you know i agree with dabs on this issue BUT i do recal a email dr. escapa mentioned to me to read, the chaper on to how maximize your results, page 120. he wanted me to take two days off. and on those days to exersice and have xes with my wife and basicaly do positve things. then to go back to my drinking WITH THE NALTREXON. but i never did. i know i can do it, i have done a week before. actual i just pulled the book out and read pages 120 - 123 again, hmm maybey im wrong maybee i sould try it. i knwo one thing im flying to texas next month for some training im going to do on a new buisness. the scary thing, its a three week training class. i dont want to mess this up so i will have to be on the wagon for those three weeks. i have never ever done three weeks strait. i know you guys are probaly thinging big deal you can still drink in texas. I CANT because i not only drink i smoke weed. after im completly done drinking at the end of the night i smoke weed. i can not drink alchol without smoking weed after. and i cant smoke by its self i dont like the feeling. they both go togrther for me. so i cant put 20 joints in my lugage. i know im a true blue alcholic when my mind tells me to drive down there and not fly so i can bring weed with me. im 44 thats not nomal thinking. so i have to go strait for 3 weeks. maybey thats a sighn for me to try af day.how the hell am i going to do this is still lurking in my head. i wish i could bring texas in my back yard.

Personally I think will power might have to play a role in my progress. The stage I'm at now I think I'm drinking mostly out of habit. I take my Nal most night and end up drinking 2 beers over the space of about 4 hours just because I can. Saying that I find it hard still to go AF but it must be out of habit as when I drink I drink so little over so long that I couldn't be having any effect on me.

I KNOW that I'm dealing mostly with habit now; 33 years of drinking every night built up a particularly powerful one. I know this now because last week I realized that I was barely craving to drink, but did so simply because that's who I was, what I did and have done since I was about 20. The day after I put in an AF day fairly easily, but certainly felt the tug of the habit.

So, thanks to the Nal and the extinction process at work over the past 3+months, my craving and interest in drinking is almost totally extinguished, leaving me with the habit, which of course is unlikely to change that easily. THIS is where the effort comes in -- but now only AFTER the Nal has worked its magic!

Nal-on folks.

I completely agree with Dab on this one. My physical addiction, compulsion, and irrational thought was extinguished very early on in TSM but my habit of drinking is so en-grained in me. Giving up the drinking outside of my daily habit was very easy on the NAL. The ritual habitual drinking that is where I believe extinction cannot help.

i still dont understand why this was not a seriuos issue in the clinical trials. i know in dr. escapas book he mentions it BUT does not stress it as a issue. i mean alchol has been itergrated in my life for 20 years. it a rouitine that can only change if someone threw me on a island with no booze or in jail.(i heard you can still get it there). THE HABBIT was a concern i had from day one. one thing good about tsm is IF i had to quit i dont feel like i would struggle that bad. why couldnt i have formed a habit like juggling.

Clinical trials, Larry, are very sheltered environments, only singly removed from rat trials. So, they were examining only the Naltrexone effects on the craving/interest in alcohol. So, clinically, other factors -- like habit--aside, the Nal did exactly as they hoped it would: It successfully extinguished the alcohol addiction. Once the clinical trials were, over, however, and the people went back to their normal lives, THEN they were faced and had to deal with the habit.

Hope this helps to clarify.

KOKO!!!

There is NO extinction process. There is a reduction of drinking with naltrexone. It varies quite a bit individually and it works more or less the same way whether one drinks or does not while taking naltrexone.

That's a short summary of existing medical literature as far as human subjects are concerned. Really. At this point, anything beyond this is a wishful thinking - a classic urge to have a miracle cure (where usually there is none).

Could you clarify please? There certainly is process called extinction. It is well documented, and in use in the scientific and medical community. Are you saying that the Sinclair Method does not facilitate the extinction of alcoholism, or that alcoholism is not a learned behavior in the manner described by proponents of the Sinclair Method?

I would be interested in your evidence either way please ...

I think this discussion is important and interesting. Here's my totally unscientific observation after 2 weeks of TSM/Nal: for me it's AVERSION and I assume that will eventually lead to EXTINCTION. I can't even tolerate 10 mg. and 1 glass of wine without feeling lousy the next day - all day. The day AFTER an AF day is when I feel really good, positive, energized which must help the Extinction process. Experimented: Tried 5 mg. last night and drank 4 units of wine. Not a good idea. Plan on an AF day today. And at least 10 mg. next time.

What I wonder is did the rats they experimented on experience Aversion as a result of how they felt the next day? I doubt that's possible but just wondering.... maybe Nal works on the brain in numerous ways in different people.

I've definitely felt the extinction - no doubt about it. This is a very simple drug that blocks the effects of a reward chemical. It may not work for everyone; perhaps your alcoholism is mediated by different receptors.