Hi, I'm Kerri. I love what everyone has made here. Thank you.

I have just finished my first week on Nal. Now I am not sure if I have had an early and intense honeymoon or if I am a quick responder but my desire for the drink has plummeted, as if it fell off a cliff. It feels bloody fantastic!

I don't know why I have had such an early response but I have a few ideas.

• Nausea - I take a Nal (25mg) and my stomach gets just a hint of upset, like a mild case of sea sickness. Alcohol doesn't exacerbate the queesiness, but it doesn't calm it either. The nausea lasts for about 18hrs and is, in itself, a deterrent.
• Taste - my lovely organic sav blancs just don't taste as delightful. There is something tinny or sharp or anti-mellow in the flavour. I sip my wine, get no warm glow, and end up thinking about the taste of tea or diet tonic. Soon I am tipping the glass in the sink and sipping with pleasure from a diet tonic or tea.
• Vanity - I DO NOT WANT to spend my first post-menopausal decade dragging what good looks I have left into the gutter. One bottle of wine per day = 1lb's worth of extra calories per week plus the wreckage it plays on organs including skin.
• Mental & social health - I do not want to wake at 3am daily shaking and sweating with ethanol processing and anxiety. I do not want worry about what I said last night. I do not want to be avoided by acquaintances because of my drunken social mis-steps.
• Professional health - I am studying for a new, stressful but rewarding profession (high school teacher!). I want to break my reliance on alcohol now and find other, healthier means of reducing stress, before I enter teaching. If I don't do it now it will be too bloody hard to stop later once in the job.

Prior to TSM, I drank around a bottle of wine a day, every day of the week. That's 7 or more Australian units per day. My drinking would start about 3 or 4pm and the bottle would be finished in an hour or so. Sometimes I'd open another to have a wine with dinner, other times I'd sip from the remaining dregs in my glass during dinner then not open more. I fortunately also have a tea habit in my vice collection so I'd often turn to tea when I'd finished my wine and dinner.

When I drink socially I become witty then garrulous, then sleepy. When I drink at home with my partner I just become sleepy, unless there is tension between us, then I can become a bit careless with my words, a bit verbally aggressive. He drinks too, twice as much as me, and is less verbally adroit, so those evenings where I unleash my tongue are neither emotionally healthy or fair on either of us.

I have been very lucky with my doctor as Nal prescriptions in Australia for TSM are hard to come by. She is young, progressive and very smart. I went to her some months ago about my drinking and we developed a plan to cold-turkey. She gave me valium in case I had tremors, but at first I thought they were to provide a little calm in place of the drink. Fortunately, given my propensity to make every orally ingested good-feeling thing habitual, valium give me a headache and I hardly took any. I didn't have tremors anyway. I lasted about 4 days AF on this plan but the psychological if not physical cravings were too strong and I was soon back to drinking a bottle (at first, 1.5 bottles - extinction burst).

Once I found TSM and this board I made a plan. I found and downloaded a peer-reviewed article on TSM by Dr Sinclair and read up on the issues around prescribing Nal in Australia. Then I saw my doctor, introduced her to TSM, gave her the paper and went through the issues around prescribing Nal for TSM. The two key factors that made her agree to prescribing me Nal for TSM was her understanding of behavioural psychology (reinforcement and extinction), and the fact that I am seeing a counsellor, which is a requirement for Nal prescriptions here (based on the Nal + abstinence model). The latter is very important as Australian doctors need to seek permission prior to prescribing Nal and cannot lie. So if any Australians want their doctor to prescribe Nal, enrol in some counselling prior to seeking a prescription. It gives your doctor a lot more legal security.

I've read at least 15 books on how to find self-discipline, set goals, make changes and grasp control my indulgent nature and yet still I was having no luck with my drinking and other vices. The last two* I read made more sense than the 13 before combined and, coincidentally tie in with TSM. And serendipitously, just prior to hearing about TSM, I completed a whole semester's study on classroom behaviour where the concept of behaviour reinforcement and extinction were covered in detail. So when I came across TSM, the concept fitted neatly into what I have recently learned. As a natural 'late-adopter', I would not have tried Nal & TSM if I hadn't had such recent exposure to the modern concepts of behaviour modification.

