Keep at it StJude. I've had spikes in my drinking in the first 8 weeks which have concerned me, but I believe it's all part of the process, which is a very gradual and subtle process. We've got to keep doing this for a minimum of 4 to 5 months and probably longer (well, actually forever or until a better treatment comes along). Looking at your numbers it appears you have cut your drinking down by almost 2/3rds which speaks for itself. Impressive!

Thanks for all of the encouragement guys. I was AF Friday & Saturday nights with no great effort or planning so even though my units were highest this week since starting NAL my numbers were still almost half of my typical weekly consumption pre-TSM. Definitely felt pretty shitty drinking that amount (even when hangovers weren't awful I still felt cruddy from that post-alcohol haze).

My plan for this week is no plan at all, just going to keep riding this ride, and no matter what happens remind myself how much better my life is now that it was 5 weeks ago

Congrats on the AF days! I've not gotten up the courage to try that yet.

ditto. still lacking the courage myself. give yourself some credit for the af days and keep riding the ride.
path

...as I've said more than once, your AF days may just sneak up on you. I was so afraid to try one and then it just happened. The fear is very strong for many of us daily drinkers. But once you have one - and live to tell the tale - it's not so scary!!

thread hijack: Even though I've had weeks AF, I feel quite scared now as a matter of fact because I've got NO naltrexone in the house - waiting endlessly for a shipment to arrive - I know I'll feel much better when I have a nice supply. I won't have to drink, but I'll feel more at ease if I know it's there for when I do want a drink...I've had one small glass of wine without Nal - did not go well - got a red nose and a headache!!! Better to wait for the Nal!!

BGH-if you want me to overnight you some I will-pm me with your info

Week 6 comes to a pretty good close. Total 54 units but that actually represents some heavy drinking sessions because I also had 4 alcohol free days...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Three things I'm going to try to do differently this week:

1. My honeymoon weeks made me think I could actually keep extra wine in the house. The past couple of weeks made me realize I could go back to swilling 3+ bottles of wine over the course of an evening--starting very early and finishing very late. Granted, I am drinking far more slowly than I used to. But, I have the type of job where I can and will stay up until 5am putzing around on the internet If I have wine to drink in my cabinet know now I'll drink it until it's gone even on NAL. It's happened more than a few times and I'd like to nip that new/old behavior in the bud. So, my plan for this week is to never have more than 2 bottles of wine in the rack at any given time. I do feel that I now have adequate self control to not feel the need to go out and buy a 3rd/4th bottle or 12 pack of beer from the convenient store across the street after I run out of wine like I used to.
2. The 4 AF days this week were surprisingly easy. I was driving long hours for work on two of them so that helped, but on Friday night I had a 7 hour drive to Philadelphia and I stayed at a hotel I'd been to before. Last time I was there in the summer I beelined it to the bar right after check-in and got a couple of bottles of wine for my room. This time I beelined it for my bed with nary a second thought of a drink I'm going to see how it goes this week since I'm travelling again for work this weekend, but unlike this weekend when I spent Sat night driving home, I will have both a Friday and Saturday night stay over in a lonely hotel room. This is a pre-TSM recipe for me to spend the night marinating in Malbec , my plan this weekend is to try for one of those nights AF.
3. This week I will also try to not offend any other forum members with my liberal agenda (see Second Chance's journal if you missed this week's drama).

Good update StJude. I am always amazed at the variety of drinking styles -- binge drinkers, nightly drinkers, day time drinkers, etc. -- we have represented here. I am very much a daily evening drinker so having 4 AF days would seem more of a challenge than limiting the number of units on drinking days. 4 AF in a week this early would seem like a great accomplishment!

Pre-TSM I had always bought only enough alcohol for the evening drinking session, in order to limit amount consumed. Now I have more around and it hasn't been a problem.

I agree with you, my black cherry minty soft fruity friend (sorry, just got latest edition of wine advocate in the mail).
I think one of the many challenges that many individuals, and the medical community/research profession has with TSM is that people are as varied in their drink styles as they are in any other taste in life. You can't put clinical subjects in a 6 week randomized study on the effects of TSM and hope to find any overwhelming pattern of results based on a single research question. Even though many on this site have experienced success with TSM, how we arrived at and defined those successes have been as varied as anything else in life. Experimental research is bound by such inflexibly strict and often practically ineffective boundaries that I think many good "cures" get overlooked because of lack of support in the medical research community (I won't even get into the fact that drug companies can't make any money off of NAL since they let patent expire so they have no motivation to fund large clinical research trials).
It's up to us to get the word out, and keep hope alive for those still searching for a "cure" to the misery of alcohol addiction.

st jude,
i just wanted to weigh in and say that it is sad that anyone was offended by your comments. imho, your comments are generally warm and inclusive and clearly not designed to be harmful in any way. it's really too bad that bgh somehow missed the kind (and funny) spirit in which your remarks are made.
don't edit yourself on my account
path ( fellow liberal agenda follower)