Some observations:

During Week 6, I drank between 1 and 4 beers on six nights and had 8 on the other night. I had absolutely no trouble stopping on any of those nights (no willpower needed!). Prior to TSM, I had trouble stopping every time that I drank.

During Week 7, it became easy to take AF days for the first time since beginning TSM. I just wasn't interested on most nights. I did have one day where I drank 16 (football game, tailgating all day) which accounts for 2/3 of the units I drank that week. Even on the "big night" I was in control and didn't drink after getting home for the night, which I always did before TSM.

During Week 8, AF days continued to be easy and my biggest night was 8.5.

If this goes on for a few more weeks, I'll probably claim "cured" or "regained control" status. Truth be told, for the past couple weeks, I have felt in control and feel "cured". But I don't want to jump the gun and call it just yet.

Hi Done, glad you're doing well! I too feel like my cure is in the near future! I have not felt out of control since beginning TSM. Are you taking 50mg? I am still at 25mg. It has been working, so I just kept it there (even though I never had any side effects). Happy to see your progress! Keep us posted!

a big wooHOO to both of you! Apparently, the 3 - 4 month cure DOES exist for at least some people...great to hear that!

Ava, it's great that you're doing well too! I've been using 25mg on some nights and 50 on others. I am often groggy in the morning after taking 50, which is not the case with 25. I don't notice any difference in my drinking when I take 25 or 50 and my units back that up. As far as I know, no studies have used 25mg, so there isn't proof that 25 is an insufficient amount for blocking one's opioid receptors (nor is there any proof that it is sufficient though). However, if my numbers start to creep back up, I'll play it safe and take 50 all the time. There have also been a couple nights where I've taken an extra 25 a few hours after my first dose if I haven't lost interest in drinking by that point.

Chrissie, thanks for your support. Like most of the people who have regained control in a few months, I am a young binger. Although I ended up drinking on most days for a number of months prior to TSM, I never developed a specific routine (e.g. drinking at 5pm everyday while watching the news). As such, kicking the daily part became pretty easy over the past couple of weeks.

My nightly consumption has also gone down significantly. I haven't been out of control, or even reached my old normal level of drunkenness, a single time since starting TSM. There have only been two times in the past month where I've had double digit units and both of those were for all day events.

On another note, I'm going to stop attending events that require drinking all day. I feel like I should do something proactive with my treatment, and if I go to those events, I will likely end up drinking more units than I want (even though I won't get hammered like I used to).

I've read many peoples threads and "extinction bursts" seem to be pretty common. I hope that doesn't happen to me, but I won't be discouraged if it does.

Thanks to everyone who posted on this forum before I got here. I wouldn't have started TSM without hearing your stories. And if there are any lurkers or newbies reading this, please give TSM a chance. I was in a crappy place a couple months ago and TSM has changed that. It's the real deal.

Tonight will make five straight nights without alcohol. No cravings on those nights. It's been a busy week and I've been going to sleep early, so that helps. It's quite possible that I'll have a big, fat 0 for the entire week....we'll see.

5 AF days is great! Getting past 5 AF days got me to a week AF. (Then I managed to push to 30 days which was the magic number for me to mostly detox.) Regardless, hopefully you'll find with some AF stretches you'll make another leap forward with your progress. I sounds like you are doing really well. Congratulations!

I've called it - I'm "cured" of alcoholism!

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3219

wooHOO, you're a "Done Deal"! And I esp. like how you said in your "Cured" post that you realize you're in remission...we all know the danger of relapse. I'm very happy for you and your speedy recovery!

Another week down....only 9 units. Had 2 on one night and 7 on another. I was halfway expecting to have an "extinction burst" or something after claiming cured status. That didn't happen. In fact, I was just as apathetic towards alcohol this week as last week. There was one afternoon where I felt a mild craving; so I took my nal, made a drink and nursed it for a couple hours. Didn't want anymore. Usually this would have led to many hours of drinking and a wretched hangover the next day. Instead, I ended up having a productive evening and waking up at 6 the next morning. On the night that I had 7, I went to a bar with friends. Didn't even catch much of a buzz.

Naltrexone is a freaking wonderdrug.

*Nine Month Update*

I began taking Naltrexone nine months ago today and it has completely changed my life. I haven't had a true craving in months and am averaging about 20 units per month for the past several months. After declaring myself cured in December 2012, I averaged between 10-20 drinks per week for 2-3 months before my drinking dropped off to current levels.

I have had maybe 2-3 mild hangovers and 1 bad hangover during the past 4-5 months. To put that into perspective, I used to have a few bad hangovers each week. When I do drink, its usually because I'm at an event where I'm supposed to drink and I just have a couple so I don't stick out like a sore thumb. It's odd (and awesome!) being the sober person now. I never realized how crazy the drunk people acted and how ridiculous that drunken behavior looks to sober people until now. Come to think of it, I didn't really comprehend that other people were actually staying sober at parties until I started being one of the sober ones. It's been an eye-opening experience to say the least.

Just thought I'd pop in and share my story with the new people. Hopefully all of you end up with similar results! I'm pulling for you!