I started Nal the last day of April 2013. I started drinking in my teens, major binge drinking in college and progressively drank more and more in my twenties and thirties. Went to Rehab four years ago, stayed sober for five months, tried AA on and off, have been through horrific withdrawal periods dozens of times, etc etc. I started with such hope and overall things have significantly improved. I haven't had any major benders, no drinking around the clock to prevent withdrawal, very little drinking during the day, no really embarrassing incidents. I ALWAYS take my nal one hour before, but i'm still drinking at least a bottle of wine a night, usually more, and much more on most weekends. i have had about a dozen 3or 4 AF days in a row (last august i went ten days) but it's really difficult for me. The reason i am not listing my consumption is that i don't want to document it online because of my husband getting angry, (That's a whole other story- he knows i'm on NAL and is supportive of my efforts but doesn't have any real sense of what is going on.) Also I know what my units are because they haven't really changed. Because i have seen the above improvements, i really want to believe that i still have a chance for it to work. I have no intention of stopping the Nal, and i would like to try increasing my dose but my doctor while willing to prescribe it, knows nothing about it and i'm so worried about my liver and body. i wake up every day feeling horrendous, with my liver really hurting and my stomach aches and other issues. At least i eat really healthy but i know i'm killing myself so i get really depressed. i just want to be better! i get nothing done and feel foggy, nauseous, the whole bit- and then in the afternoon i start feeling better, and i start thinking about when i should take my Nal. the obsession is still there and i'm caught in this viscous cycle. I haven't tried hypnotherapy but i would love to give it a try if i could find someone. i'm working on meditation and trying to find a good therapist because all of the ones i've seen insist AA is the only way to succeed and I've been down that road, and hated every minute. Any advice would be so greatly appreciated. i am in the LA area. thanks everybody

Man, oh man. You do sound like you're in a self-created hell. Someone who's never experienced this would say, "Pull yourself together, woman, and stop drinking before you die!" From your perspective, in the middle of the storm, it seems impossible (though you know it isn't). I went through that feel-bad-in-the-morning then feel-good-and-drink-at-night cycle for years. It's very frustrating, because the "Morning" version of you wants to stop, but the "Evening" version wants to drink. As St. Paul said, "I do the things that I hate, so I hate what I do. Who will deliver me?" Ah, the human condition.

For starters, daily "liver pain" is very serious, as is daily abdominal pain. You could have a very fatty liver and / or pancreatitis. Believe me, both of these will eventually make you stop if nothing else does. I had a patient the other night, so bloated she couldn't even stand, yellow as Homer Simpson, pooping all over herself every hour -- all for 2 bottles of wine a night for a year! She had that look on her face -- "What the f*ck happened?"

I think sharing here will be helpful for you, if you feel like it.

My questions...
*What does your husband think you're drinking? Are you hiding it all?
*Have you been to the doctor about the pain, or are you scared to find out what's wrong?
*How were you able to go five months AF without alcohol, but now can't go hardly at all?

Thanks.

There is an online Hypnosis series at Wendi.com, which I did, and found helpful. She addresses the problem of overdrinking and why moderate drinking or abstinence makes more sense, but at the drinker's preference. Mostly good common sense ideas, but good. (I'm not here to recommend it, but it did help me)

You can just look it up on YouTube and see if you like her approach also.

A book entitled "Responsible Drinking" by Rotgers and Kern is also good, and I think endorsed by the moderation Management folks.

If the hypnosis seems helpful, a city like LA will have reputable hypnotherapists and possibly people that use CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), which is really just ways to deal with drinking urges and understand the reasons you overdrink.

I tried Naltrexone alone, but it wasn't enough without a lot of internet searching and learning and reading, such as the above.

Just my 2 cents worth. Good luck !!

thanks barry for your reply. About a year ago i saw a doctor and had my liver tested, and it came out normal. i was shocked then, but that was a year ago so i know i have major damage, not only liver but i'm sure i must also have brain damage because my memory is totally shot. i am definitely very scared to go but i am having surgery on my foot in late jun and i need to see a GP prior to surgery so i am going to have it tested then, and beside a blood test, what else can i do to find out? Im mortified to tell him what's going on but i know i need to figure it out. My husband knows i drink wine, we drink together often but i will also be drinking from another bottle so he doesn't know how much i'm drinking. When i quit drinking after rehab, it wasn't really that hard for me to stop because my life had gotten totally out of control and i was so sick, that i really wanted to get better. Also i had family pressure after having gone to rehab, i felt really bad letting my family down so that kept me sober for awhile. However when i decided to drink at a wedding, i never turned back except for small periods of abstinence when things would get really bad. I don't really know why i can't stop. i read someones post (can't remember the name) who after a year of taking the nal, decided it wasn't working and quit drinking that day. i just wish i could do that so badly, but i can barely go for 3 or 4 days. I think i may take an antabuse today to force myself to stop at least for 3 or 4 days. I'm hoping i may be able to quit for the two weeks prior, and after my surgery. I think the nal does in a way encourage me to drink, and even though i have horrible hangovers, i'm never sloppy drunk or anywhere near the place i was before. So i keep drinking, hoping for "the cure", but if it doesn't kick in, i am going to have to figure it out how to make myself stop. I'm really scared.

