Hi all,

After lurking here for some time, I have decided to give it a go. I have never had a problem with alcohol up to quite recently. I got sleeping problems and my mum said take a night cap before you go to sleep, this will help you go to sleep faster. This got out of hand quite soon and before I knew it, I needed wine to sleep every night.

Other than that, I am a social drinker but with this drinking for sleeping (which I do in the evenings, after work) I can easily down a bottle in two hours. I don't want to drink like that, but only in social situations and want to sleep healthy again, without the necessary stress reduction from wine.

So, based in the Netherlands, I found out that all Allday chemist and River Pharmacy don't ship to here, so I ordered the Nodict brand from another website. Any experience in websites who ship to the Netherlands/other countries in Europe?

I read about this, that you have to chew on it or something like that, otherwise it won't work well? I hope the package comes in two or three weeks, and that I can get started.

By the way, I am 32 years old, live in Amsterdam and work fulltime at a bank. And I just recently just bought my first house!

Thanks for reading!

Good luck to you. I'm pretty sure the "chewing" thing with Nodict is that it has a coating on it for slower release, so won't be fully "ready to go" in an hour. Naltrexone is powerfully nasty tasting -- think gasoline. You could also get a pill slicer (probably at the pharmacy -- or cut it with a knife) and slice it into quarters and take it quickly with water. Since the coating would be ineffective, the drug would quickly be in your system. Naltrexone is generally VERY fast acting (I would imagine that if you gave it to someone who OD'd on Morphine, it would reverse their stupor in a few short minutes; the IV form, Narcan, reverses overdose in less than 10 seconds).

Thanks Barry for your tips! You seem to know very much. And you seem to have experienced a lot of luck in starting and getting results quick! I am looking forward to starting, as I try to limit my amount to go to sleep and only use it for social purposes.

I think my amount is about 35-40 units per week, with 1 AF, mostly mondays. Nobody really knows about the problem, except I have told my parents that I have trouble sleeping.

Hopefully I will find some moral support here if I have trouble sleeping again and will find control over my wrong usage.

I thought I needed it to sleep for years. I am one of those who would take 1-2 shots right before bed just so that I could collapse into a deep sleep. There's no easy answer for the sleep problem, as insomnia is a miserable experience. Of course, I still use drugs to sleep, namely, Benadryl 25mg (I chew one or drink Elixir). I also try to tire myself out real good during the day. Sometimes, like last night, I have to lay there a bit before going to sleep. But, I have made a point these past few months NOT to use alcohol for sleep, stress, or to heighten sex. I try to only drink for "social" reasons, and even then only occasionally.

Just some encouragement...it may take a few painful nights, but you will likely become able to sleep well without alcohol. Your body has a way of making you sleep, one way or another. It helped me to have a Plan B for my first few alcohol free nights, such as a book or movie or another way to bide the time. I actually had a very easy transition, thankfully.

So, it turned out the order I made on the website could not deliver to the Netherlands, so I made a new order today by phone... Should take about 14 days before I receive the stuff. Excited! Last night wasn't my finest moment, I had no trouble staying AF all night, but when I lay awake for 1,5 hours, I did open a bottle of wine and took half to get to sleep... but again after some time I woke up and felt really bad. Needless to say I felt tired this morning and took me two cups of coffee to get started...

But good plans for tonight, going running (I am training for half a marathon) and an early night.

Have you tried Melatonin? It is Herbal and over the counter in the vitamins section. It works really well for me. You can start low dosage. It starts at 1mg I think. I take 5mg. When I take a 5mg, I try and take it at 8pm or earlier. If I take it later, say 10pm, I still sleep just as good, but a bit more tired when the alarm goes off.

It really doesn't make me a lot more drowsy at bedtime, but what it does for me is once asleep, I sleep through the night, and typically have more dreams (or at least remember more of them in the morning) then without the Melatonin.

I have tried melatonin, I take 1 mg, but I am always doubting what time to take it, I normally take it around one hour before I go to sleep. It's not that I can't sleep physically, but I have great trouble 'turning my head of', so everytime I feel myself falling asleep, I am become more awake by that thought alone And if you are worried about not being able to sleep, what happens? Murphy's law...

I used to take Melatonin, too. I go off and on the Benadryl as it really is like an addiction for me. It has hypnotic effects on a lot of people (like me). When combined with alcohol, it makes deep sleep irresistible. Once I get off night shifts, I will start to deal with my addictions to Benadryl and stimulants (coffee, Jacked Micro). Being off alcohol is about 25 times more important than both of those addictions put together, so I'm content at this point. I think I'm going to be on another AF streak for awhile (I'm on Day 11 right now), although I do have two trips to Florida in June (Miami and Pensacola). You gotta have at least a drink in Miami, geez.

As some of you seem to not remember their dreams, my dreams are very intense when I have drunk something... Had 5 glasses of wine yesterday at a dinner with colleagues and dreamt so weird last night, and woke up a couple of times totally disoriented...

Hopefully I will return to normal sleeping when I don't fall asleep tipsy.

Today I have a wedding, wish me luck in sleeping at another place in a bunk bed, because the wedding location is in the middle of nowhere and everybody stays sleeping there... With hopefully not too many glasses of wine.

Yesterday I received confirmation that my delivery will be here on the 13th of June, just as I will have left on holiday to Morocco to go surfing and be away for a week... Nevertheless maybe that wouldn't be the best time to start as it is a holiday and I will be sporting a lot and don't want to be nauseous.

Good luck to you all!

Watching DVDs, soaps and listening to the radio(not all at the same time) help me to get to sleep.