Hi, Hesster! I hit several of those extinction bursts over the past couple of months. The roller coaster ride is scary as hell sometimes. The worst part is when my mind is saying “NO” to more drinking, but the lizard brain that controls my feet and arms is ready to drink. I have so been there. For the past couple of weeks not so much.

A few weeks back, I did the walk of shame myself. Nothing like when one gets too much alcohol and gets out and about. Hilarity, or sometimes, jailarity ensues. Sometimes both. The bigger picture is you are under the ULMD. Yes, you binge, but total consumption is way down. That’s huge. The number of AF days, huge.

It’s going to be great to see you add your name to the cured list and move on with your life!

Hey Hesster,
Great recaps as always. I suspect that you are just drinking too much because of circumstances these days. It seems like...you're not really going to be able to get into really low numbers and total control if you keep hanging out in the same circumstances. It's REALLY hard to change when the people around you are pushing you to drink more, stay out later, be "surly" and whatnot. You point out yourself that you might need a game plan going into these situations. I absolutely agree that this could be a good idea. I would add...that also, you might want to be willing to consider the option that a game plan will mean you're not the life of the party anymore. At least temporarily. In my experience anyways, it wasn't possible for me to keep hanging out with the same people JUST as late and be JUST as crazy while drinking less. I don't mean to be a downer...I guess I have just been thinkng about this a lot recently, and while there are occasions where I can still indulge, in general my life has changed as I've been drinking less. It's just..HAD to.

Thanks for the kind words and support, all.


EL - I completely agree with this, and it's one of the biggest reasons why I'm pushing for a change of scenery this summer once I'm done with grad school.

Week 28 is wrapped up, and it was another heavy one. I'm actually totally fine with this, because this weekend was St. Patty's, which is typically THE drunkest day of the year for me. Previous years led to all sorts of disasters, including pissing in my ex-gf's bed, getting punched in the face by a stranger, and driving blacked out all over northern Rhode Island. This year was fun, and I drank a lot, but I didn't overdo it, black out or make an ass out of myself.

Saturday, my roommate, dude-on-the-couch and I took a train up to Boston to party in Southie (a historically Irish neighborhood), and we stuck around for the parade on Sunday (which is usually a complete sh*tshow). I made plans to meet up with my sister during the parade because she happened to be in the area, and I figured it would be a nice way to break up the day, as she doesn't drink much and there would be no pressure on me to get sh*tfaced. My sister and I aren't particularly close, so we had a lot of stuff to catch up on. I told her a bit about TSM and she was really proud that I was finally doing something about my saucing. We also talked about my brother's pending nuptials*!

*My brother called me on Saturday to tell me that he and his longtime girlfriend got engaged! I'm super excited for them, as they are wonderful and I can't think of two people in my life that deserve to be together more than those two. As far as I'm concerned, this wedding is more of a formality than anything else, as his fiance has been like a family member for years. My baby bro is growing up.

It was a fun day, but once we got back to RI the Nal had pretty much worn off (after 12+ hours of drinking), so I overdid it a little bit. I couldn't double-dose because I ran out of my emergency key chain stash. I'm definitely struggling through the Nal-over today, but I actually got to work on time. Again, I'm going to have to work on keeping my Sunday intake under control, but this weekend was obviously a special occasion.

Mon - 11 (ugh...bad day)
Tues - AF
Wed - AF
Thurs - AF
Fri - 6.5
Sat - 10
Sun - 14

Total - 41.5

This week is going to be extremely stressful with class stuff and I'll be spending all weekend in the lab...so hopefully I'll have a nice, low total this week.

Thanks for reading...and for those in the Northeast, enjoy this amazing weather!

-H

Hey Hess

Being a uni student would make it extra difficult to cut down on drinking! You must be studying a science to be in labs so much? I started doing a science degree over 30 years ago (aargh!!) but cross credited to arts as I didn't like the labs. Also had NO idea what I wanted to do!

That's great news about your brother and good to hear your sister was supportive of you doing TSM.

Hope you are having a quieter and healthier week (like me.)

Cheers
Sticky

Hope the super stressful busy week went all right! I can relate to still being in the grad student bubble (and hanging out with other boozers) making it difficult to change. I have been slipping up a bit recently and going back to old patterns myself - seeking the company of the heaviest drinkers around me rather than the lightest.
Congrats vicariously on the sibling engagement!

Hi all,

Just wanted to quickly clear something up about grad school. I work full-time down in RI and attend night classes up in Boston, so grad school is in no way similar to my undergrad in terms of craziness. In fact, I have never had a drink with any grad school classmates, so it contributes nothing my level of surly sauce (other than providing an opportunity for ill-advised road sodas in the past).

Week 29 is in the books, and it was an extremely low week: 11 units with 5 AF days. While this looks nice on paper, the reality is that I somehow caught a head cold on Thursday, so I was sick through most of the weekend. In the past, I would've crushed OJ-vodkas to get through the sickness, but this time, I didn't bother drinking at all. Instead, I watched a ton of Breaking Bad episodes, caught up on sleep and plowed through three boxes of tissues. Attactive. For what it's worth, if I didn't have a stupid post-St. Patty's binge on Monday, I would likely be looking at a grand total of 1 (1!) unit this week.

