Week five

Staying steady without too much drama to report. I think I'm over the initial rush for results and overthinking my every move. Went back to Doc who's a really good guy actually. He agreed to put nalmefene on repeat prescription for me, which means I don't need to see him as often but can now reorder at will which is a relief.

Drinking is pretty static and still too high. However the buzz is gone and I'm now just relying on the alcohol to give me anything out of my drinking sessions. Mostly this means extreme tiredness and an early night. My appetite has been suppressed which you may imagine is a bonus but in fact it's another pleasure taken away which makes for a pretty bland exsistance for the time being.

It's a time of confusion for me because "IT" has taken so much away over the years that I'm struggling to comprehend what will replace it. Hopefully as extinction occurs these issues will sort themselves. I'm praying that as indifference occurs I will be able to sort the habitual stuff out myself.

I'm at the phase where I continue to drink despite the lack of what it once gave me. Chasing the Buzz that I know I can no longer achieve.

After all it's called TSM for a purpose right, I'm not on "Thistimes2014 willpower Method"
I shall continue to follow that Golden Rule (take nalmefene 1 hour before the drink as normal) and wait until the train slows right the way down, then I'm going to just step off and breath a great big sigh of relief you all just wait and see.

Right now though that trains still going a little to fast for my liking.


Pre TSM 70
Week 1. 48
Week 2. 45 (1AF day)
Week 3. 50
Week 4. 54

I am feeling very much the same.. a general lack of get up and go, worrying what I will replace drinking with, thinking things like..it wasn't that bad was it?

I frustrated that I still want to drink, and that I have lost that not wanting to finish the glass feeling I had in honeymoon period. I have even started to really look into people weekly progress and find too many that just stop dead....

However its a great encouragement that you are feeling very similar to me, and that many before us have felt the same. I think the honeymoon period is also like any fresh try at changing drinking, and I have tried many things all to success for a small while, this I guess doesn't take any effort and has an 80% success rate... higher if you promise yourself that you'll follow the rule.

The ONLY thing I find easier is AF days, but at the moment I have to actually take myself out of the house to do them.. if I stayed and watched TV old habits would resurface.

stick with it

Very nice thistime! You really have a good grasp on your current situation. Congrats on finding a good Dr. and having his support. Your feelings of confusion are quite normal and will work themselves out for the better. Stay the course, you are 1 month closer to indifference. Applause.

Nigeir

Thanks for your reply, I had to laugh when you said "However its a great encouragement that you are feeling very similar to me" cheers mate!!!

Seriously it is very encouraging to know there's someone else experiencing the same things. It makes the journey a little less lonely.

I agree with you that it's a bit spooky, so many who appear to be doing well with TSM suddenly fall below the radar, I suppose it could be that everyone gets cured and then ride off into the sunset.

IMHO I think that keeping faith in the science is much harder than it should be, I think at least some folk decide to break the golden rule for whatever reason and before they know it they end up back at square one, or even in a worse position than before they started. Then if you've been through weeks and months of SEs and nagging doubts, its probable you won't be in a hurry to start all over again. Having said that there's then a further mystery, if TSM has a low success rate there should be at least some post where people say that TSM hasn't worked for them.

My money is that it's much harder than it appears to get to extinction without support and encouragement. That takes me nicely on to plantprO, Melissa and Barry et al. I know it's a bit dramatic but you are all beacons of light far off in the distance, I and others can hear each other in the dark and choppy sea we find ourselves but without someone else who has been on the journey giving encouragement, I would probably quit before I had the chance to succeed.

Since there's also clear evidence that TSM works for those still posting on here then the KEY is the golden rule (nal one hour before then drink as normal). I'm fascinated that I can have so many conflicting toughts, feelings and doubts over such a simple rule. I intend to continue come what may. However if folk like me are sill seeing little evidence of extinction at 6,8 or 12 months when others around are proclaiming success it must become increasingly temping to quit.

TO ANYONE WHO FOLLOWS ME I PROMISE I WILL FINISH POSTING ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, IF I DONT SUCCEED I WILL POST WHY. IF I FIND EXTINCTION I WILL SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS.

I'm with you thistime me too, "TO ANYONE WHO FOLLOWS ME I PROMISE I WILL FINISH POSTING ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, IF I DONT SUCCEED I WILL POST WHY. IF I FIND EXTINCTION I WILL SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS".

