Ok, time for me to start a little thread.

As many of you know I reached cure point, zero cravings just under 2 years ago. Since then I've drank 'normally', but if I'm truthful I don't enjoy it. If anything alcohol makes me feel groggy, bloated, depressed which when added to Naltrexone is not a great recipe.

Sooooo and this has been on my mind for some time now, I have to make a choice. I am only drinking 'because I can', not through any craving or desperate need. I am also tending to drink, if I drink far too much - 2 bottle of wine per evening. I can go days, weeks without drinking quite happily so I've decided time to go AF. No-one knows the long-term effects of TSM and I'm not prepared to risk return of cravings. To lose my life again would just kill me.

I'm on day 7 and have been in two social situations with drinkers, where in at least one I was offered alcohol. I have therefore been able to start to practicing the "no thank you, I'll have a diet coke" lines.

I've actually been prompted to commit to this by a member of MWO, with whom I had a lengthy phone call this evening. I've plenty of stress in my life (actually serious something happened I had to deal with whilst on the call) but I know I can deal with most things AF, One Day At A Time.

I may carry on taking Nal when I feel the urge to binge eat certain foods, there is proof Nal can help with the endorphin response which results from a variety of triggers.

I can relate to much of that. I'm a bit relieved today because my "summer" is finally over, i.e. all my conferences, trips, etc... are finally done. I didn't do terrible, but definitely wasn't "alcohol free." There were the two beach trips, multiple sailing excursions, and then a trip to my parents (with all the siblings) last weekend (which included a day at the beach). My parents' house is actually a place where I usually binge heavily, as they have a cabinet full of open, premium liquors. A short story...so, I'm really feeling like drinking and buy a half pint of vodka. I drink it early in the day (noon), and start to feel an urge to get really drunk. So, I take 50mg Naltrexone and, well, that pretty much killed my whole day. We went to an amusement park where it was 100 degrees. I rode three spin-y rides and I felt like complete and utter crap. Nauseous, dizzy, just wanting to go home. I didn't even consider drinking that night during happy hour -- blah. Went to bed, woke up feeling "stretchy" (wherein I'm compelled to stretch over and over as my muscles feel weird). The next night I tried to drink at the beach...I don't think I made one drink (no Naltrexone). Blah.

Back at home and, as usual, no cravings or desire to drink. Zero drinks. I'm sort of glad the summer is over. I definitely drank significantly less than LAST summer (probably down 75% or so), but still wasn't perfect. I'm expecting my numbers to drop down to near zero again, and none too soon.

To get to your point, I also really don't like Naltrexone, but I also don't want to get back to where I was. Being alcohol-free is the best option, for sure. I'm entering my 8th month now with dramatic improvement.

Hey Barry

I'm glad you can identify with me, and I with you. I'm a lot further down the cured road and I am hoping this will trigger some more thought and discussion about Nal and TSM as a way out of alcoholism. I'm not prepared to carry on testing the method and I think once the initial boost of no longer drinking so much has become the norm I am sure Nal is only depressing. I have been using Nal for food binges so am also going to try and get those under control so I don't have to use it at all.

So far more than 7 days sober (last drink was around 1.30/2am 22nd July), and took some Nal Thursday when I had an urge to eat chocolate and ice cream which I've since been told are the type of things which give you an endorphin boost, which fits in with what I suspected all along.

So over ten days done now. Things I've noticed are that I do want to reward myself with alcohol, do want to drink just because I can but if I just put it out of my head it's fine. No problems with sleeping or other activities, I am missing just having that drink but not in a crawling up the walls, must have it, OMG I'm going to cave way. Feels as though it's just simply readjusting, getting used to I'm not drinking any more mindset, and those old "I don't drink", "No I don't want some wine" lines I got strong at saying when abstenant in the past are rusty but I kind of like it. I also know I can pull the 'used to be an alchy/am an alchy' out of the bag where as when I was drinking with Nal it didn't have the same effect. It's also making me passionate about recovery and society not pressuring people to drink.

It's a journey, isn't it? Good luck on your AF goal. I appreciate that you continue to post. There are many ways to loosen alcohol's grip and I'm glad you are sharing yours. Nal helped me break the cycle but unfortunately it made me feel terrible so I had to stop.

UKBlonde it's interesting that you are using naltrexone to stop food 'binges.' I think there are already products out there, at least in the US for this. There's a nasal spray. I think Dr. Sinclair has developed something along these lines - his company is called Lightlake, I think. You can only imagine the market for products in the US for the obese to use. I sure hope Dr. S makes a gazillion dollars out of this as he's made $0 out of helping alcoholics with TSM.

Anyway I just wanted to add that now I'm trying to cut back on the wine I'm letting myself indulge in the sweets like never before!!!! I'm not actually drinking less, but there's so much going on in my life that I'm "allowing" myself the freedom to eat sweets. And naltrexone doesn't seem to make any difference.

Is it helping you? Can you describe what's going on with you in that area?
Babs

I don't think it's helping Babs but right now AF is my priority. I have looked into Lightlake who are based in the UK but they are only at the research and developmental stage, the nasal spray is still on trial. I've made contact with them but no response so far, and I have read they are inundated with people volunteering to take part in their trials.



GTG

Nal had already broken the grip alcohol had on me, and it's thanks to Nal and the TSM removing my cravings that I can now chose to go AF. One of the motivations to go AF is that Nal + Alcohol = very depressed feeling. Now to solve this I could do 1 of 2 things. I could remove nal from the equation and go flying backwards, or I could remove alcohol which would mean I also don't need to take the nal and thus my mood should improve. Going AF also lessens the chance of any cravings returning or relapse, and I'll do anything to avoid going back to where I was pre-tsm, I'm not prepared to lose my life just for the sake of a few drinks.

UKBlonde,

Wow, what a great success story! Please keep posting......it is great encouragement for us newbies

Cindy

Around 23 days AF now and doing just fine. Yes I've had the odd day when I've felt like a glass of wine, but it was easily gotten over. Also been offered drinks a few times and I just said "No thanks I've given up alcohol", "Oh right" and I'm getting much better, much more confident saying it.

Not had any yearnings and I think it's a couple of weeks since I last took nal (last was for an eating binge).

Thanks for updating. Your journey is very inspiring. Can I ask a question? Do you still do the same types of social things and have the same friends as when you were drinking? Did you have to make major changes to avoid occasions when drink is the focus (parties, nights out, weddings) or are you just able to do them without the booze? I'm so early in the process that it's still hard to imagine being sober when all around me are half cut so I'm interested to know how you do it.
Many thanks,
Ruth.