For those who followed my "TSM journey" which began January 4, you won't be shocked when I say I'm "re-addicted" to alcohol, given that I all but quit taking Naltrexone in July. I'm not here to whine about the whole thing, just to share my experience and go back to what worked for me in the past -- taking Naltrexone and posting on this forum. Sure, it's not the world's most happening forum (I think it's the forum equivalent of a smoky room at the Y with a few folded chairs and a coffee pot), but for some reason or another it helps my outcomes if I know someone will read what I write.

It was about one year ago this week that I first heard about TSM. At the time, my life was stuck in a rut and I'd just about given up on ever kicking the alcohol problem. To recap -- worked 3 nights a week, drank 4, no self-control, compulsively drank 4-10 drinks (I have a very low tolerance), walked around the house as a zombie most of the time, drove drunk innumerable times, etc... I was a TSM success story, almost immediately and dramatically curbing my drinking, quickly went an entire month without alcohol then resumed pretty moderate drinking. I took my pill faithfully until a trip to the beautiful boardwalk in Hollywood, FL. Had a couple beers at an outside bar and absolutely loved it. Then went on a vacation to Pensacola and drank 8 days without it. At some point in July, I was visiting my parents and guzzled down four shots of vodka in the middle of the day and wanted more. I reached for my Nal to stop my binge, took it, and proceeded to have one of the most miserable days of my life as we went to an Amusement park in 100 degree weather. I felt like dog doo doo for the next 24 hours. I continued to slowly ramp up my drinking without Nal -- mostly well-controlled and still able to go AF when needed (which I wasn't able to before). A couple months or so ago, I wanted to try Nal again and took a half pill, waited an hour, then had a couple vodka shots. Uggg. Disasterous feeling of disgustingness. If you've ever spun around in circles for too long and then stopped, it was like that but without the vertigo. Basically, a head to toe quasi-nausea general-malaise type feeling. Hard to describe in words.

Well, I suppose over the last few weeks, things have progressed. The lady at the liquor store (who I had told about TSM last year when I stopped in to say 'hi, remember me?' but didn't buy anything) said, "Wow. I guess you're drinking again." Ouch. My sneakiness returned, drunk driving, etc... Two mornings ago, I did my whole dark night of the soul thing wherein I wake up at 4:30AM feeling physically, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt due to drinking. I had spent the previous night as a total zombie in the house, not talking, not realizing the kids were going to bed, on and on. It was then I finally had the resolve to do this sh*t again. And here I am.

Last night, I was determined to take 25mg Nal, damn the side-effects. At about the 45 minute mark, I got a vague feeling of grossness. Had two quick shots of vodka 15 minutes later. Hey, Naltrexone definitely works on me. You couldn't have paid me to have more. About 2.5 hours later, I feel decent. Had a good workout in the garage, and then continued on in a very, very cheerful, witty mood with my family. Not a pleasant experience, but not terrible. I'm going to do an experiment tomorrow morning. I'm working tonight, and plan on taking Nal about 0800 before having a drink and just quickly going to bed around 0900. I'm curious if I can get some good extinction effects that way and wake up feeling semi-normal (I never feel "normal" after a night shift).

So, here's some new stuff in my life. So, before TSM, my life was in a predictable rut for a good 15 years. Nothing new and exciting happened. Despite my 6-7 months of near sobriety, my marriage was (and still is) far from perfect (not quite "troubled" but I've been unhappy with it for many years). One of the members on this forum introduced me to the whole "manosphere" and specifically the writings of Athol Kay (author of Married Man Sex Life Primer). If you're a man and your wife acts perpetually unattracted to you, this book and its concepts are a bit mind-blowing. Suffice to say, it has given me a whole new outlook on life and a much more focused, purposeful day-to-day life.

