badger

The results are looking very encouraging and if you're feeling good about things mores the better. Complete indifference for me yesterday, not even a million second of craving.

All you have to do is carry on as you are and wait until indifference just happens.

Good, Badger! When you get to this point it seems to creep up on you, but indifference is what happens. Keep the faith

ye gods, I've been craving like crazy today, never known anything like it, drinking's been on my mind constantly all day

has anyone else experienced this? maybe a precursor to an extinction burst?

-badger

That's your lizard brain, wanting to be fed. It feels neglected! Acknowledge, but ignore it, and it will go away.

The less you feed it, the better. Remember, the lizard brain doesn't think, it just wants. You on the other hand, can think.

Look up urge surfing, it's a great technique to get past drinking to satisfy the urges.

Not willpower, it is mindfulness

week 9 update:

a bit of an up & down week, although interesting

after thursday's ridiculous cravings, I decided it was the rat hammering at the lever, so I'd feed him so he could see that he didn't get what he wanted from AL. drank way too much, didn't enjoy it much & felt pretty crappy on friday

however, on saturday, with AL in the house, I just didn't fancy a drink, so I had an effortless AF (& Nal-free) day, my first since starting TSM

That looks so good badger - and you had an AF day too! It is encouraging to see and I bet you are so pleased with you too! It was interesting to see the possible ideas behind the cravings before the AF day. I like that things like this are posted - hopefully if and when it hits me, I will understand it better.

Maggie xx

week 10 update:

a bit of a mixed week. peak daily consumption still coming down, but consistently drinking too much started the week out okay mon/tues, but got a case of the ****-it's later in the week and over the weekend, & ended up drunk & miserable on several nights. I really don't enjoy drinking that much any more, but that seems to be taking a while to filter down to the rat

no AF's this week. for me, sleeping is so much tied into drinking & when I don't drink, I just don't sleep & it wipes me out. I'm going to give Nytol (Benadryl) another try. it hasn't always agreed with me - sometimes get crazy RLS - but it's probably worth a go to see if I can break out of the not-sleeping cycle

-badger

It is nice to see your average peak consumption is still lower than when you started which means it is still working for you. From all the things I have read it looks like it takes a minimum of 3-4 months at least to see a significant change for the average Nal user. I can relate with the sleep thing. For the few times I have gone AF I don't sleep well. I wake up every couple hours and feel tired in the morning. If I drink 4-6 drinks in a 6 hour period (6pm-midnight) I sleep well but if I go over 6 in a night I don't feel
so well the next day. I need to find something like you mentioned to try in my AF nights.

Keep the good work!!

Stay the course Badger!

Are your daily numbers consistent or are you drinking in cyclye? I'm just curious since it looks like you and Cheeto are both fairly consistent but I feel like I'm on a weekly roller coaster

I'm rather up & down within the week. I tend to have a few days of being relatively sensible - usually at the start of the week - & then lose the plot a bit for a few days towards/over the weekend, which is pretty much how I drank pre-TSM