Gawd, I am writing a novella!

When I first found this board I asked a question about Nal and my myriad of vices, the other main two being cannabis and codeine tablets. I threw out my supply of the codeine tablets just over a week before starting on Nal and that itself has made a positive difference in my well-being. So TSM has helped me ditch one vice already! Well, TSM and my 90yr old mother's recent rectal prolapse caused by a many years of constipation due to codeine use. Urk. DO NOT WANT.

The cannabis thing has been interesting. I'm still smoking (pot and baccy), but the buzz is lessened and the compulsion has diminished a bit. I'll be interested to see in the long run what the effects of Nal are on my pot use. I can already tell it has an affect on my appetite - reducing it and sending me more towards fresh foods rather than sweet/fatty stodge. Again, I will be interested to see how that goes.

It seems like I am developing some sort of TSM schedule where I take a Nal and a drink one day, then the next I am keen on an AF. I am going to try to maintain this one day on, one day off routine for as long as it suits, without trying to leap too quickly into full-time AF. Due to my fears of a relationship-driven relapse (see below), I think I'll try to stay on Nal for at least 6 - 8 weeks. If this is a honeymoon and my units increase, I will up my dose to 50mg, otherwise I'm just going to stay here at 25mg.

I have one major trepidation about this program and, unfortunately, it is related to it working. I am worried that my relationship with my partner will become untenable if I am not drinking and he is still drinking his 2-3 bottles per day. He's not aggressive when he drinks, just very boring to be around. Not a conversationalist by nature, he becomes almost mute, lying around watching tv and drinking wine from 3pm to bed-time multiple times per week. We live in a rural area, a half hour's drive from the nearest one-shop town and there is just me and him to keep each other company when at home. I can see a time when my guard is down that I'll take up drinking again without Nal just to keep some company with him in the evenings. But I really, really, don't want to do that. I want to have the strength to put my own health and self-care ahead of my relationship. With any luck I'll be a role model and my partner will follow in my TSM footsteps but I am not counting on it. He really loves his wine and probably wouldn't know what to do with himself without it. This will be the hardest part of my journey and if anyone has any advice I would appreciate hearing it.

You are all wonderful.

Kerri

*Changing for Good by Prochaska et al, all professors of psychology. This is a seminal work-book for understanding how we can create change in our habits and behaviour.
*Succeed: How we can reach our goals by Heidi Grant Halverson, PhD. An easy and engaging read that ties in with Prochaska's work with stats and studies to back up her premise.

Wow, that's awesome.

People who have an immediate "yuck, this is no longer good" reaction are more likely to have rapid overall response, so good for you. Stick around and let us know how it goes long-term, okay?

Thanks Melissa, I'll stick around. Forums like this are vital and I would like to give back because I've gained a lot already.

You are one of my role models!

I just had a realisation which made me very happy - normally I'd start drinking around 3-4pm but on Nal I don't feel like drinking until later, 6 or 7 even if then. Anyways, yesterday I accepted an invitation to watch a 4yr old friend perform a dance at our local hall at 6pm tomorrow night. That's a 30min drive away. Pre-TSM I would have demurred, knowing I'd be too intoxicated to drive by 6pm. Yesterday I just said "Yes!" without thinking about my alcohol routine and driving. It was like: 'of course I can go out in the evening, I don't have to drink!'. Frankly, that is a very freeing thing for me and gives my life so many more options. Thanks Nal!

