I'm very new and only into my first week but am extremely motivated and love hearing the success stories and support. My question is this......would it be OK to take NAL, say 8 hours before drinking instead of 1. The reason is to participate in some nonalcoholic endorphine activities that would otherwise fall within the 24 timeframe that NAL is active.

Yes you can take it several hours before, it is said Nal will cover you for up to 24 hours. I am very cautious about this, because I'm not prepared to risk drinking without being covered and have even 'topped' up my dose just in case - but that's me being ultra careful.

Initially I used to take Nal around mid-morning and it was fine. Only issues were having the nausea during the day but that soon wore off.

Earlier than one hour is fine, but 8 hours earlier might be pushing it. Although nal stays in your system for 24 hours, I personally don't feel that is it ACTIVE during that entire time. In fact, I'd say that 6-8 hours after taking it is its window of maximum effectiveness. However, on the upside, I also feel that like its side effects wear off pretty early, and I've never had a problem engaging in endorphin-boosting activities the morning after taking a nal.

Hi Chenry,

If I am understanding you correctly, you want to take full advantage of up-regulation, is that right?

The half-life of Naltrexone is approximately 4 hours, this means that after 4 hours Naltrexone is only half as effective as it was when you took it, so 8 hours means that it's, at best, only half as effective and the level of efficacy continues to decrease after that...

If you are starting TSM then it might be best to stick with Dr. Sinclair's instructions which are to take 50mg of Nal 1 hour before drinking. He says in his book that up-regulation occurs about 48 hours after taking Naltrexone (not 24), so if you take Nal at 6 pm on Friday, you should feel up-regulation at about the same time on Sunday, so I can see where you are coming from. I guess it's a question of priorities, depending on where you are with your drinking and TSM, it's a choice between controlling your drinking or taking advantage of up-regulation.

I hope this helps.

Curi.

thanks for everyone's input....it's really help clarify. My priority is definitely to control the drinking - I guess the window of opportunity for endorphine enhancement will grow with time.

Re the half-life and effectiveness of Nal, my brother has been on TSM for 2 1/2 years so far, but not as successful with results as some of the others here. There has been some benefit though which involves a slower pace of drinking and less intoxication.

However, when on vacation, when he is prone to drinking night and day, he has taken Nal twice, once every 12 hours to ensure max duration of the Nals half-life. After a week or 10 days of doing that, he suddenly lost all cravings and even had a tough time forcing himself to drink to lessen withdrawal symptoms. But his drinking returned back to normal when he resumed the 1 tab per day dosage.

So it does seem that the extinguishing process is enhanced when Nal + drinking is done at the peak of the meds half-life. Therefore, 1 hour before drinking would seem a better idea than 8 hours.

What about the other edge: If I start drinking less than a full hour after Nal? There have been occasions where, despite my efforts to dose myself an hour in advance of my predictable drinking time, I am for reasons that are admittedly selfish, wanting to pout that first drink sooner.

What about Nal + 30min + Al ?? What about 45 min ???

How about the metabolization of Nal on an empty stomach—does Nal get into the blood faster?

Probably stupid questions, but thanks for any thoughts.

- Ozy

Sinclair etc say "at least" one hour before, meaning two hours is even better. But Lou and others are right, the half life is about 6 hours.

If you forget or just can't wait, it's better to have Nal in your system than not. But the one-hour wait is really important if you want long-term success reversing the reward system in your brain that causes you to drink too much.