You're in a vicious spiral right now. On a bright note, both the liver and the brain recover well if you are successful. I think you're getting yourself worked up into a depressive frenzy of gloom, which just makes your desire to drink even more. One place to start might be "coming clean" to your husband about your secret drinking. I did the exact same thing -- one or two beers in front of the wife, four to eight vodkas in secret. Every night for years. Wife had "no clue." When I told her, it did make me appear very weak and she was naturally a bit unattracted to me for awhile, but I think time and so many sober nights have clouded that whole episode from her memory. Surely your husband will be understanding enough and can be some support here, unless he, too, is addicted (and maybe sneaking some on the side -- wouldn't that be funny?).

You've learned the hard and expensive way that rehab doesn't work for most people; you're one year into TSM and still "drinking yourself towards death." You desperately take Antabuse in hopes that it will save you from yourself, if only for a few days. Ugh. I feel for you and really have no good advice other than to bring others in on the mess you're in.

It sounds to me like you've made some progress, if not as much as you would like. That's something to be heartened by.

Another excellent asset you have is the support of a doctor. Why not speak with her about increasing your dosage? I only turned the corner when I went up to 75 mg.

Yeah, you might be one of the minority who need a higher dosage. I'd be concerned about kicking up the dosage without a doctor's green light, though, since you say your liver is hurting.

What does it feel like when your liver hurts? I've never experienced that, so I'm curious. If you can describe the subjective experience of liver pain (and you know for sure that that's what it is), that could help us here when we're debugging other people's problems.

There are a couple of other things which might be wrong. Have you checked out the flow chart I made?

http://naltrexonekey.blogspot.com/p/troubleshooting-flow-chart.html

It covers possibilities like extremely long drinking sessions, reinforcement from earlier, erratic TSM attempts, and just general stuff and things.

This is another thread discussing the shame and isolation of the self-treating, naltrexone patient. This is a very tough place to be. Unfortunately, alcohol may cause us to be in this place, or it may merely be a coping mechanism that works for a while, once we find ourselves in this place.

As Barry notes, perhaps engaging here at TSN will provide some support and comfort -- qualities that apparently are lacking at home with your spouse, or when you are alone.

I'm of the opinion that there must be a willful element to cessation, and that the drug cannot, and will not, effect it for us. The nal works great for me and it takes very little time for me to begin to lose interest in alcohol. But I have to deal with myself, dry or otherwise, and do so largely alone.

I started an alcohol-free skein ten days ago, but in a bitter irony, on the first day of going absolutely AF, I had a nasty motorcycle accident. (Just as I was complimenting myself on having a productive, AF, pleasant evening of wrenching on a bike I haven't ridden in five years, and preparing to go home to sleep, my 'test run' ended with my being airlifted to a distant hospital where I spent 10 days with multiple tubes and wires attached to my body.) I really shouldn't have survived. To emphasize, this occurred when I was stone-cold sober, and 36 hours beyond my last naltrexone pill. The mordant irony from the night of the accident occurred at the emergency room, when a cop demanded I take a breath test and I could say, "I haven't had anything to drink go ahead."

Well, as I noted, I'm "AF" now and not feeling any cravings. But then I'm not craving anything except relief from physical pain. I came home from the hospital last night, but am alone in my home with chest flail, 15 fractures, pneumo- and hemothoraxes, periodic double vision, and some new titanium bits. I have trouble standing. I was on a morphine IV for 10 days but now I am prescribed much weaker stuff, and I am alone now with physical and spiritual pain.

So we're all alone, with this thing called often called our alcohol love. I can't really address the illogic of having the worst accident of my life while sober, except to say that it doesn't strike me as "ironic", really. I drank because of issues, not because of drinking. Issues linger long after the rye is exhausted. The issues are still here. At least naltrexone is effective enough that I hunger for pain-relief more than the kiddie pool that is booze.

I had been toying with the idea of getting a sport bike. I think you cured me of that.

Best wishes for for full recovery. That really sucks.

BuenaVista , that sounds horrible. A flailed chest is one of the most painful things I've seen people experience (for those not aware, that's basically breaking so many ribs that the integrity of the rib cage is gone -- when you breathe, the rib cage moves around [or flails] in ungodly ways). I've worked many shifts in a Level 1 trauma center and ICU, and it really is pure suffering on earth for those people (for the doctors and nurses, it's pretty fun, though!). Motorcyles? I won't even sit on one if the engine is going. Too many crazy, sad stories.

But, back to you. That sounds like a major life event -- now you have to deal with pain meds, being alone in your suffering, AND your battles with alcohol. You should start a new thread and journal about it here.