we started the same week. you are having such amazing results! all the best. i hope i will be following in your footsteps sometime soon,
path

Another 4AF week. Wahoooooo.

Thanks, everyone!

So I just had to share a few thoughts about this week so far. I have had four AF days in a row, with no desire to drink AT ALL. This so strange for me. I have started working out again, and enjoy feeling clear all day.

I just spent the last hour reading stories to my four year-old daughter, then laying in bed with her till she fell asleep. I was laying there trying to figure out what kind of yummy, semi-healthy snack I could make and (miracle!) nothing alcohol related came to mind. (Normally, I would have slammed a few glasses of wine before going upstairs, and I would be looking forward to sneaking lots more afterward.)

This time, I settled on a banana milkshake with unsweetened chocolate. Delicious ... and unprecedented!

YG,

What great news!!! Congrats on 4 AF days but even more on NOT wanting too!!! If you are a true yoga girl it must feel great to start focusing on being healthy again!!! It sounds like hanging in there through the rough hangovers is really going to pay off for you. I hope to be there with you soon. I look forward to your next update. BTDT

Hi BTDT,

I hope you are with me soon too! And yes, as an athletic person, I feel so much better not feeling toxic all the time. I have been to two yoga classes this week and went running today. I was remembering in my yoga class, all the times I have been there with a terrible hangover, looking at myself in the mirror with loathing, disgust and despair(not to mention, nausea!)

I feel like I can finally get back on track to become the person I want to be, fit and healthy in both mind and body ... not ruled and crippled by an obsession with alcohol. I am not there yet, but I can see it getting closer and closer!

YG

Hey YG I'm soooo happy for you. U are making progress in quantum leaps.

You have a 4 yr old . We hv a 5 and 9 yr old. I love the fact I'm spending beautiful quality sober time with them. It is the most incredible gift of TSM isn't it.

Hugs
Kiwi.

That's great Yoga!! So glad to hear you're doing so well. I just got a new script for up to 100 mg. I am taking 75 now but may bump up to 100. Do you thik that has had anything to do with your recent success? cause I've been hitting it pretty hard this week

Hey Joe,
I noticed that both times I increased my dosage, I hit it really hard immediately afterward. Including last weekend, after I increased to 100mg. I don't know what that is about, maybe the body/brain/addiction trying hard to beat back the increased dosage? Both times (at 75mg and 100mg) I wondered what the hell was going on.

But then, after way too much on Saturday night, I have not wanted anything since. I have no idea if this would have happened anyway, at 75mg, or if it was the weekend at 100mg that pushed me over the edge. Maybe at 4+ months I would have turned the corner anyway, or maybe it was the increased dosage and extinguishing triggers at that dosage. That is the frustrating part, this is all so confusing!

All I can say for sure is that I have had a completely AF week and I am not getting that irritability and drive to drink I usually have after 2-3 days AF. I honestly can't believe it.

I look forward to seeing what happens after your increased dosage ... please keep us posted!

YG

This week I stayed about the same as last week, 4 AF days and 3 days of drinking too much. It is crazy when I look at my graph and think I was doing that EVERY day before. Ugh.

I went to a charity event last night and had 4 glasses of wine. Interestingly, I noticed that I was drinking much more slowly than a few others (NEVER the case before!), and they were the ones wanting to run out to the bar for more drinks. Of course I went along. If I had stopped there, I think would have called it a successful night. But no, I pulled one of my old tricks and sneaked some vodka at home, ending the night at 6 units instead. I don't know why I do this!?!?

I think the 100mg dose is making me tired and crabby. I had a hard time socializing at this event and felt really out of it. Not sure what to do about that, because on the flip side I think it is helping. I also notice that I don't like the taste of wine much anymore. Vodka drinks are better, maybe because you can barely taste the vodka when you mix it with something tasty?

Another observation I have, now that I am a few months in: I have so many things I want to do, lists and lists and lists, like biking, skiing, snow shoeing, hiking, running, camping, cooking classes, planting an organic garden, yoga, piles of books on my reading list, organizing my chaotic life, having more fun with my kids and so on. I can't believe how much time I have wasted either drinking or being hungover!

It is so sad, when all this time I have been complaining that I have no free time. The truth is I DO have free time, I have just wasted it. And that time will never come back, it is gone forever. I need to keep that in mind going forward. But thanks to TSM, I think alcohol is loosening its grip on me, and I will be able to make rational choices about how to spend my time, instead of falling into that addictive vortex and wasting more of my life.

Back to the graph ... the good news is, the AF days are effortless now and I barely think about alcohol at all. The "not cured" part is, I still don't feel like I am in completely control once I start drinking. I fall right back into my old patterns, even if I am not really enjoying it. But all in all, I have cut my drinking days and units to less than half since I started. THAT tells me, slowly but surely, this is working!

That graph is a thing of beauty. I think several people have reported a fairly notable turn of the corner at around 16 weeks. I think I hit one plateau at around 12 weeks, but then another plunge downward a month or two later.

Well done to you!