Hi all,

As expected, I hit a bit of a spike this week due to Thanksgiving and a surly weekend. I ended up with a total of 34, which is high compared to the totals I've been posting lately, but in the overall scheme of things (and especially compared to pre-TSM levels) 30+ isn't terrible.

Monday - AF

Tuesday - 3

I was originally supposed to go to a basketball game on Tues, so I took my Nal in anticipation of sneaking in a small bottle of Beam and supporting my alma mater. My plans ended up falling through, but I didn't want to waste the Nal...so I drank a few Beamers anyway...which I struggled to get through. What has happened to my delicious whiskey?

Wednesday - 1

The Wed before Thanksgiving is usually a complete sh*tshow in the US. It's one of the biggest nights of the year for local bars, because everyone is in town to visit family. The crew that I usually see wasn't up to anything, so I limited my intake to 1 Dark and Stormy with my dad. Normally, this would be a much higher total, but I'm not gonna complain.

Thursday - 6.08

I had no trouble keeping it slow throughout Thanksgiving, likely because I was so stuffed with assorted meats and starches that I had no room left for booze. We hosted my mom's side of the family this year, and they hardly drink at all...in fact, I think my sister's bf and I were the only two that had more than a few brewskis. Regardless, it was a glorious day and by the time I got back to RI I needed to throw on lounge pants to accomodate my food baby. Success.

Friday - AF

Saturday - 12.5

Sat was originally supposed to be a productive day spent at the lab up in Boston catching up on project work for class (as I am woefully behind schedule). A smarter man would've checked to see if the lab was open over the holiday weekend. It was not. I remedied this situation by "pouring a little something in my lemonade" (as the National would say) and going for a walk around Kenmore because it was super nice out.

The rest of the night was spent between a good buddy's house on the north shore and a speakeasy-esque place in the city for another friend's bday. I ended up drinking a hefty amount over the course of the entire night, but I made sure to eat a big meal and at no point did I feel myself approaching the BOC. I probably could've done without a nightcap at about 3:30 am while we were watching "Workaholics" however.

Sunday - 11.39

Hmmm...Sun was a bit of a letdown for me. Since I was already near Boston, I figured I could make up for the previous day's lack of classwork by putting in a solid day at the lab (which was finally open). Instead, I ended up saucing all day and watching football. I felt sh*tty about making this decision, and found myself trying to numb the guilt by drinking through it. This was something I was VERY bad about pre-TSM, and as I've noticed lately, my lack of motivation for important things has been something that's come to the forefront during my "existential" phase of TSM (as EL puts it).

However, I did handle one BRUTAL trigger relatively well. I ran into the ex-gf for the first time in over 3 months of zero contact. Obviously, she looked great (girls are devious creatures) and pre-TSM, I would've used this as an excuse to spark a massive Sam Cooke-fueled bender...but instead we both handled an awkward situation like adults. So there's that.

Total - 33.97 (rounds to 34)

Some thoughts...

Again, that is a pretty high number, but I was anticipating a spike. The more troubling development this week has been my continued lack of motivation to get through some important work, life and school-related stuff. Even as I'm typing this recap, I'm procrastinating on reading through application upgrade instructions for an 11 am meeting. Ugh. I'm feeling a little stressed and burned out.

Anyway, it's nice to not be directing all of my focus on drinking-related issues/incidents, because there has honestly been so few over the past several months. Is this how normal people live? CRAZY.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday and had a great week. I'll try to catch up on everyone's threads later tonight, because I really do need to read through those upgrade instructions! This program has truly been a blessing so far, and I'm thankful for all the advice, guidance and support from everyone here. Much appreciated!

-H

I think that's a totally nice total for Thanksgiving week! You have come a long way form the beginning....

i know one thing you were thankful for this year - TSM! it's working so well for you! a holiday week and a very respectable number! i think we can't be too hard on ourselves for a spike over the holidays. it's a tough month to see any kind of drop in numbers. just know that the process is working well and 2012 is looking bright.

nal on!

Thanks for the kind words EL and Pep.

Lucky number 13 is in the books, and it was a bit of a weird week. I'm going to skip my normal format, because my weeks have become much less eventful (a good thing).

Most of the week consisted of fairly low numbers, because I was cramming in a bunch of work for class and literally didn't have the time to get saucy. The outlier was a Friday night that was very much like old times...why did this happen, and why was it like old times? Because I am an idiot and decided to drink without Nal.

I had picked up a bottle of Johnny Black (classy) earlier in the week, and that b*tch was just staring at me when I got home from work on Fri after a long day. I didn't want to wait the hour and I was stressed, so I just started pouring. All the manic energy returned, I ended up dowloading tons of music ("Deluxe edition of Purple Rain? REALLY?"), didn't bother eating anything and watched my go-to YouTube videos until 3 am. I didn't hit the BOC or do anything stupid, but the night felt EXACTLY like a typical pre-Nal evening (whereas back in the day this would have been a typical Tuesday). I pretty much torpedoed the entire next day (I think I woke up at 2 pm, which I haven't done since college).

Total damage for that night was about 2/3rds of a bottle of scotch. Gross. I could taste it all throughout the day on Sat.

