I just tried to have the best time I could while taking my medicine. Drinking was the only life I knew and a love affair I wasn't prepared to give away too soon. The slow extinction process was perfect for me.

Just thought I would pop in and update my thread. Still plodding on here one pill + one hour etc etc - but feel disappointed in myself. My drinking is creeping back up and I realise that I am actually mentally encouraging this. I had started only buying one bottle of wine when I went shopping and this seemed enough. Then a few days ago it wasn't enough and I sneaked a couple of glasses of port that we have in the cupboard for Christmas (after I finished the wine). Then yesterday, when I was shopping i popped two bottles of wine into my basket - and you guessed it drank them both

Well - I feel like absolute S**t this morning - and serves me right. I don't think I've felt this bad in years (maybe the Selincro makes a hangover worse). I know people have talked about it being common to have a hike in drinking a few weeks in, but it still feels like I'm a failure.

I had forgotten how awful it feels to wake up at 4am not remembering going to bed, my mouth tasting like a stale brewery and feeling like I want to puke. My husband must think I'm disgusting - I know I do. Anyway, I think I need to get a bit of a grip here and start forcing a few AF days. I can't bear the thought of months and months more of this.

some thoughts:

Plan the number of drinks to have durinng an evening, and limit it to no more than four.

Space your drinks, which means waiting at least 30 minutes between drinks. This alone leads to an often dramatic reduction in the desire to drink anymore. You don't get that desire to drink less when you're drinking rapidly or in excess

These are simple moderation techniques, you'll still be following TSM, and it will work just fine with this approach. Even better, you're not over drinking like before, and feeling crappy the next day. What becomes clear, is how little enjoyment results from drinking too much, and how much better you feel when you don't.

You won't feel you're depriving yourself by not drinking, and You will become used to not drinking excessively. It's certainly possible to drink as much as before while taking Nalmefene, but since the goal is to minimize the drinking anyway, why not start with those techniques.

Plantpro says this : Quote:
"It's funny how we say we are going to give it so much time like it's a lot of work. Really we can work on ourselves in the meantime and hey we get to DRINK with no white knuckling it so how hard is it really for us????

I just tried to have the best time I could while taking my medicine. Drinking was the only life I knew and a love affair I wasn't prepared to give away too soon. The slow extinction process was perfect for me."


That's how I felt too. The moderation business finally helped as I was frustratingly getting nowhere.

Delbert Clinton:

Since you been gone I've had time to myself
Haven't even tried to find somebody else
When you told me you were leavin' it almost came as good news
It may sound funny but it's true
I think I'm better off with the blues

Now I must admit that I miss you sometimes
Not a day goes by that you don't cross my mind
But at the same time I think of all the hell you put me through
Yeah, it's the lesser of two evils
I think I'm better off with the blues

I know some day I'll wake up and this blues will be gone
I'll forget about you and how everything went wrong
But if you hadda stayed I'd be dead in my tracks
Now, I still love you, baby, but I don't want you back

Tonight I'm gonna go down to the sad side of town
Listen to 'em play the blues when the sun goes down
And I know just what to say when someone asks about you
I'll say, yeah, we had our good times
But I think I'm better off with the blues
Yeah, if I had to say,
I say I'm better off with the blues

Thanks Guapo - I loved the song - very poignant, thank you

And you are right. I do need to take a little bit of control here and make and effort to moderate. I am definitely having an AF night tonight. I feel really hungover and have absolutely no desire to drink today. Also, I will make an absolute limit. I will not drink more than one bottle of wine in one sitting - and will drink more slowly. I am aware that when I open the bottle, I'm gulping it down.

I've looked through the threads and couldn't find your 'story' I would be interested to read your journey and how long it took for you to respond to TSM - if you do have a thread could you bump it up. Many thanks Snap x

double post, oops!

