I also believe that the setting the participants in studies probably has an effect. Remember they were under the care of the doctors. That in itself would edify the method. When they had questions, they had a person to ask. They had someone asking them questions. Probably some psychiatry was thrown in there too. As was mentioned, the subjects were probably screened for other mental disorders.
I believe all this would add up to a higher success rate. It is almost like saying 100% of the patients in in-patient are abstinent. Well duh!
We would all, probably, be doing better if we had our Dr.s, spouses, employers, the courts, the addictions industry, and families 100% on our side, supporting and ecouraging all the progress we are making.
So here we are a lot of us doing this primarily on our own. Now take that into consideration vs. the progress many of us have made. Remember how the addictions industry made everything so complicated and look at this simplification. This is truly remarkable.
If Sinclair had a 70-80% success rate in his studies, then maybe doing it how we're doing it may come up less than that?? Hope not. It stands to reason though.

Just another 2 cents.

Just read this thread through, really interesting stuff.
I am curious if anyone has anything new to add as its been a little while....

One consideration is that the 3-4 month designation is from clinical trials. That is a night/day comparison to the average user on this board. Being in a clinical trial with medical professionals reinforces the process whereas the typical board member here has a litany of deterrents (unsupportive spouse, family, culture, inaccessible medication, lower quality medication, etc)

Also the average initial units per week seems unrepresentative of a daily or binge characterized alcoholic From browsing this board it seems like most people have a pre-TSM weekly usage of 60-90 units.

A year and a half later and I have to say, this thread was very prescient.

With the benefit of time, I think everything I observed back then is spot on. The 3-4 month cure time frame is inapplicable to the vast majority of the people here. That time frame would appear to apply to the subjects of the studies: college students in their early 20s who "only" had about 35 drinks per week. Anecdotally, there have been several younger people who appear to regain control in the 3-4 month time frame. But for those of us who are middle aged and who have more like 60 a week, TSM and extinction takes considerably longer: more like 6 months to a year.

I do think the 80% efficacy rate cited in the book is accurate. It's just the time frames I've always questioned and the fact that the book and the studies do not take into consideration how much people drink and how long they've been drinking when arriving at a length of time to regain control. Clearly, the longer and more frequently a person drinks, the more triggers that person will have to extinguish. And that means a longer time to regaining control. And the experience of nearly a thousand people here overwhelming supports that conclusion. People who have been drinking alcoholically into their 30s, 40s and 50s should expect more like six to twelve months to regaining control, not 3-4 months.

I agree with Nick 100%. The book needs a revision, based on the real-life experiences of those of us in the field. (Thankfully I haven't awakened in a field in a great long time) TSM works, absolutely, but the time frame needs to be adjusted to better fit what we have found. Life is great not drunk!

Thanks for bumping this thread to the top, so that some of us "newbies" could read it easily. I have read it in it's entirety and one thing that I took away is that I need to wait the hour, without fail, before drinking. There is danger in not waiting......and I do not want my brain to reestablish those connections that cause me to drink out of control.
Wishing everyone well!

Yes, a big THANK YOU for bumping this thread to the top. I have found it very valuable and has given me renewed motivation. I really appreciate the links to the Dr.'s responses by rapper too- those were very helpful. Like many others, I haven't read the book so those new insights are appreciated.

-dragonfly