Person I had to see to obtain NHS prescription was/is the prescribing Dr for the local NHS team, have you tried googling NHS drug and alcohol team in your area?It's confusing these days because of the different charities and NHS calling themselves various names.

If you remember I also went to my GP already having started TSM via private prescription from Dr C, prior to that she wasn't interested in getting involved - so I don't think it's as straightforward as postcodes. I do also know another reason GPs don't prescribe is because they simply get no experience of the stuff, because they farm it off to outside agencies(which is fair enough since they can't be experts on everything). This isn't an excuse just an explanation of the situation, and it is a complex issue we have too.
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That's true UKblonde. We can't expect GP's to be at the cutting edge of an obscure addiction treatment, which is what the sinclair method seems to be. The fellow I saw seemed genuinely concerned and gave me a lengthy callback to discuss my options, which was fantastic and unexpected.

At the time I made my last post I'd been awake for nearly 2 days and hadn't eaten. I'd gone straight out to buy some booze. I'd like to have eaten first, but making/eating food just didn't seem worth it compared with the satisfaction a drinking session would give instead!

It's amazing how intolerance and impatience creeps in when drinking, as reflected in my last post. I'm sober enough at the moment to know i'm lucky to have arrived at this board and can order Nal online to get me started. There's definitely no need to tie myself in knots getting the NHS to give me the 'right drug, right now'. Maybe in time that possibility will come about

You may need to take your Nal earlyish then if you've no patience, it's how I had to do it but am sure you'll be fine once you've started.

I can understand why the NHS also doesn't want to be dishing out pills willy nilly, irresponsibly. These methods require discipline and there'd be folk who'd just collect the tabs like smarties, then muck about with them (I know people who do this with various illness and meds already).

Still waiting for my overseas order of Nal to arrive

Finally received my order of Nal today; or Nodict in my case. Read on the forums that there were question marks over Nodict, so I chewed my pill tonight. The taste was initially tolerable, but that aftertaste hangs around until you blitz it out of your system with toothpaste / a lot of something else, meaning it's truly awful for quite a while.

Immediate symptoms during the 1 hour interval was a strange sense of light headedness / slight dizziness and mild lack of coordination.

Then I started drinking. Felt a heat/tightness developing around the back of my head, but not at all painful. Began to realize, as I was drinking, that the usual pleasurable sensation shooting through my mouth and jaw to my head/across my body with every swig/gulp was mysteriously absent. One of those things I didn't even realise was there until it's gone.

Progressing into more drink, I feel myself becoming inebriated and uninhibited. But the euphoria is gone. That mad impulse toward self-abandonment where I'm capable of throwing myself into random social situations and am ready to talk the back legs off a donkey like i'm out of control... that is gone. Instead I feel like a diver in one of those Victorian Metal Deep Sea Diving suits. I'm my sober self (which in my unfortunate case is quite anhedonic and overly self-contained thanks to burning myself out on alcohol / AA morals), but yet i'm very much not sober. I keep looking around in disbelief because this is a weird and unknown state of mind for me.

Already had my first Out Of Character disagreement tonight with a 'friend'. When sober I know they are someone I can barely tolerate, so I rarely engage them, but now with inhibitions down, I returned their consideration and respect they showed me in kind. Long story short, they didn't like it, but I was the one to calmly and diplomatically address the reason why i'd 'slighted' them, Whereas usually i'd just be high and grateful for attention and sociability. Already I sense that they respect me / fear me because of this out of character change in my personality.

Actual alcohol consumption is not even on my mind at the moment. Already bought/drinking more than usual, as I know my alcohol-conditioned brain is chasing the usual alcohol effects. At the moment it's not getting it, it's getting something else, and this is all a bit strange to me.

I will surely make further updates in a more appropriate section of this message board. For now, it's my first night, and I felt this strange experience was worth recording.

I'm new here too and am on week 2 of my NAL shipment wait. You mentioned the shame and whatnot that comes from being unable to control your drinking in your firsy post. I highly recommend the book "Under the Influence: A Guide to the Myths and Realities of Alcoholism" by James Robert Milam. It's what made me realize that we should not be ashamed. It's completely physiological, not a lack of willpower or moral fortitude as AA and most alcohol treatment programs would lead you to believe. The more I drank the more shame I felt. This book made me want to look into treatment and, ultimately, led me to The Sinclair Method. I am anxious for my shipment to arrive and I believe it will work. I'll follow your journey as well. Best of luck to you!

Deus, that was quite a description. It sounds like you're very sensitive to Naltrexone, which is definitely a good thing. Keep the diary coming.

Taking my first dose tonight, thanks for your thorough description of what I may experience Dues.

Thanks for the responses guys, I look forward to reading your own experiences Chela and S&C.

I drank 18 units on this first night on Nodict. The next morning I had a normal hangover, if anything it was less severe than what I usually get after that kind of session.

Two weird side effects; one of my eyes was a bit bloodshoot, but that soon faded way. The second I discovered while shaving; I realised I could barely feel the razor blade on my face. Gave myself a few good pinches on other areas of my body that would usually hurt, but all I felt was pressure, maybe a little discomfort, but not pain.

Gonna go for another session shortly as I have the afternoon off work. This time i'll just swallow the Nodict rather than chew it. Hope it still works!

Not convinced by Nodict swallowed whole.

There were none of the symptoms during the 1 hour wait to start drinking that I had the first time. Once I got on the booze, I wasn't sure or not if I was a feeling a slight pleasure with every swig, difficult to tell the difference from just the sensation of downing something cold and fizzy and sweet versus 'that' pleasure of alcohol intake.

Now i'm 4 beers in, much less than the other night, and I am definitely 'floating on the waves' of alcohol, rather than anchored to the sea bed in my victorian metal diving suit.. to quote the analogy of my first Nodict experience

I've cut up another pill into about 8 parts and swallowed that (just couldnt face chewing it right now). Hope that does the trick in 1 hour. Either that or this is reckless of me. 100mg of Nal in one afternoon.. But there's one thing for sure, I had a very strong experience the first time on chewed Nordict that I was adamant about. This time i'm not sure if any change i'm feeling is imagined or not..