I've been around since April 1st, 2013. I started my own blog just to keep progress that's the reason I don't post here too much. I feel though I can get more support if I try to get active on here. I"ve noticed a drop in my drinking since starting, I still drink way too much though (sometimes a fifth a day) . I noticed my mental cravings are going away more and more. Sometimes I take Nal then I don't feel like drinking but I drink just because I took Nal so I am doing what the Doc said to do. I am in a weird phase right now. It's like my mind says no but I guess maybe addiction or addictive voice (if ya believe that) says drink. It's like I am on the verge of breaking the habit but I am just not there yet. I don't really want to keep drinking I just feel like I have to for some reason....Anyone else with similar experiences?

Welcome! Sounds very familiar. A lot of people report Nal getting them to a "who cares?" threshold. If you listen to the "Nal voice" and stop consuming, that's real progress. But it's easy to drink past that voice -- or listen to the evil one. It seems for many of us, learning to stop at "enough" is the key. That's what I'm trying to do. But if habits were easy to break we wouldn't be on this forum!

What's going on smoot? Good to see you have found your way here. You are just at the beginning of this, so my advice is:

1. Don't cheat. This medicine works by removing part of the reward you get from drinking. Over time (a long time for some of us) that translates into significant drops in consumption. If you get the reward even 5% of the time, your brain might not ever dissociate drinking from from the endorphin rush. Always take nal before drinking. Always wait one hour.

2. Don't stress out too much right now about units right now... Yeah, a fifth in a day is a lot compared to what the squares drink, but as long as you are heading in the right direction, that's better than where you were a year ago.

3. That said... Getting the units down for me and a lot of others is much easier if you substitute rather than deny yourself. Glass of whiskey sounds great right now? Make it a glass of wine. Feel like polishing a bottle or two of wine off? Try some beers. Get yourself some light beers to have around the house. Those are like freaking water, and though pre-nal you could probably plow through about 30 of them, now you probably won't want to put out all the effort.

4. Track your progress. Many of us plateau around 6 months in, still drinking way too much, but better off than before. You'll need to be able to read your old posts to remind yourself how bad it used to be.

Good luck! Keep us updated!

THanks Generic and Tiller....Good advice.....I got to admit I have saw a big change in my drinking and I will take your advice on the light beer and see how that does me...I know I save money in the whiskey department though...I can't drink as much as used to that is for sure....

It is really good advice. I'm such a whiskey-fiend, however, that I notice an unpleasant difference in the sensation I get from wine or beer. Thankfully, with the latter, one can only drink so much (at least in my case--the fizziness?). The taste of wine might be repellant to me, but with a bit of cranberry juice mixed in I could drink two or three bottles-worth of the stuff waiting for the fun to happen.

Your mention of getting days where you don't want to drink is really encouraging. Looking forwards to that! Partly because my Nal hasn't arrived yet, I just made myself 'ride the waves' of craving yesterday, and it worked out great; an AF day, hooray!

Tracking is a wonderful motivator. If you have some graphing software (I used MS Access), and are visually orientated, it can be very gratifying after a couple of months to see the line (or bars, whichever you prefer) go down, down, down.

All the best,

Xanthippe

Thanks for ideal xsvanstrom. That would be a good way to watch things go down. As of today I am 4 months into the program. I am still drinking a lot but not as bad. Last night I drank way to much {half bottle of Jager) but it was only a half ! About 6 months ago the whole bottle would be gone and I would be drinking today too! So I do have big improvements but I don't consider myself cured yet! My other half when I told her about just drinking beer she said "that sounds good hun but I don't think that would cut if for you because you are used to drinking the hard stuff". So I gave the beer a shot and it works, I drink a whole hell of a lot less liquor when I drink beer, in fact I had a half pint of liquor the other night(for the hard drinker that ain't nothing) after that I drank a beer and went to bed! So things are continuing to improve but I am still not where I think is a "safe" drinking level. So I will continue on and keep everyone updated!

Sounds like good progress to me. The book talks about 3 to 4 months to see lasting changes. Some people are quicker and some a lot longer, but your intake is going down and that's what counts.

Keep up the good work.

Ruth.

I so agree. I'm in my fourth week and diligently follow the 1 hour before drinking protocol. My units have come down a bit, but slowly. Actually it's a little better than that; since I started Nal, I've been between 1-2 bottles a day instead of 2-3.

Last night, however a first, small victory: I nursed a single bottle of wine from 5:30pm -11pm. (That's a long time - before I could easily polish off 1 bottle in 2 hours.) It really wasn't doing much for me, it was more like I was drinking out of habit. And I did drink glasses of water in between as someone had suggested.

I was watching the movie The Avengers and was pretty bored by the end, but usually I'd keep watching anyway. And finish the bottle, of course. Instead, I listened to that Nal voice and thought, why not just go to bed? And NOT drink that last glass in the bottle? And that's what I did!

Which made yesterday a 4-unit day for me. First in a month. I've had a few 5s but mostly still up around 9-10, so I feel really encouraged that it's starting to work for me. If I can maintain that pace this week I'll be looking at a more than 20% decrease in consumption compared to last week, and I'd be very pleased with that.

It was great to wake up without a hangover and enjoy a couple of cups of coffee.

We have to let the Nal do its job but we also have to be willing to pay attention and do a little bit of work ourselves. Something new for me.

Thanks for the replies! your words are really encouraging. I guess that is one of my main problems is drinking out of habit and not paying attention to my "nal voice" when I am drinking too much.Again though I drank a half bottle of jager which is 80 proof and I am paying for it today which is encouraging because I used to drink more then a fifth of that stuff. Right now I feel like I got up and down weeks. Weeks when I am like my recovery is taking hold then weeks like I don't think its working for me.

Well just to keep everyone updated I've had major progress since last time I wrote. I have had 4 alcohol free days this week and I had three alcohol free days the week before. My urge to drink is really starting to disappear fast. Me taking off 4 days from drinking is a miracle. Back in January I would've had to go to rehab or jail to accomplish that. What's funny is the girl friend sees me drinking she ask "did you take your medicine?" I am convinced recovery is finally taking hold and I am regaining control of my life again.