Hi Everyone, not sure how to start, so I'll jump right in! I am a 45 year old male who has been drinking since from the age of 14. I have mostly been a weekend binge drinker over the years, although when I was younger the weekend usually started on Thursday (sometimes earlier in the week) and lasted until Sunday night. I was always getting into trouble while drunk and months would go by without me ever remembering getting home. I just woke up there and was thankful, but I was always nervous about finding-out the things I had done the night before, and there were a few crazy things! This went on for years and I never ever thought I had a problem as I generally go several days without drinking each week.

By the time I was in my early forties, my doctor said that my GGTs were high. I'd never even heard of GGTs at that point, but it pointed to liver problems caused by drinking, so I thought I should cut down. That was when I realized I was facing a bigger problem than I realized as I just couldn't stop. What had been letting my hair down on the weekends with a few drinks turned into a major problem. When I went without, I began to crave and always failed eventually and would end-up hammered again. I realized that I couldn't resolve things on my own.

Initially, I went to an addictions counsellor who talked to me a lot about alcohol and quitting. After a few months I knew all about the process of quitting, but I wasn't any nearer to it. I tried a few other things. I tried AA a few times, but in the meetings I went to didn't help me in the long run. I described the meetings I attended to my Doc as bars without alcohol. It was full of people who talked about drinking, but not doing it. I pulled the plug on AA when I went to a closed meeting where I had to read a paragraph from the big book that freaked me out. It just didn't seem like a solution, this self-flagellation. What also freaked me out were the people that were there, without any disrespect to them, they just weren't like me and I just couldn't fit in.

Some more time passed without a solution then I moved to a new city where there were bars everywhere! It was booze heaven, all within walking distance. I went on a bit of a bender, which put my poor wife on the edge. Once again I was faced with the prospect of being alone, so I contacted another addiction research hospital for an assessment. Initially they signed me up for group therapy and they set-up an appointment with a Doc in their addiction medicine program. The group thing didn't work out for me, but the Doc put me on Baclofen. I did some research and found Amiesen's autobiography at my local library and inhaled it in a matter of days. At last I thought I was on the right track. I started with Baclofen, ramping-up to 60mg per day. Within a few weeks, my cravings had gone! I was cutting-down on my drinking, which would often be done on my own semi-secretly. My wife and I would have a meal and a few drinks on a weekend night. She would head off to bed, but I'd stay up to "watch TV," which is simply a euphemism for getting hammered in the basement. The TV was just along for the ride.

After a while on the Baclofen, I felt like I really had a handle on things. I felt in control of my drinking and I could now have a beer or two without it leading to a session. However, this choice allowed me to start enjoying drinking again. I found that as the weeks passed, although my life was changing from my isolated secret drinking, my relationship with my wife improved and so did our social life. Instead of drinking alone, I was now consuming just as much at social events every weekend! What also complicated matters was that I had also seen a psychiatrist who had put me on Cipralex and Wellbutrin, which took away a lot of my anxiety and drove more of that fun social drinking. My monthly trips to my addictions Doc would go something like this. My Doc: "So I see from your drinking diary that you are drinking more?" Me: "Yes, but I am really getting a new lease on life, my relationship with my wife is much better, and I am really enjoying all these social activities. I know I am drinking more, but its my choice to drink." My Doc: "Mmmm."

Eventually he pawned me off to a addictions Doc in training who suggested Naltrexone. I said I would think about it and get some at my next monthly appointment. Secretly, I was thinking it was summer and there were too many sunny patios to be sitting on to be trying something else right now. A month later I was back with my original Doc and had a script for Naltrexone on top of my Baclofen, Cipralex, and Wellbutrin. I started taking the Nal as prescribed, 50mg every morning, but I also started researching Nal on the 'net, when I came across the Sinclair Method. While still taking the daily dose each morning, I ordered Eskapa's book from the library. It arrived in a couple of days and I inhaled it in one sitting--I didn't take my Nal the next morning! That was just over a week ago. Since then, I have taken Nal three times (Thurs, Fri, Sat) one hour before drinking. I see my Doc on Monday and I'll be letting him know that I haven't followed his instructions.