The gist of it all is that the only way for a man to turn around such a marriage is to. . .show her how much you're hurt by rejection, try to talk more and more about your problems, and treat her like a princess. Just kidding!!! Actually, and I don't want to oversimplify, the "Male Action Plan" involves becoming a more attractive person, intense self-improvement, and becoming the best version of you that is possible. If she STILL doesn't love you, then you prepare to move on to another woman via 7 "stages." It's very anti-porn, anti-adultery, and pro-marriage stuff. It would take too long to do it justice, so let me make my point. One thing I'm sorely in need of improving is my "frame." A frame is the demeanor and attitude you consistently hold throughout life's problems, and throughout any emotional sh*t-storms cast upon you by life, your wife, and / or kids. For a husband/father, an ideal frame is calm, pleasant, strong, funny, cocky, etc... (there's no set list of "things you must be," these are just common examples). We "lose frame" when we throw temper tantrums, whine about not getting sex, get all emotional about our "problems," act passive-aggressive, etc... Well, guess what. I have a great frame and can maintain it very well (and have a happy household) UNTIL I START DRINKING!!! Then, I become either quiet, or moody, or emotional, or pissy, or butt-hurt about things. In fact, pretty much everything I've done to f*ck up my progress (including my goal of packing on more muscle) these past four months has been alcohol-related. Oh, and it keeps giving me terrible ED, so I can be a bad lover after a few drinks.
And, if you've read my stuff, you know there's only one thing I love more than alcohol...

Anyway, reverse welcome back to me! I'll pull up one of these grungy folding chairs and re-join the conversation. Is that coffee fresh?

The coffee's hot for you.

I didn't meet you the first time you were here, but I have read your old posts. I was worried when I read that you were no longer taking nal before drinking. I guess I was right to be.

Despite that big mistake, you had a lot of good insights. One of your lines which I really remember was that it makes no sense to "drink for extinction," that the lessened desire to drink is a gift we should accept. Another is that people who fret about their numbers not decreasing should try to be a little more active in their own cures, that nothing can make us quit and at some point we have to put the freakin' glass down.

I'm sorry that you got yourself sick again, but glad to see you back to help others. You're still a help and an inspiration to me, mistake or no.

Well, I wouldn't call myself "sick," but you can call me that if you like. I also don't really regret the whole experience, either. I'm not a big pill taker as it is and was really trying to experiment with all this. Regarding the drinking for extinction, I did say that, but I'm up for revising that position in some cases. There was one member back who had great success basically forcing himself to drink with Naltrexone every night for a few weeks. In my case, I have limited drinking opportunities due to my job, plus the Naltrexone really sucks to take. I don't know if it's a bad batch or what, but I never had that problem before (same brand, packaging, alldaychemist). The problem is, one night I can not feel like drinking at all, and then the next I'm back to wild-animal mode. Since I know for a fact Naltrexone is super-effective for me in reducing or eliminating thoughts / cravings / binges, I'm looking for times I can just get it over with without ruining my evening. Even though I'm not a morning drinker and never have been, it might be a good time for me to "sleep it off" and still get some benefits. We shall see. I'll report back on the whole thing tomorrow.

I'm not a big fan of "sick" and "disease" either. I mostly use them (along with "cured" and the rest) because it's standard TSM terminology.

I wonder what's up with your different naltrexone reaction? Your subconscious fighting back, maybe?

When I logged on and saw newest member barryb3 I thought "no, it can't be" but then I saw this post. I'm not sorry to see you back here as your insights and information were always good to read, but I am sorry that drinking without the Nal didn't work out as you'd hoped. Still, you're here and starting again which is to be applauded. Having done it all before, you know it works...just follow the rules this time
Welcome back,
Ruth.

This seems to answer the question I posted the other day..Is NAL forever........Barry you just answered that in the best possible way!!

Stick at it.....long term....I'm only a week in...still on 25mg's......upping it soon....especially before christmas!

xx

Rattle of chair, slurp of coffee...

Thanks for coming back, Barry. I don't mean thanks for becoming re-addicted, but thanks for coming back here and letting us know. In reading about some people's cures I have wondered how long they have lasted. I know that my sensitive egotistical ways make it hard for me to admit 'failure', so admire people like you who can, in public, brush themselves off and pull themselves back onto the horse by their bootstraps, if you get my mixed metaphors meaning.

Best of luck. Don't be a stranger. Like you said, this room is a bit empty but at least we all know why each one of us is here.

In my case, drinking for extinction (per the protocol) works. Also, presuming a "cure" and a permanent restitution of pre-habitual drinking brain state, does not work (also per the protocol). I demonstrated both in the past few months.

In my opinion, Barry's experience sustains, rather than undermines TSM: TSM states that once one eliminates habitual drinking, one may not drink casually again; one must always presume immediate recidivism if one chooses to drink casually while unmedicated by Naltrexone. This is unequivocal good news, in my opinion.

