Great discussion going on here guys.

Dave, I actually upped my non af days during the first month, although my binges were to some small extent curbed on the non af days. Maybe like Chris said try to plan ahead a bit for an af day, to me too, they are small victories I rejoice in.

@barry, re that non desire bit after sex as a motivator. I don't know if my binging is in part motivated on that wrecked day after "spent" feeling.

Hey Dave, same thing happened to me. I used to be a heavy binger on the weekends, but would force myself to go AF Mon-Wed... (Wow, I just realized that I used to define weekend drinking as Thursday-Sunday, which is obviously more than half of the week). In my initial months of TSM, I found myself drinking less per session, but drinking pretty much every night. I think that's fine for a while, as I believe in extinction, but at some point you will have to take the reigns. That's what I am trying to do now. When it comes to that point for you, my tips are:

Try for AF stretches rather than just a day or two. The mental clarity and lack of anxiety that you get after a few days off will be a good motivator

Try to replace drinking with something creative that you probably wouldn't have done otherwise. If you used to drink and watch TV, but now you just watch TV, it's gonna be tough. Maybe take a cooking class, or an art/writing class, or something, anything where you force yourself to CREATE rather than drinking, which is really the opposite as it's a temporary mental self-destruction.

Good luck brother

Thanks for the advise guys. I am going to give it a try.

3rd week down and not so good. A total of 62 units for this week.
Observations:
1. I have found that my drinking pace has slowed way down when drinking at home (Still yet to go to an office party).
2. Drinking more slowly seems to keep the units down.
3. My max unit for this week was 12 units, where as pre-TSM I would be drinking over 20 units on both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday sometimes was +30 units.
4. I previously used to make my self have AF days on Monday, Tuesday and sometimes Wednesday, but I drank every day this week.

Last night was a bitch, for some reason I just did not stop and drank all the remaining beer in the fridge. The good this was that I did not do what I would have normally done and gone to the store and bought more. A win there I guess.

Anyway, my totals.

Daily



Monthly

Game on Dave.

12 is better than 18, 24, or 30 plus.

We are going down, slowly but surely.

Small win for me. Today was a golf day and drinking usually starts about 8:30 in the morning and today was no different. Took my nal at about 7:30. First drink was OK, and I kept my second drink until lunch and that is unheard of for me. Then had a few more drinks at the after party Had two drinks over lunch and one more after lunch for a total of 6 drinks. Now my last golf day I downed 25 units during the day and another 20 at the after party. Unbelievable how much my cravings for beer during golf have gone down.

How did you hittem?

I'm not a very good golfer. 2-3 Charity Tournaments a year. However, I'm normally bad for a few holes, after a couple of beers, I get better, but eventually, hammering the beers, I get worse than I started.

Played pretty good golf actually. Better than when I have beer in me. Yesterdays round was 81 on a par 72 course, lately I have been only in the 90's due to be being too drunk to do much better. Plus it was actually fun, something I did remember golf being.

Went to one of my staff members wedding today, free beer all day. I just got home and where and I can actually write stuff on the net (as you can see right now), but before I would have been a mess.

Nal on guys.

****!

Last night is the first time I went back to the store for more beer. My wife went to the store and got me 4 x 500cc cans of 6% beer and when I finished those I still wanted to drink, so I went back for more.

Hi Dave,
Great you are doing so well.
I am in my 13-th week on Nal and so far can't really see it is working. I sort of keep trying to get the buzz and have drinks.... I think i have to work harder on myself. And then drinks day ime even morning when i feel reall really depressed and down (and it ois often).

I also had the extreme irritability in thebeginning, but it is gone now. And i feel i want to sleep more as well than i did before.
Best of luck!
Alice

Dave,

We have some serious habits to break here. One thing I can attest to, the Nal typically will keep me drinking/craving less, however, it doesn't take much of a shove once I have started drinking, to push me into the vat of beer when the beer gremlin says you need more.

Just by tracking units, I go from, I didn't really have that many last night, to, Holy S....

They really can add up quick sometimes, like last night for me. 8 guys sitting around a table ordering buckets of beer over a 4 hour span. 18 beers, just like that. Damn.

Today is another day. AF so far, and heading to the gym now after work.