I followed TSM for about six months in 2011. I say that I followed it, but in hindsight, I was terrible about following the protocol properly. I was frequently coming home and washing down my pill with my first beer of the night, and often had two drinks in me before an hour was up. That's not how it's done.

I quit taking it in late 2011 right about when I ended a really awful relationship and my life went into turmoil. I was still drinking very heavily toward the end and gave up on it. I ended up moving in with some buddies, many of whom were addicted to alcohol or other drugs, and lived with them for awhile and just let myself go, alcoholism-wise. I then ended up rooming with another alcoholic friend for the last year, and finally moved out to a healthier living situation this month.

In March, I tried starting TSM again for a couple of months, and looking back at my logs, I seemed to be making some progress, and I did actually manage two AF days in the process, which is an unbelievably rare thing for me. Getting a bit discouraged and looking for TSM advice online, I ended up finding out about baclofen instead, and spent most of the last three months trying that instead of TSM. I got up to a very high dose. Long story short, it did not work for me, and the side effects were intolerable.

I came down from the baclofen last week, and luckily still had a bunch of naltrexone left over. So, Sunday night, I took my first 12.5 mg, and am going up to 25 mg tonight. I feel some side effects, but after living in the intensely side-effect-heavy world of high-dose baclofen for the last several weeks, this is nothing.

I am intending to follow TSM absolutely strictly and see it through this time.

Welcome back.

I too tried baclofen without success. TSM requires you to stick to a protocol ie make sure Naltrexone is in your system before you drink, just keep taking the pills.

Hooray, another returning!

I'm starting it up again tonight (Nal arrived yesterday, an AF day for me).

Your personal experiences sound really similar to what my beau's business partner has been going through. He's moving into a better environment pretty soon though as well. I ought to ask him whether or not he's heard of TSM.

Welcome back and all the best to you.

Cheers,

Xanthippe

I don't want to say "welcome back" to TSM, Ives, because that would imply that you were on it before, and as you said, your compliance was kinda weak.

I hope very much that now that you are trying TSM in earnest you find enough immediate relief from your consequences to stick with it. Remember your past experience with having "one foot in, one foot out" and use that as motivation to be strict about the golden rule. In my reading on here, 90% compliance results in closer to NO results than 90% results.

You can do it. Read here. Write here. Keep us updated. Cheers!

Good luck on the retry Ives. I think I started right around when you did, and I'm still using nal with pretty good success. Much, much more control than I had when I got started. After some time I loose perspective on how different it is from when I started, so I'll come back here occasionally and read old posts and new to help remember. It hasn't done everything for me, but it has definitely helped me get much more reasonable with my drinking. I don't have a ton of AF days really, but the number of 2-4 beer days are way up, and that used to be just impossible for me to achieve. I find that incredibly freeing.

Week 0: 72 (week before starting TSM)
Week 1: 63

Highest intake was 10.5 units on Monday.

I was going to say these are my goals, but I think a more appropriate way to phrase it would be to say that these are the milestones I am hoping to reach in the coming months:

#1. Reduce overall intake - no more hangovers at work
For me, 6 drinks in a night means no hangover. 8 drinks is a slight one. 10 and I can't eat lunch. 12 and I am depressed on top of it all. 15+ and the hangover may last two days. So, I suppose this milestone corresponds to getting my weekly intake down to about the ~40 level and setting a goal of no more than 6 if I have to work the next day.

#1 will probably be the first one I reach, realistically.

#2. AF days as a regular thing, starting with at least 1 AF/week
AF days are extremely hard because I am compelled to drink every night. I can always survive the day, but by 8 PM I will be drinking, and I will not stop until I feel like I can go to sleep. I already take melatonin when bedtime is approaching, which helps, but it's not enough. I would say 50% of the driving force behind my drinking after 9 PM is that I need to get drunk enough to fall asleep. I may get ahold of some benadryl or something like that...any recommendations?

#2 will be difficult. Developing a way to actually survive an AF night at all is the first step. Once I have that established, reaching the second milestone will just be a matter of putting that into practice on a regular basis.

#3. 3 AF days in a week
I could see Friday through Monday being drinking days, and Tue/Wed/Thu being the AF period. I say Monday because I go to a regular event on Mondays where alcohol is served, and of all the nights in the week that are hard to go AF, that one is the hardest, and the event is not something I am willing to stop participating in.

