Hi All

Very early days for me (day 4). I wonder if anyone else felt unintentionally frustrated by the lack of a buzz when drinking in their early days like your mind is subconsiously expecting one but none comes. Ended up burying myself in spring cleaning instead to work off some energy. Can't complain as I know the Nal blockade is working. Am I normal ?

The buzz returns after a few days for most. Your liver will enjoy the vacation in the meantime.

I see a lot of questions about the buzz. Eskapa says alcohol addicts do not drink for that first-drink euphoria or even for pleasure. Any pleasure we get is outweighed by the negative consequences of drinking. We drink because our brains are wired to drink. It is not pleasure-seeking, or even rational, behavior, for us. (Eskapa, p. 104).

Thanks Lena. I suppose it's the litmus test affirmation that's missing quite noticeably. That has nothing to do with pleasure (or the 'p' word as Dr. Sinclair referred to it)

I find that Nal seems to increase the effect of the first drink or two. I recall reading in Dr. Eskapa's book that others in the trials noticed the same thing. However, I'm sure everyone's reaction to Nal is a little different.

In my first few days with the Sinclair Method, I had very little interest in alcohol. In fact, I basically made myself drink 2-4 drinks/night just to get the extinction process going. After about day 5, my appetite for alcohol came back but the "desire" wasn't the seem. Many people have referred to this as the accelorator. So far, for me, that accelorator isn't nearly as strong as it was before I started Sinclair.

As I've said before, drinking on NTX is strange for me. Something is missing. But it does seem to make me a little loopier - I think that's the "inattentiveness" alluded to by Dr. Eskapa.

I also find it strange- there is little (if at all any) pleasure for me in the actual taking of the drink.

But in the long run the whole thing is infinitely more pleasurable- I can only manage a few drinks, so no hangovers, no embarrassing scenes, no being nasty to anyone- I can do without the buzz if that is my payoff.

I am never sure about this. Last night I went out after work with our sales department. They are all heavy drinkers; part and parcial with job I guess. They came by my office at 4:45 and asked if I wanted to "do wings". I took my Nal out of the little hiding spot in my wallet and decided to work late, so an hour would pass. Wings is only down the street.

Here is what I observe. Before the Nal, I was excited about "partying" the moment they asked. As I have said before, Friday after work has always been atrigger for me. Yet, by the time I got to Wings, I had almost no interest in drinking. We had just had a 30% reduction in staff and a cuople of salesmen there did not actually work for us anymore. (why we are all not drunk, I don know). So the mood was more of a furneral than a party.

I drank a coulpe of Coronas and we went to another club to play pool and I drank two more. That was over a span of six hours. I think the alcohol feels the same. What is different is my desire. It ain't what it used to be.

But isn't that where we want to be? That is another paradox in the Sinclair Method. The is this deveilish, running with scissors, feeling that we get to drink alcohol to be free of it. But when you "win" and alcohol lost it's death drip, the prize (the ability to drink normally) just doesn't seem so wild. And the new attitude is the prize.

I discuss this with my normal, never more than two beers, wife. She says that I am seeing drinking like she does. I tell her how a feel after a drink now and she concurrs. My suspicioun is that we new to adjust our expectations of what alcohol is to us, once we are cured. The prize for me me is not that I now can drink. The prize is now that drinking just isn't that big of a prize. If that is not convoluted, I don't know what is!