firebird,
i LOVED your "i am at the helm" tag line, and will miss it, but understand your reasoning for changing. i just want to say thanks to you for coming back and posting. it is really nice to hear from the early members, and of course always great to hear from the cured. thank you, thank you,
path

Firebird,

Thank you sooooo much for coming back with an update. It helps those of us struggling to see examples of success and to hear things continuing to work going forward.

Congrats!!! BTDT

Firebird was one of the early successes that inspired me! So thanks Firebird. There were many others too. I really encourage all new members to take the time to search backwards and read some of the stories of those no longer posting.

They will knock your socks off! Some were so quick it's truly amazing - others slow and steady. Still others were the more usual roller coaster ride. But all very encouraging.

So when things in your own journey look bleak and you can't break out of the cycle please READ READ READ and then go back and READ again.

Thanks for doing that!!! For those of us that TSM worked for, it's important to say so. Some have left without passing the legacy on...

Bob

Since discovering this message board, I have been looking around and trying to figure out how to navigate and understand general protocol. I discovered your thread yesterday and was truly inspired. I started Nal 3 days ago, and have already cut my drinking drastically. I hope all the new members find their way to your thread. And now that I know what a "thread" is I'll be searching for the others. Thanks.

When I read back through this thread it sometimes doesn't reveal the doubts and frustrations I experienced at the time. I try to keep a positive attitude most of the time, but during the course of TSM, especially in the first couple of months there were definitely some tough times. At that time we didn't have any concrete examples of people having been cured by TSM, so I was seriously worried that this could be a bunch of BS. I remember when SpringerRider came back and reported his success it was a huge boost: finally we had a real life example, and I know SR was not bullshitting us, not his style at all.

So many of the cured have gone and rarely report back -- their lives likely so transformed that this board has no place for them anymore. I think you have to be there to understand. Personally I think it is important to remember where we came from, lest we fall back! Every day I wake up without a hangover I bless TSM and remember what life was like before. The hopelessness, the despair, the feeling of being alone; I know this is where some people are right now. And these feelings can persist well into the process of TSM. They can even be used to help the process along. Bob 3d gave me some good advice about remembering that rotten feeling when you do have a hangover.

There's going to be a lot of hangovers this weekend, I'll bet! Anyway, to the people who may be struggling right now: it does get better

Firebird

Yeah mate, your progress is a great boost to me. I am struggling with doubts at the moment, being about 3 &3/4 months in. I stay positive by reading successs stories.

What stage are you at with the drinking now? Do you drink at all, or have a few just?

I don't drink much anymore. Less than 5 a week. Most nights none at all, and occasionallly I'll have a few but never anything out of control. This is where I wanted to be, but now my perspective has changed, and I my eventually go for none at all. It's not a worry anymore, and it is amazing how much life there is to live without the booze screwing it up.

You are the goal and inspiration for so many, and I know I(we) can't thank you enough for coming back to check in with the forum for those of us just starting out. I hope (someday) we can have some sort of a TSM conference/meetup/face to face gathering. I'd like to think people like you, and us relative newbies are still trailblazers for a treatment for alcoholism that could & should rock the world.

Just thought I would check in. TSM still going well, but I do have a cautionary tale to add to the "Don't get cocky" gallery.

I have had a really hard time dealing with the side affects of nal. Mostly it is the nausea that gets me, but there's also irritability, tiredness and so on. I have been dealing with this by gradually decreasing the amount of nal I take if I'm going to drink. It finally got to the point where I was taking less than 1/5 of a pill, and I was even starting to think I had this thing totally beat (like several others around here). I started to get cocky, and even though I never drank without nal, I had also started to take huge liberties with the "hour" before drinking. I think I once even washed my 10mg of nal down with a beer - not quite TSM according to conventional wisdom.

Well I was still doing pretty well until work really slowed down, and I started fighting with my gFriend, my family came to visit for Xmas, etc. Long story short, the stressors stressed and I caved. Last week I found myself drunk 3 times! Christmas night it was really bad, and I even took a drag off a cigarette. And I found myself unable to resist the temptation to drink, even when I had decided not to drink that night.

The saving grace is that I realized I had blown it with fudging on the TSM rules, and I started upping my dose, even in the midst of my bender. I can already feel things getting better, and I will continue to follow the rules and not play with fire, as it were. But I will say this: you don't want to screw with the winning formula. It is easy to convince yourself that everything is ok, and you can carry on as you did pre TSM, but things can spin out of control before you know it.

TSM is pulling me right back out of this self-inflicted nose-dive. Again. More proof, as far as I'm concerned, that TSM really does work.

You just gotta follow the rules, kids

take care all, Fire