Thank You thistime, I only hope we can all stay the course and will all be posting on "The Cured List" in months to come. I definately need support and giving people my support and posting also helps me with this journey. I am putting all my hopes into this and am trying to keep positive that this is IT, the magic pill. Funny I always said maybe I should wait for a pill or something easy to come out to get this hellish alcohol addiction off my back and low and behold I found it, just wish I knew about it years ago.
I really want this to work to spread the word but I just don't want to tell the world I am an alcoholic and then TSM doesn't work for me. Once I can say I am Cured I will shout it from the rooftop to anyone and everyone as I wish someone else had done for me!

Hi thistime - I just wrote a novel right here concerning some of the frustrations and anxiety described in this thread and others. Then I realized I was ranting on and on while on your update page LOL. I decided to move it over to mine. Let me just say I feel ya. I am still very confident that I have found the only thing resembling the type of cure or control I have only dreamed of having concerning my alcohol dependence. Naltrexone does its job, now I need to keep doing mine. For me, many personal tweaks are needed to help with what can be an awesome but very different life without alcohol. The reward mechanism in the brain is not to be underestimated or deprived.

Week Six

Things are starting to settle down, past worrying if TSM will work.

I had a strange experience on Saturday night, my daughter was babysitting for our neighbours so I waited up after my wife went to bed. The neighbours were delayed and 16yo Holly didn't get home until one am.

pre TSM I would have taken this opportunity to have a nice old session, wife in bed and me with excuse to stay up. However on Saturday I got to 5 drinks and was just so tired by 11 o clock, I had to sit there for two hours trying to force this last drink down my throat.

That last drink tasted awful and the tiredness was extreme, it was at this point I realised that TSM Is doing its stuff but I'm battling habitual behaviours.

The hot topic for me right now is can we help ourselves by being proactive whilst following TSM. Should I force af days or set a limit on number of drinks per session.

Or

Leave TSM to work on pharmaceutical extinction at a subconscious level where I just cannot intervene no matter how hard I want too.

I've decided to wait for now, I'm not going to do anything that's forced. I'm just going to follow the golden rule (1 pill + 1 hour then drink as normal).

I'm now sure that something is happening, this isn't placebo. I'm going to wait until I get more control and then see where to go from there.

I found a useful discussion back in 2009 regarding cravings verses triggers (habits)

http://www.thesinclairmethod.com/commun ... ?f=5&t=594

Pre TSM = 70+ USA units
Week 1. 48
Week 2. 45 (1AF day)
Week 3. 50
Week 4. 54
Week 5. 56

hello thistime,

that link is very useful and I read it that for the extinction to happen you have to be drinking in the situations you normally drink in, the still drinking with your friends in a favourite bar being an example... so forcing AF or limiting 'seem' to be either not needed or not helpful.

This does make sense as non AF days and normal drinking days on Nal will be re-enforcing the extinction process so are therefore a good thing. I think the trouble for many of us is that that goes very much against what we have been telling ourselves for the years and years we have had a problem.

With this boards help I also have moved of the placebo thing, really glad you have; and also glad you are seeing differences in how drinking makes you feel, I can really associate with the being tired/drunk feeling without the buzz...its working!

Hi Thistime - and so glad you are starting to feel that this is really working for you. I think you are so right about triggers. I drank last night purely because of a 'trigger' and I know now looking back, that if I had actually stopped and thought about it for a few minutes, I wouldn't have bothered opening a bottle of wine.

My triggers have always been cooking = drinking, so in the last week, I have been trying to not have my first drink until I sit down to eat (and to be honest, it hasn't been that hard, the cravings not too bad).

In the past, when we have gone out for an evening and generally when we are out with people I drink moderately (so they don't think I'm an alchy!! ) But I always have a bottle of wine in the fridge to start on as soon as I get home. I did exactly that last night. Mistake 1 - I should not have brought that bottle of wine in the first place - I was planning to over-drink. Mistake 2 - when we got home, I didn't really even feel like drinking more - but out of habit I did what I always do. This is the first morning in almost two weeks that I've been filled with self-loathing again.

What I am slowly learning is that two drinks IS enough. I can enjoy two drinks, but after that, I'm just drinking for the sake of it. I think in future, I will make myself stop and think for a few minutes before I go beyond two 'Am I craving right now?, Do I really feel like I want another drink or am I just doing it out of habit, would I enjoy a soft drink right now as much as I would more wine?

I think I might start a separate TRIGGERS thread - we can all bash out our demons on it!!