I mapped-out my units for the last six months earlier today (below), and although I have 3-5 AF days a week (I think there was even a 6 in there), which the Baclofen helps with, my units are still way up there and increasing. However, its been a liquid summer so far, so if I stay on Baclofen alone, the trend might start declining, but I'm not taking bets.

I found this forum on the weekend and thought some self-accountability might help me, so here is my first TSM progress report!

That's a nice graph, I want one of those!

Welcome. I relate to your episodes of waking up home relieved, though that was how I was in my teens and twenties before i "got sober."

I was perfectly happy and normal and drank again after almost 20 years. Gradually, drinking levels and episodes I'd prefer not to happen increased.

Best of luck to you!

Just want to say hi and welcome aboard. It sounds like you've been trying really hard to get this beast under control. Hopefully using The Sinclair Method will be the final piece in the puzzle to give you the choice and control in your drinking that you deserve. Keep posting and let us all know how you get on.
Ruth.

Welcome to the forum. TSM is helping me. My story is much similiar, started early, blackouts, lucky to be home, drinking into my 40's, 43 now.

I started TSM pushing 18 USA units daily. I've cut it in half over last 7 months, and I am working on smaller numbers still.

Keep us posted.

Hi and welcome,

I saw a lot of my drinking history in your post, including misgivings about AA. But when I drank, in and out of many sober periods, I have always been a daily drinker, both socially and at home, and increasingly isolated of late. I'm in my early 50s.

I've been on Wellbutrin (300mg) for years but earlier this year, in the midst of 14 months, sober, I was getting more and more depressed and eventually relapsed thanks to a Perfect Storm of work/relationship issues, with an unhealthy dollop of oh-fu*k-it thrown in for good measure.

You can read my story if you like; the short version is that I'm fortunate to have a doctor who believes in TSM and is incredibly encouraging. Like Christopher, I've halved my drinking units, and have begun to be able to weather tough emotional times without getting blotto. My current goal is to be at or below 35 units a week, which equates to one bottle of wine or less per day. And I'm confident I'll get some AF days in soon; I haven't really made an effort yet. I'm hoping that they will just happen naturally, per the program's expectations.

As for my depression, it has been tougher. I added Prozac, which gave me an immediate lift but also compromised the effects of the NAL; I lost the "off" switch. And the alcohol issue is even more pressing. So stopped that and last week we added Abilify. It's a little too soon to tell but there does seem to be some improvement.

I love your chart - is it excel? And if so, could you pm me a copy?

Hang in there, you're in a great place for information and support.
Sheryl

Thanks for all the kind comments and encouragement.

I went to see my addiction Doc today and I asked him if he had heard of the Sinclair Method, he said no! I explained what it was and he said he couldn't really comment as he didn't know enough about it. He did say that he ha an open mind and that if I was happy trying he was okay with that, and he also said he was going to do some research on the topic. I did find it rather strange that an addiction Doc didn't know about it. He did, however, refer to some large scale trials of daily Nal studies that showed positive results with low relapse rates after nine months. As I left he asked me if I needed a script for more Nal, I said no as I hadn't really taken that many, but he gave me another script anyway. I won't see him for another six weeks, so it will be interesting what happens in that time.

The weekend past consisted of a blowout Friday with 22 units. Saturday I had a five hour drive out of town, which wasn't much fun and Saturday night consisted of a solitary glass of red as I was running in a 5k race on Sunday morning. On Sunday night, my wife and I had dinner and a few beers, but were were still a bit tired from the race, so we kept it low key. I ended the night after eight units of beer and four of red wine. What was interesting was that I just didn't want any more.

Welcome. I have also experimented with baclofen and did not personally have any luck with it. An important distinction to keep in mind is that the baclofen approach seeks to suppress alcoholism by continually taking baclofen. The baclofen approach is forever: you must keep taking it every day for the rest of your life. TSM is different, in that it seeks to reverse alcoholism by taking naltrexone before drinking. Once TSM has helped you escape the grasp of alcoholism altogether, you no longer have to take naltrexone all the time. Just when you are drinking. You will always be following TSM as long as you continue to carry a pill with you that you can take before you drink, if you are going to drink. The side effects of baclofen were too much for me to imagine living with for the rest of my life. The side effects of naltrexone can hardly even be called side effects compared to what I experienced on baclofen.