Hi Kerri and welcome to the group. Seems like you're having a great response so far...it really is amazing stuff. I started out as a bottle of wine a day girl too. A large glass at lunchtime and then I'd finish the rest whilst cooking and eating dinner. I'm now down to about 2 bottles a week with 2 or 3 AF days. It's been slower than I'd hoped but that's because I've found it a bit difficult to break some of my habits and associations around drinking. Hopefully with all your knowledge about behaviour and psychology you're armed to deal with that side of things. Thanks for your book recomendations...I'm going to look them up.



It's a great feeling isn't it? Get prepared for many more to come.

All the best,

Ruth.

Wow, you are responding rapidly. Good for you.

I think that, for some of us, we do pretty well as soon as the actual addiction process is short-circuited. Others have a harder path, dealing with habit and drinking friends/relatives and situations in which they're expected to drink. It works for (almost) everyone, though, if we follow the Golden Rule and put in some effort on the other factors.

eh. Week two has started off a little more liquid. I upped my dose to 50mg yesterday (no nausea, yay!) and downed six drinks over a period of two hours. That in itself isn't too bad in the whole scheme of things, and it was easy to stop after the last one. And I slept really well and woke up with no hangover! But still, 9 in two days is more than I was hoping to imbibe. Tonight I am having pizzas at the local pub with a friend, tomorrow night my partner is performing and there will be drinks all round. However Sat night is free and I am hoping for an AF day then.

I may be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but I think trying to have AF days is a good thing on this program. However, I am a little confused about how hard to try. If I really worked at it (and I can if I have pot in the house), I could have a few AF days in a row. But I wonder if that will effect the extinction process. Oh well, trial and error. As long as I abide by the one small trick, the one golden rule, I figure this program will work.

Oh my! The joy of not waking up anxious and embarrassed over what my drunken mouth said the night before. I can really get to like this feeling!

People who've been drinking daily for a long time sometimes find AF days pretty hard at first. But, yeah, you do want some of those AF days when you can manage them. That's how you get the contrast. Pleasure shuts down when you drink; pleasure is possible when you don't.

Is it a good idea to use pot to create an AF day? I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm honestly not sure. On the one hand, whatever gets you through the night is all right, all right. On the other hand, one euphoric substance could just fill in for the other.

I can easily imagine myself getting cross-addicted to pot. Well, I guess now it would be just plain "addicted" since I'm no longer addicted to alcohol, but you get my drift.

It sounds like you're more of a social drinker, so maybe it wouldn't matter. It's not like anybody goes to a pub for pizza and a joint.

That's a really good question and if anyone can chime in I am all ears. I have been wondering if and how the Nal effects the pot and visa versa and keeping a few notes. I'll post if I come up with anything.



Ha! No. Pre-TSM I was a bottle of wine a night, every night at home gal no matter who or what was going on. Even when I was on my first teaching practicum I was drinking a bottle of wine every night after getting home, then staying up late making lesson plans. Not a good look or start to a new career.

Now, this pizza and joints place you were mentioning... got an address...

Two weeks down and I am feeling pretty chuffed. My numbers are less than half pre-TSM and I am really enjoying the feeling of having less alcohol in my system. Without the buzz-benefit, alcohol feels like a toxin if I have more than one drink. I think my upper max has been reduced to three drinks, rather than the six or seven I could knock back in an hour previously. But then again I maybe kidding myself with the honeymoon vibe.

I upped to 50mg a few days ago and began taking Nal with food, and not drinking without food, in contrast to my pre-TSM of a bottle of wine before dinner. My side effects have all but disappeared. No more nausea and the headaches have lightened considerably. I had a harder time creating AF days this second week, but I made one yesterday and I'm enjoying its effects this morning

I think the Nal affects pot. Maybe the cravings or the effect I am not sure but, although I am concerned about running out of pot soon, I have more of a take-it or leave-it attitude than normal. I would love to hear of others experiences regarding Nal and pot.

All in all a great start. Hope it's not just a long honeymoon but the start of a life-changing relationship!

Best to you all.
Kerri

Looking good. It could still be a honeymoon, but it sounds to me like it's extinguishing fairly rapidly.

What's it like with the pot?