This can be either good news or bad news, of course; we get to decide which. It's good news if we see the facts of permanent addiction as affected by Naltrexone to be a proof of TSM. It's bad news if we want to be carefree and 21 again, and do not wish to acknowledge that regular alcohol usage has permanently changed our brains and our capabilities. Certainly I have an emotional desire to be my pre-addict self and it is only intellectually that I acknowledge that that man is forever gone. He's just gone. The only way I recover the better qualities of that man is if I do not drink at all, or only drink after 50 mg of Naltrexone. (In my case, they're really the same thing, because drinking alcohol on Naltrexone has all of the fun of drinking radiator fluid.) Intellectually, I know that a lot of qualities of that 21 year-old man are gone: I can't play college football again, my body has been injured too many times over the years to allow me to do some of the things I used to do, I am not as attractive to 21 year-old women as I was, I have too much knowledge to believe in romantic love as I once did. So, intellectually, I understand why I am a different, and more constrained, creature than I was at 21. Emotionally, sure, I wish I could be carefree about alcohol too. But I cannot. As well, intellectually, I know that I can achieve and accomplish more as a scarred and mature man -- but only if I push the alcohol out of the daily mix.

I had a quick tour of Naltrexone last summer, drank for extinction daily, stopped drinking after a month completely and stopped taking Naltexone while going AF. And, owing to my emotions not my thinking, after another month, figured I could drink casually like a normal person. Within a week I was drinking daily and drinking too much. (Gee, I guess Eskapa was right, I can't do that. I'm such a genius: I can follow the easiest treatment regimen for the world's most common addiction!)

So I did what Barry is doing now, and resumed Naltrexone per the Rule, and within days didn't want to drink again. I'm sure I'm one of the fortunate ones. However, I'm not going to screw around re-thinking Eskapa's directive again. I'm not going to reinvent TSM. For the past two months I've been taking Naltrexone at 11 a.m. and drinking 5 oz of liquor at noon. I'm going to continue this for quite a while, this time. This is the protocol and the protocol is sustained by science. I, and my emotions, are not bigger than the science. I want to achieve a robust extinction. I want to create a deep-seated extinction. I will never be without a Nal pill on my person, just as my father never takes a step outside the house without some nitro, owing to his former heart attack. This is simply a constraint that has entered my life. I wish it hadn't but it did. The good news: I am extremely fortunate that Nal and TSM exist, and I know about them. (I worry greatly that as the medical services vice closes in the USA I will lose access to Nal.)

I think there is a lot of wishful thinking here, that I manifested in October too, and that wishful thinking leads us to an irrational error: that there are alternatives to the science that Eskapa has provided. It was stupid for me to assume I was somehow different than the hundreds of thousands of people who have followed the TSM protocol properly.

In Barry's case, I do believe the good news is that he relapsed. The science said he would. The science, and his experience, say that if he follows the protocol he will have no issues. I don't believe it is any more complicated than that. He'll be off the juice in a few weeks if he duplicates his former behavior which conformed to TSM.

I was the kind of guy, four months ago, who did not keep any liquor in the house because I would drink it. I went out every day for a bottle of wine or bourbon. Now I have a liquor cabinet and it just sits there. But I also have a Nal stash, and I hope I always will. That's my life now. /shrug. Oh well. In other news, I'm no longer attractive to college cheerleaders. Things change.

Brillian post! I am going to follow this rule to the end.........thank you!

Summer

I wish this experience were better known. Mine was the same, yet most of what I hear is that it's so super-nifty to be able to enjoy (?) a few drinks without being addicted.

I'll happily take "teetotaler" over "addict." I just wish this variety of experience were acknowledged.




This reminds me of an old story. The main character is a self-cured alcohol addict who remains in control by drinking exactly one drink every day -- never more, but never zero. As he described it, it kept the idea of alcohol from becoming too big in his mind. In TSM terms, he avoided the alcohol deprivation effect.

This idea has become so incomprehensible that it's now usually taught as if the character were teetering on the edge of relapse at any moment. That's not the plain meaning of the text. That's teachers projecting their own ideas of alcohol addiction onto a character created before that paradigm was common.

My only potential concern about your approach is that, with no AF days, you won't get the contrast. "Quite a while" isn't the same as "forever," though, so I suppose it'll work out.



Is there such a thing? Extinction is negative, not positive. Once conditioning has reached zero, it can't get any lower.



That's for sure. We all have our personal demons and our own mental traps.



Sing it, brother.