barryb wrote:
Hmm. I would probably interject that it is very likely that people in Finland where the "80% success rate" largely comes would have a higher success rate than people in, for example, the United States. They have nowhere near the cultural and societal problems we have in the U.S. and (don't hate me) probably have much more personal character, communal support, and general well-being than we do in the United States. I would bet their diets and lifestyles are simply much healthier than ours here.
Who knows what the actual success rate in the U.S. or Western Europe would be. Rats=100%, Finnish=80%, Americans=?.
I'd just like to point out that the members of this forum are NOT all from or in the USA, I'd guess that at least half are not.
Second, the Finland stats come from controlled clinical trials. There are doctors and psychologists following the participants. Everything is monitored and recorded. It's just not realistic to compare the stats from Finland with what is happening on this forum.
Here on the TSM forum, most people are self-medicating, many are getting their Nal from unverified, uncontrolled sources. It's not even clear if everyone is getting real Naltrexone!
None of us are getting the behavioural coaching the Finland trial participants received.
We do not know what other medications the members of this forum are taking and how those other meds are interacting with Naltrexone.
There is no control over how people on this forum are following TSM, not everyone is taking 50mg 1 hour before drinking, some are taking 100 mg, some 2X50mg over 24 hours, some 25mg, some even 12.5 mg etc... etc...
We have no way of knowing how many members of this forum actually follow(ed) TSM. Some people are here for their spouses/friends, some became members and never posted. Some people only become members to post once that they had been reading the forum and were cured. Others signed up, posted once but never again. Some people have several usernames.
We have no way of knowing how many members even tried TSM, if they just took it once, for a week, a month, if they took it every other Tuesday, and any and every variant possible.
I could go on and on.
An internet forum is not a controlled environment. There is no way that one can keep reliable statistics on an internet forum.
Curi