#4. More AF days than not
I guess? I suppose I will have to sit down and reevaluate the situation if I get to this point. Right now, I can't imagine taking even one AF day, so speculating about a lifestyle past milestone #3 (or even #2) is pretty difficult for me.

Yes, I have slipped on the golden rule, in regards to the 1 hour minimum a few times. I think I have been near perfect in regards to taking the pill, just not as perfect to the 1 hour minimum. I have mentioned it before, and am saying it hear again to remind myself, but 1.5 hours before seems to work better for me. Both because I think it is working better 1.5 hour before, and also because I always find myself losing track of time.

The honeymoon is nice. I hope I can ride it as long as possible. I missed an opportunity to take full advantage of it tonight, but it at least stopped me from going way overboard.

Started tonight with a bang. Bottle of strong beer and two glasses of wine right away when I got home from work. Feeling good. Headed downtown to the pub to meet up with friends. Had two pints of strong beer. Ordered a third out of habit toward the end of the evening.

Finishing that last one was a serious chore. I really didn't want it. I force myself to drink it because I have never been able to stand seeing an un-drank beer left at a table. I should've left it.

Got home and guzzled water. Checked my android app. 8.3 drinks for the night (which I'll log as 8.5) and I cannot possibly comprehend having one more. I don't want any more. I wish I had skipped the last one. I could've logged 6.5 tonight! I'm already dreading the feeling I'll have when I wake up tomorrow and feeling ashamed that I did what I did.

Tomorrow, no plans after work...I will try my best to keep my intake to a minimum. Tonight was stupid and unnecessary.

Hi there, Ives. Happy to see you back again. Me too, and I'm here for the third time! I never went the Bac route simply because it's hard to get here and the SEs were a bit scary to contemplate. As well, I know TSM will work for me if I give it a real chance - and do the work around drinking that I personally need to do....for me that's key.

Anyway, as with many others you have a great story that I'll follow - it all helps!!!!
Babs

Ives,

It's really cool to see your objectives/milestones or aims in a list like that with the personal details. We share #1 and #4. Three days in a row of really heavy drinking for me (8-12 shots of spirits, usually whiskey, scotch, or vodka) and despite my religious intake of an anti-depressant supplement (5-htp) I will feel miserable mentally and physically. Pessimistic to the point of hopelessness and no energy to do anything but lie about, sleep, maybe read. The next day my physical energy is usually low as well.

I'd like to reduce my intake to what is considered moderate for females: no more than 9 drinks per week, which will be drastic change. BTW, I'm taking this number from a study that was published in The American Journal of Public Health, so a 'drink' means a standard drink in the US: 1.5 shots spirits, a beer, a standard glass of wine, 2oz/29.6ml of port.

Sleeping: on occasion I take doxylamine succinate, available OTC as generic shop-branded or Unisom at American chemists and markets (bought my last box at the Albertsons next door). Taking it two days in a row doesn't work for me. Some people take the herb valerian but it gives me a headache. Same with kava-kava, another herb, but long-term use of that is rough on the liver anyway, whereas valerian is supposed to be a liver tonic. Go figure.

AF days/nights: If there's booze in the flat, it's a near guarantee that I'll be having at it no matter what I say when I wake. When it's absent, I've found really paying attention to my craving helps a tonne. You'll notice it comes in waves; not always disappearing in a trough after a crest, but reducing a lot to where I can forget for a bit, if even just for minutes. AF days have been possible for me on occasion using this method. Pushing the time forwards helps too, like, oh, 'I'll wait an hour or do this or that first, then maybe I can start drinking,' and then doing it again and again. A bad hangover? Unfortunately, that has been the reason for a number of my AF days.

Congratulations on that desire to stop when you had an unfinished beer! It doesn't matter that you ended up drinking it, I know the feeling. Maybe next time. I've got to the point of leaving drinks unfinished and either covering them and stowing them in the fridge for another time or just pouring them out.

Don't let self-recrimination wear you down; I've found it just makes me want to drink more. Be kind to yourself! Hell, you're on Nal and you want to make changes, those are two things to be hugely proud of.

All the best to you,

Xanthippe