Heartwarming stuff Glad to hear all is well.

Awesome report! Thanks for all your support and encouragement. Now I'M the "curious one": you're considering trying drinking w/o Nal because...you'd just as soon not take whatever drugs you can avoid, or is it more than that?

I appreciate your thoughtful post to our girl Sticky: it makes perfect sense to me. And what a great quote this is! To turn some of the AA lingo back on itself: wouldn't a failure rate of what, 85%? be pretty much the perfect illustration of that point???

And finally, I'm very intrigued by your mention of CBT - which has always made sense to me and I will check out your links to Stanton Peele for my lunchtime read.

Hi Curi - thanks for checking in! Glad to hear everything is going so well for you.


I found this statement very interesting, as I also feel that the "confidence" aspect is important. Truth be told, there are times when I feel like I'm not sure if the Nal itself is the most effective mechanism by which TSM'ers gain/sustain control over their drinking. I think a lot of it has to do with finally admitting that something needs to change, and by deciding to participate in TSM, a patient is actively doing something to make that change. Making this admission, participating in this community, ultimately seeing results - all of things can do wonders for one's confidence, and sometimes I wonder if it's possible to sustain moderate drinking levels without the Nal once this shift in confidence has occurred.

I'm certainly not saying that I am at this point (far from it!), but I will certainly be following along with your progress if you decide to pursue this in conjunction with CBT.

Keep us updated, and take care!

-H

Enjoyed and was greatly encouraged by reading back through your posts. I wasn't abstinent as long as you, only five months, and I'm only two weeks into TSM, but you are certainly the poster child for what I want to achieve. I got some good stuff out of AA, but it wasn't going to work for me the way it works for some of them -- too many things I just couldn't/wouldn't swallow. I'll be sure to keep track of your doings as I move forward with TSM, they're a beacon of hope that one CAN do what you, and now I, are striving for.

Hi Guys and thanks for the posts,



Hi Chrissie,

I'm not worried about taking Naltrexone at the levels I am at the moment (3X12.5mg/week) which is less than 50mg/week. I'm more interested in finding out if I can really return to healthy drinking unaided by Naltrexone. I want to know if this myth that "an alcoholic can never moderate" is true or not. This is AA dogma, and so far, everything I have experienced with AA has been harmful to me.

That was the last "truth" I was clinging to, helped by Dr. Sinclair's warning never to drink without Naltrexone. I don't doubt the chemistry of TSM for a second, I am questioning my own beliefs, I was brainwashed to believe that I could never drink responsibly, I want to know if it's true. I want to know if Stanton Peele is right.



Hi Hester,

Yes, that's kind of how I see it too, there is the very real bio-chemical help from Naltrexone and TSM, I believe we do produce less endorphins when we drink with Nal and I think that help and the fact that Dr. Sinclair says that we CAN take control of our drinking, are huge confidence builders, once we start doing it and seeing the results, I think our confidence grows, mine certainly did.

Stanton Peele takes it that one step further and says that we were always capable of taking control of our addictive behaviour unaided. I wonder if it's just that we didn't believe we could, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. SP advocates Behavioural intervention, especially CBT as does Dr. Sinclair in his Contral Clinics in Finland, actually, they're both pretty much saying the same thing: It is possible to control addictive behaviour.



Hi Ellpee,

I think that period of abstinence will be very helpful to you, in that time you had already extinguished your addiction by not drinking, the problem of course, is Alcohol Deprivation Effect (ADE) when we start drinking again without Naltrexone. The fact that you are going straight from abstinence to TSM means you avoid that nightmare and can benefit fully from your previous abstinence.

Best of luck!

Hi Guys and thanks for the posts,



Hi Chrissie,

I'm not worried about taking Naltrexone at the levels I am at the moment (3X12.5mg/week) which is less than 50mg/week. I'm more interested in finding out if I can really return to healthy drinking unaided by Naltrexone. I want to know if this myth that "an alcoholic can never moderate" is true or not. This is AA dogma, and so far, everything I have experienced with AA has been harmful to me.

That was the last "truth" I was clinging to, helped by Dr. Sinclair's warning never to drink without Naltrexone. I don't doubt the chemistry of TSM for a second, I am questioning my own beliefs, I was brainwashed to believe that I could never drink responsibly, I want to know if it's true. I want to know if Stanton Peele is right.



Hi Hester,

Yes, that's kind of how I see it too, there is the very real bio-chemical help from Naltrexone and TSM, I believe we do produce less endorphins when we drink with Nal and I think that help and the fact that Dr. Sinclair says that we CAN take control of our drinking, are huge confidence builders, once we start doing it and seeing the results, I think our confidence grows, mine certainly did.

Stanton Peele takes it that one step further and says that we were always capable of taking control of our addictive behaviour unaided. I wonder if it's just that we didn't believe we could, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. SP advocates Behavioural intervention, especially CBT as does Dr. Sinclair in his Contral Clinics in Finland, actually, they're both pretty much saying the same thing: It is possible to control addictive behaviour.



Hi Ellpee,

I think that period of abstinence will be very helpful to you, in that time you had already extinguished your addiction by not drinking, the problem of course, is Alcohol Deprivation Effect (ADE) when we start drinking again without Naltrexone. The fact that you are going straight from abstinence to TSM means you avoid that nightmare and can benefit fully from your previous abstinence.

Best of luck!

Hi again,

After writing to Mario the other day about dropping from 50mg to 0, it dawned on me that I could go still lower than 12.5 mg before stopping Nal completely, if I do.

So, as much as taking 1/4 of a tablet made you laugh before, imagine 1/8!

Yesterday, I broke a 50mg Nal in half (25), bit the half in half (12.5) and then bit that half in half again! (6.25).

Of course all those numbers should be preceded by "Approximately" bighting is not an exact science

Everything was fine, felt no different, and only had about 1dl of red wine.

6.25 mg is close to Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) levels- 4.5mg.

Anyway, I'll stick with +/- 6mg for a few weeks and see how it goes, if I find that I'm drinking more, I'll go back up to 12.5, if I find I'm drinking the same amount as before, I'll think about drinking without Nal.

We'll see.

Nal on!

Curi

Curi, thanks for keeping tabs on us all...much appreciated! Your success is such an inspiration and defines exactly what I aspire to: I think of you as the "2/3, 2/3 Girl" ("2 or 3 drinks, 2 or 3 times @ week").

This is a particularly favorite quip from a particularly favorite shrink, years back. Hmmm. It has occurred to me that I could set myself a "2/3, 2/3" goal for this week...BBL

For this week, I'm continuing the same theme as last, w/ a slightly different cliché: "act as if". In this case, act as if I am "cured" already. I will emulate the behavior, and become it. The 2/3, 2/3 model is my gold standard, and somehow I feel excited to have this very specific goal and behavior laid out for myself! I realize the end is in sight...not mysterious or unknown, and certainly doable. BBL