I've been out of the country since Oct. 22, 2009; returned Jan 14, 2010 and can't remember where to find the Google spreadsheet.

At the time I left, I believe I had been on TSM about 7 months with unequivocal results. Time to catch up.

During the past 2-1/2 months I have been living on a 40-foot sailing yacht with a German friend-owner. I met him in Simon's Town, South Africa in order to help him sail his boat to Brazil. We ran into a bunch of bad weather--worst in 40 years off southern Africa--and bureaucratic hurdles in updating my Brazilian entry visa since it became obvious we would arrive after the 90-day-first-entry period had passed since it was issued. (That problem was solved at the Brazilian embassy in Windhoek, Namibia.)

During my time onboard and while at sea, I did not have a single drop of anything alcoholic for reasons of safety--we were after all short-handed and could not afford to lose half the crew, or have someone disappear during his night watch. Exceptions were one small tot of rum each at Xmas and at New Year's Eve. During the time at sea, I did not miss the stuff one whit. But we had to duck into harbor from time to time because of heavy weather, during which time at onshore restaurants I enjoyed about two bottles of beer, then a shot of rum for a sundowner back onboard in the evening. Nothing more. I brought my naltrexone, but never used any during that entire 2-1/2 month period.

Briefly, we sailed from Simon's Town, South Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope and ducked into Saldanha Bay were we stayed for almost two weeks due to adverse weather. Then proceeded to both Luderitz and Walvis Bay, Namibia, where we stayed for about 10 days in each place. The sea was icy cold due to the Antarctic-spawned Belguela Current, and a dense fog caused by hot air from land blowing over the cold water caused dense fog at times that compounded navigational challenges (we had to use radar to avoid collisions) for hundreds of miles. Obviously not a situation to fog your mind with alcohol, which I didn't.

From Walvis Bay, we sailed to the island of St. Helena where Napoleon was exiled--a unique and isolated outpost of the British overseas territories--and from there to colorful Salvador, Brazil. In all we left about 4,500 miles in our wake--about the same as sailing from New York to San Francisco and back to Detroit.

It was an adventure of a lifetime, especially considering that my Capt. friend is 74 and I am 70, and there were just the two of us aboard.

However, now back home, I find myself gradually slipping back into my daily evening wine routine. Hence, I will pick up the naltrexone protocol which I abandoned last Oct. (since I stopped drinking almost entirely at that time.) What I wonder is if my previous naltrexone "innoculations" will still carry over after the long hiatus from both the medication and from alcohol--or does this mean starting all over again? That's the reason I'd like to revisit the spreadsheet. And decide where to go from here. Of course, I'd like to hear any advice, insights or similar experiences along this vein.

Mike

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah1gjZSQaEC1dF9ndV92X1JNbVJzdElmdW1BT241VHc&hl=en

Just pick up where you left off. I am assuming that the few times you did imbibe you took your Naltrexone first. Extinction will continue to occur, if there has not been any positive reinforcement of the undesired behavior, intentional or otherwise. Drinking after TSM w/o Naltrexone reverses the extinction and at an accelerated rate due to the alcohol deprivation effect.

Bob

PS Sounds like you had a nice trip!