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Welcome CF,

I can relate to the 4 bottles of wine a day. From what I have read, it will be a minimum 3 months ride, but probably longer for abusers like us. (I've read many blogs on here taking right at a year.) I am currently in week 9, and some weeks are better than normal, however, I am diligently taking the pill 1 hr before and tracking my daily consumption.

I did not track my units very well the first 2 weeks, or post much. Since then, I have tracked my consumption daily and posted frequently for self therapy.

I highly recommend the unit tracking, as I feel this is very important in the process. For what it's worth, I was 100-120 USA drinks a week before starting, and the last 2 weeks were under 75. That is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25%-45% reduction. So tracking units can be depressing when I publish "I ONLY, had 75 last week" which is very high for the average american. However, by diligently tracking units, I can look at the drop from where I started, and say, PISS OFF, depression! I am making progress and I feel different.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Christopher

Good on the drop, yes it can creep up and you may find you have spikes every so often - don't panic keep on taking the pills.

thank you both for your replies! and re: it taking a while for abusers like us..... i'm trying to keep in mind that it took me a while to get here and i can't expect things to change overnight.

i'm meeting with my doctor next week to give him an update... has anyone had any success with upping the dose a bit? to 75 mg maybe? or should/would that make a difference? i'm at 50 now.

I have never seen anyone post that they are starting with 75mg. Many have had less gradually working up to 50mg, and many, including myself have had a 2nd after 5-6 hours of continuous drinking during marathons.

j

This change in your drinking is something commonly reported by those starting TSM, and can come as a big relief.

Welcome from Connecticut! I too am new to the Sinclair method. I've only taken 3 Nals, and so will reserve judgement on whether it works. Some have felt a difference from the very first dose, but that's not been the case with me so far. The wine still goes down waaay too easy. It's early yet, so I still have hope. If it doesn't work, I can always resort to Plan B, abstinence!

As a wine drinker, it's useful to define bottle size. For me, a bottle is 1.75 liters. I can usually finish most it in a night, leaving about 2 glasses. 1 glass of wine is 5 ounces. Last night I took a Nal, and drank about half the bottle. I measured each glass. The very act of tracking units I find, slows my drinking down. Tonight I plan to be alcohol free, and leave that half bottle for tomorrow night. My other tactic is I'm seeing a counselor (LACD) every 2 weeks, who is on board with my using the method. That way I'm not going it alone. She even agreed to not put anything in my record about alcohol since it goes through my insurance company. Wishing you success.

Rebecca

Cfrost, most people who have really big drops in the first week end up being successful. Like UKblonde said, just keep taking the pill even if you have spikes in your numbers.