The downside to getting sick is that I only spent a few hours in the lab*, so now I'll be scrambling to finish classwork tonight and tomorrow night. My stressful week will end up getting crammed into two extremely stressful nights.

*Sticky - I have a background in computer science (which is probably not the type of science you were thinking of), and the lab I frequent is actually a Digital Media lab where I build all sorts of interactive applications. Some of them are actually a lot of fun to design.

I'm feeling much better today, so it was nice to get my annual cold out of the way. The fact that the weather in the Northeast has been so beautiful lately made this a bit of a strange occurrence. Anyway, not too much else has been happening on my end, and there are a ton of posts I'd like to catch up on.

Mon - 10 (post St. Patty's binge)
Tues - AF
Wed - 1
Thurs - AF
Fri - AF
Sat - AF
Sun - AF

Total - 11/5 AF

Thanks for reading. Sorry to be so brief this week.

-H

Hi Hess

Well done on the low units. The only advantage of a cold! So you're a computer whizz. I can see my eldest going into that field. We get him to fix some of our IT issues and he's only 13.

Good luck with getting all your work done.

Cheers
Sticky

Hi all - weekly recap time for number 30.

There were a lot of threes this week, as I posted a total of 33.33 with 3 AF days. The weekend was heavy, but I was feeling a bit of an ADE tug. This was because I had just finished up a stretch of nine days with only one unit consumed (just a tasty Magic Hat).

On Thursday, I had my final class for my master's degree, so I decided to celebrate a bit with some John Dalys (sweet tea vodka and lemonade...delicious) and Breaking Bad episodes. As I mentioned, I was experiencing some ADE, so I ended up having a few too many while staying up til 4 am watching episodes of Breaking Bad. Whoops. Friday, I had a few drinks after work to say goodbye to some co-workers that are leaving the company due to a massive relocation program. I was exhausted from the previous night's indiscretions, so once I got home, I called it a night after a lowly 4 units.

Saturday was a bit of a sh*tshow. I met up with some buddies in Boston to watch the Final Four at a dive bar on Beacon Hill, and the night soon escalated into surly Kansas* chants, Patron shots, and total domination of the jukebox. There was a bit of a public makeout session towards the end of the night with a girl that I met, but I swear I didn't instigate this one!

*Whatever happened to RedSkyAtNight? He hit the forum like a tornado, and then disappeared after a week and a half. Wherever he is, he must be pretty fired up to see his Kentucky Wildcats in the finals against Kansas. That being said...ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK all the way, baby.

Sunday morning featured a lovely 45 minute drive of shame back to Boston. A buddy and I kicked off Sunday Funday, and I made sure to hit my keychain stash of Nal. Since I'm pretty sure last night's dose was still in my system, I got a bit of the double-dose nausea. This actually worked to my advantage, since I managed to keep it under control throughout the afternoon and couldn't even finish drinks. Once I got home, I ended up breaking out a few more cocktails for the Game of Thrones season 2 premiere (AWESOME). I stayed up way too late, but Sundays have been difficult for me over the past few months, and I didn't completely overdo it. I also hadn't dipped in 2 weeks, but I broke that sabbatical last night. I'm going to make it a goal to not dip again until the Red Sox home opener next Friday.

Mon - AF
Tues - AF
Wed - AF
Thurs - 7
Fri - 4
Sat - 12.33
Sun - 10

Total: 33.33/3 AF

Not a great week, but certainly not a terrible one. I'd like to start getting my totals back into the 20's consistently, but such is life in the blah stages of TSM. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good. I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and my PCP was eager to hear how Naltrexone was working for me. I still don't think he quite understands the dosage protocol, but he's been supportive. He told me on paper I "look like a million bucks" so it's good to know that despite my battle with the surly sauce, I'm still healthy.

This upcoming week may be a bit high, as I'll probably be in NYC for the long weekend.

Thanks for reading!

-H

Hi, Hess! Congrats on the degree! I think that's worth having a higher unit week than you had anticipated. Sometimes, it's the fact we CAN drink when we want that's forgotten. Your progress is damn good! You are doing something tens of thousands would love to do: you are putting the surly sauce in it's place!

Ah, another chick magnet, like our man Tiller...
Well, almost "all the way "- last night the monthly neighborhood Bunco game slammed to a halt @ 8:25, when the Jayhawks came on, and today there is "no joy in mudville"...
Are you still watching BB, or watching reruns? I've been distraught since finishing them a month ago - I watched all 4 seasons this winter, while exercising. Currently, I'm watching Sons of Anarchy...can't BELIEVE I'm hooked on that now. Game of Thrones? Maybe I'd better check that out.

But I'm digressin', and skipping over the gist of your post. Congratulations on your finishing your masters! What is your discipline? I keep thinking one of the people posting here are going to let the cat out of the bag and write a best seller about TSM..."why, we knew him back when his weekly units were 85!", something like that. Why isn't Eskapa's book a best seller. Marketing, hmmm...Oprah...hmmm...

Chrissie