe that it's true. Take one quarter tab of Naltrexone and then an hour later enjoy a beer with no repercussions at all. It's a good kind of crazy.

I still learn a lot by coming here. I would like to think that I still have something to offer. I still don't consider myself cured. I still feel like an alcoholic. I just have a treatment plan that works at the moment. I'm still way to skeptical about anything and everything and I still think it's possible for me to wake up again hung over after 4 months of heavy drinking. It's not easy to shake that one off after having done it so well for 25 years.

I think on my timeline to the cure the medical piece of TSM, that process of extinction which is a physical healing process, is out pacing the psychological habitual one. Even last night for example. I was busy all day and into the early evening. The only time I thought about alcohol was after the hike when we decided to go out to eat and I didn't have my Naltrexone. It was just a glancing thought. No big deal at all, oh well I guess I just can't drink who cares. But then when I got home the habitual psychological offender said hey man it's your birthday you are supposed to celebrate with a beer. So I did. Now don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with that. That's the beauty of TSM. It offers you a choice and regardless of what you chose it won't be like it used to be when if you chose to drink then it leads to a night of blackout drunkenness and a sick morning or if you chose to not drink then it leads to an evening of resentment and pent up desire.

Happy birthday, and congratulations.

I followed your progress, and I couldn't agree with you more. My results are similar to yours, and I have to give you some good news.

I never did the postings here, or progress thread or any of those things. I found this and other forums after I had done it on my own.

Anyway, the good news is that after a year and a half of success, it continues to get better.

I agree there's no cure, but there certainly is a far better life. You will never want to go back to your previous behavior, NEVER ! .......

and you won't

I think you, Guapo, and Clarion have a lot to offer, for you have seen the light of day and experienced what we all are striving for...that is if you can with the whining at times

19th week on TSM completed today. I have not reported back in a while but things have pretty much been the same. Overall if I do decide to drink I usually end up having 2 or 3 beers a night. So I probably am averaging about 20 per week. That's down from about 100 per week. Amazing. I figured that each drink costs me one dollar per drink. I've been putting money away in a jar. For each night I drink I subtract by ten and put the rest in a jar. In a few months I'll have enough money to buy a nice racing bicycle for next year. Woot! I've also lost a bit of weight too. It's pretty amazing how much money I've wasted killing myself slowly. You don't think about it when your on the long binge you just do what you have to do to keep going. I don't actually keep up with the piggy bank thing strictly speaking but every once in a while I throw some in. I think it's a nice little reward for my work and serves as a gentle reminder.

I don't count drinks anymore as I don't feel that it is necessary. I'm pretty much stable at this point.

This week I didn't drink anything. No Naltrexone and no alcohol and you know what? I don't really feel any different. I think that's a sign. A good sign. It's a sign of indifference. It's not unlike me in the past to manage to punch through the withdrawal and sober up for a week or two or even a month. But in those days I was guaranteed to be thinking about alcohol all the time. I'd practically salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs at my set target date to start drinking again. Now? It doesn't even seem to matter. Now the only time I think about alcohol is when I think about TSM and how it has dramatically changed my life. I also don't feel any different because I didn't have to spend the entire week detoxing. Again, in the past, I would make a commitment to stop. Usually it would be a Sunday when I would white knuckle through the withdrawal. Then Monday I'd be tired all day and still just a bit sick and anxious. Tuesday would be a bit better. Wednesday I'd start sleeping real good again and have vivid dreams, Thursday I'd start looking forward to Friday, and Friday I'd be pass out drunk.

It's just not like that anymore.

I still know there is more work to be done. Old habits are hard to break. Last night my wife poured herself a glass of wine and that little voice came into my head. I thought that maybe it would have been a good learning opportunity to have another session in the process of extinction. I don't believe in forcing anything in TSM outside of a small bit of mindfulness. I thought 'if you want to drink then drink.' That's what TSM is all about. But I looked at the clock and it was 8PM. By the time one hour passed it would not really be worth it. So a little bit of mindfulness kept me off the alcohol last night.

In either case though, it would not have been a problem. Because alcohol is no longer a problem. If I chose to drink last night then it would have been no big deal. I would probably have had two drinks, went to bed and woke up feeling fine. No hang over, no withdrawal, no sickness, just another day in the life of a normal person.

Ocean,

Every time I read about your progress, I think how much of a poster child you really are! It just amazes me to no end, for if I didn't know better I would have thought that Sinclair was lying about how easy this is, AND you were planted here as a lure to give people hope!



I am feeling the same way you do, for it is that darn habit that I find myself falling back into. So, does anyone know when those habits/thoughts stop? Or is this the fight we will be faced with for life?

Jaba

Jaba, it's true LOL. I pretty much followed in line step by step to what the book describes. I'm really quite surprised too because I am such a skeptic over all. Before going into this I had only a glimmer of hope but that was because I read and understood the science behind it and knew that it was not some sort of homeopathy or herbal remedy that has no science behind it. I've foolishly tried things like that for alcoholism and various other ailments in that past and should have known better but when you are desperate you are easily taken advantage of too. When I read Claudia Christian's accounts and other accounts in the book including that one guy from Australia I think who would wake up at 4AM just to have several shots of booze to keep the DT's away and both of whom got better within a couple of months I was very very skeptical to say the least.

When you read literature on these miracle cure alls they almost always have eyewitness accounts and real fancy and expensive websites and books and so called doctors that back up the 'research' and everything. TSM had all that written all over it except for one thing. Peer reviewed science in some of the best journals in the world. But still I was a skeptic.

None the less here I am today. The day before I did TSM for the first time I had 16 drinks, that I counted, I may have had up to 20 and that's just drinks not number of alcoholic units which was certainly higher. The next day I took 1/4 tab and went down to 7 drinks. The day after that another quarter tab and I went down to 3 and have basically maintained that ever since.

I don't really have words to describe it. I wish I could understand it better. There absolutely must be a defined reason for why some of us respond so fast and others don't. I think it's a very complicated answer that probably encompasses biology and psychology.