Hey snap, I am in the same boat as you and honestly they don't call us alcoholics because we can control or moderate our drinking. Don't beat yourself up as I have more of my share of Nalovers since starting just over 6 weeks ago. I hate them too so I just switched up to vodka and soda with lime and it seems better with the hangovers for me.
It's all fine and dandy to plan it all out before drinking but that Beast Brain gets the better of us with each drink and we just think "Oh maybe just one more" and then yes we get out of control. Hey if we could limit our drinks to 4 drinks then I don't think we would be on TSM but if you can try then that is awesome.
I think what is more manageable for me anyway is what triplab said: "If you can just put 15 minutes or so between the first drink or two and the next, something happens and I can usually leave it alone. Heck, it is still way early in this adventure, but man is this encouraging. Strange, but encouraging.Science!"
You are still very early on this journey and there are what they call ups and downs but stick with the protocol and it will all be worth it in the end.
hugs

Sounds like a good plan snap.



Me too, and it's been better for my marriage as well. If for no other reason than that I'll keep usiing Nal as long as I continue to drink.

Hi snapdragon.

I may have posted a brief story, but I never posted a journey or anything of that nature.

In the summer of 2013, my wife and I decided, that I needed to quit drinking three bottles of wine a day. Of course, that was a long time coming, and a long time of that kind of abuse.

So I discovered that 12-step abstinence inpatient/outpatient programs, with five years of regulated urine testing was the best answer!

that sounded awful, with the powerlessness, and the one day at a time, accepting the label of alcoholic, being diseased, etc. So, I spent some time on the Internet and discovered the Sinclair method. Problem solved!.

Well, not really. I was able to cut down to about 50% of what I used to drink, sometimes less. Trouble was, I would still drink right through the medication, and once I did that, it was out the window.

Six months later, with my unhappy wife and my skeptical counselor (and me) way unimpressed with my "solution", I ......

Decided to really fix things. Did some things like hypnosis, moderation management like I talked about above, and my drink count went down to less than 5% what it had been at my peak. Probably helped that I actually followed the Golden rule all the time now.

I also found this and some other forums, and read up fairly religiously, along with books by Jason Vale and Stanton Peele

Anyway, the short answer is that it really works, and your whole attitude towards alcohol and drinking completely shifts. The me of summer 2013 would never even entertain the notion that this frame of mind was possible, but it is.

Now I drink maybe once a week, under 10 drinks per month, which also solves the problem of being the nondrinker in the bunch, and having to explain THAT

The ongoing debate here as to whether alcohol free days and attempting to limit intake is of value, doesn't really have a clear answer.i'd say that's up to each person.

There ya go

Snapdragon, you're at exactly the right time frame for an extinction burst. This happens to a lot of people -- your inner lab rat isn't getting its favorite treat, so it's hammering the button in its cage more and more frantically. It will pass.

The amount of time they take varies tremendously, from one single drinking session to several weeks of what looks like pre-TSM drinking. It's a normal part of the process. I understand why you're frustrated and discouraged and worried, but there's really no need. A few weeks from now, this will be an event in the past.

That said, I see no harm in forcing an AF day here and there. As long as we mostly bring our cravings to the nal, the cure should proceed.

We know from our own experience and from five years of archived accounts on this forum that Nal effects people very differently. I think we naturally tend to lump together personal experiences from folks we read about at varying lengths of time on the protocol and places on the extinction curve, and try to extrapolate unifying theories for all. While it is wonderful to be part of a community like this and enormously helpful, I also think it might cause problems and delay progress for those currently drinking at dangerous toxic levels. Just as Nal has varied effects on individuals, we all come to TSM seeking differnt outcomes tailored to our lives and we're motivated by different life events that pushed us to seek and find this solution. Some have wonderful lives, but ended up with a lamp shade on their head at a few too many parties and want to cut back to a more normal level gradually over time. Others have destroyed their lives, health, careers, relationships, the lives of their spouses and children, by chronic destructive drinking, and should probably be a bit more aggressive about their path. These are extreme examples and most probably fall somewhere in the middle. And this is obviously just my opinion.