If there's one positive to take from that experience, it's that I can confirm that drinking off of Nal is totally different than it is when I am properly medicated. There is definitely an old compulsive pull that Nal is able to mask. I'm glad I got that little experiment out of my system, and thankfully I wasn't out in public. Another positive is that my overall numbers for the week were pretty solid and I'm pleased to keep my total in the 20's.

Mon - AF, Tues - 2.66, Wed - AF, Thurs - 5.5, Fri - 11, Sat - 4, Sun - 2

Total - 25.16

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone has a great week.

-H

Hi Hess,

Good for you for not getting out of control, either in the drinking session or mentally/emotionally in the aftermath. Drinking without the nal...hmmm...what do you think you were up to with that? Why didn't you at least take a pill as you started into the booze?

I have had plenty of times when I didn't wait the full hour--or even 2 minutes, after taking the nal, to drink. Maybe it's just a placebo effect, but I still felt protected, and I have never returned to the kind of drunkenness that I experienced before taking the nal.

You are doing fantastic and I am 100% positive you are well on your way to having zero addiction to alcohol. I am sure that you will still enjoy "drinking responsibly" (as the ads say) if you choose to, and that preTSM boozing, and maybe the TSM journey, will become a distant memory in a year or two. In the meantime, though, you are still "in it"--on the journey.

Especially since you are reporting that life is ratcheting up the stress for you recently, don't forget to keep taking care of yourself with nal and TSM.

Warm wishes and thanks for all that you contribute on the board!

Deja

You've got the right attitude, Hess.

Dust yourself off and stay on course. You're doing great!

I just began taking nal yesterday, but from looking at your numbers, in your sig, you have made some amazing progress. Thanks for keeping us updated.

Hess, don't beat yourself up. We all drink without the nal sometimes and in fact, I think it can be a good experience because, like you said, it shows you how different drinking with nal is than without. However, there is usually a desire to get drunk that means that we "forget" the nal, and that IS worth investigating. I know that for me I have forgotten a few times, or purposefully taken only 25 mg, because I was so afraid of getting nauseous to the point of vomiting while at a public event (if you don't remember, I have had horrible luck on that front). But generally I try and always take the nal now (even if sometimes I still do take 25mg).

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I'm not really beating myself up about drinking without the Nal*, just documenting what I was feeling at the time. It was a dumb decision, but certainly a learning experience. Everything else TSM-related has been great so far, so I really don't have much to complain about.

*Deja, I think once the first glass of scotch went down, I didn't want to lose the budding euphoria, so I didn't want the meds to interfere at all.

Best of luck this weekend!

-H

Hi all,

Here's the recap for Week 14. It was a relatively heavy week unit-wise, but I was expecting this because a bunch of college buddies were in town for an annual touch football game. Friday night was spent inhaling Jim Beam and busting balls at a great neighborhood bar, but the real focus of the weekend was Saturday.

At about noon, we hit the local high school gridiron with the force of 12 painfully out of shape dudes pushing 30. Instead of warming up with some proper stretching, we decided to hit a bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy's (a Hesster family tradition) and crush Miller Lites in the parking lot (very classy - I felt like Wooderson from Dazed and Confused). The game mercifully ended in a tie when people were visably wheezing and taking plays off to collapse on the sidelines. No one was a winner.

Immediately after the game, we hit up a local Mexican place to take down a few margaritas, chant nonsense, and one-up each other by ripping tequila shots. We were getting incredibly surly and attracting all sorts of unwanted attention. Things escalated to the point that our entire side of the bar was cut off from being served, and one of the bartenders (who we've known for years) suggested we take the post-game celebration elsewhere. It was 4:30 pm.

A few of us went back to my place to regroup, while others wandered down the street to start a barcrawl. I would later find out that they were kicked out of at least 3 more fine establishments...before 7 pm. By the time I met back up with everyone, I started to get a very weird feeling. My stomach was really tense, and I literally could not force any more sauce down the hatch. This may have been from executing Wes Welker-esque routes over the middle, or it may have been the tequila. I'm not sure. All I know is that I could only manage 3 more drinks over the entire rest of the night...which was a complete sh*tshow. Dudes were Irish-exiting one by one to wander home, and by about 11 pm, everyone was toast. In an amazing role reversal, I'm willing to bet I was the most sober member of our surly collective.

Mon - 2
Tues - AF
Wed - AF
Thurs - 5.99
Fri - 9.5
Sat - 10.08
Sun - 6

Total - 33.57

This is a good example of a week where the numbers don't tell the whole story. Yes, overall that total is high (and I've been shooting to stay in the 20's) but subjectively, I literally felt like I was drinking like a normal, low-key person.

The big thing I took away from this week was being able to handle a typically insane weekend with college friends. I noticed that I didn't feel "triggered" at any point during the weekend, and was more content to sip slowly and take everything else in - making mental notes of funny sh*t that people said, and generally just enjoying the company. Pre-TSM, I would've been an absolute trainwreck.

In another roll reversal, on Sunday morning I ended up being the dude that had to piece together the night for everyone...which was awesome. In fact, I'd say the worst part about the entire weekend was waking up this morning and being so sore that it took me 5 minutes to angle my legs in such a way to put socks on. Not pleasant.

Thanks for reading - time to catch up with everyone else.

-H