It is really wonderful to see your dramatic progress between week 14-17!! Great job and keep up the good work!

its really great to see your success continue. I take heart that it just happened to you so suddenly and without any push from you. It seems like one day you wanted and the next you didn't.

I must keep going

Week 19

Trying to find a correct level of drinking is perhaps playing with fire, I probably perfer the scenario about TSM allowing the drinking train to slow and that in turn allows you to get off once and for all.

However being human then it's natural that going from A to B isn't going to be a straight line.

What I'm trying to say is that TSM has taken away the physical side of drinking in a way that makes drinking unpleasant. It follows (as least in my own experience) that I'm now indifferent to an unpleasant experience. However I'm still not ready to jump off the train.

So last Wednesday, Friday and Saturday I had 5 drinks each session. 15 drinks in a week and four days AF. Before anyone congratulates me I have to say that I'm uneasy about this.

It's about replacing a bad pattern with another drinking pattern. Albeit an improved one. I'm begining to think that the only true success of TSM is complete Abstainance.

All in all I'm still drinking and what's worse I'm planning to drink even though I know it's not a pleasant experience. So what about indifference, for me it's easy to not drink on the days I don't drink. However if I'm still choosing to drink a few times a week that's not exactly indifference.

So there's my full circle, unless you get off when the trains going slow enough then you always run the risk of not being able too. I mean that it's just as bad having a lesser problem and probably for me at least it's unsustainable.

Drinking three times a week, five drinks per session is not really enjoyable but I'm not ready to give it the final push to jump but if I continue to try and recreate a pleasant experience where one just cannot co-exist with taking TSM then I'm afraid where that path leads.

I know there are some folk still patiently waiting to get where I'm now at and are probably saying this guys got some front ranting on about his new problem but I'm writing this as much for me making sense out of what's happening as for anything else.

Sorry to have rambled somewhat.

Nal-on

Started 7 October 2014

Pre TSM = 70+ USA units
Week 1. 48
Week 2. 45 (1AF day)
Week 3. 50
Week 4. 54
Week 5. 56
Week 6. 56
Week 7. 60
Week 8. 58
Week 9. 58
Week 10. 50
Week 11. 48
Week 12. 55
Week 13. 50
Week 14. 50
Week 15. 03.5 (6 AF days)
Week 16. 20 (4 AF days)
Week 17. 11 (5 AF days)
Week 18. 02.5 (6 AF days)
Week 19. 15 (4 AF days)

Thistime

You remind me of the place where I got to.

After well over 2 years of TSM(21 months of which were post cure point) I was drinking perhaps once a week and I realised I was not enjoying it, it was merely for the sake of it. Sometimes I'd get drunk and I was aware I was chasing something that was no longer there. I was also aware I was starting to get a bit 'wierd' if I got drunk and I certainly did not like that. It was not compatible with how I wanted to be, or the way in which my life had developed.

I had my first and only telephone conversation with MWOs L0op, during that conversation he gave me a rare piece of advice.

It was something like;

If you no longer have the urge, are not enjoying it, never want to go back to where you were, why not eliminate chances of any future problems?Go quit.

In other words he was telling me to get off the train, the train had slowed for me and so I quit(I already had one week AF at that point).

It was easier than wondering what was going to happen next.

Not had a single alcoholic drink since a week prior to that conversation. That was 19 months ago.

The only warning I will give is to watch out for other behaviours taking over, I have a food issue, but a food issue I believe I can sort out in a similar manner but that is a different topic.

I think you'll know what is right for you, at the right time thistime.

give it some time TT - how you're drinking now doesn't cast in stone how you're going to be from now on

the fact that you're still drinking even though you're consciously not enjoying it suggests to me that your subconscious still has some catching up to do - ie you've got some extinction still to come. there's probably a fair bit of habit left still too

I think I'm in a similar situation, although obviously a few weeks behind you. I'm content with the majority of days being AF, but I'm drinking more than I want to when I do drink & not enjoying it particularly. I'm confident that as time passes my consumption on drinking days will reduce as I get more extinction & quite possibly my number of AF's a week will rise

-badger

Thank you UKB & badger

It's reassuring to know I can still post and get solid advice even after TSM has started to work. UKB it's an honor to have you pass on advice from LOop, I was around on MWO when he was actively helping folk there. I was very sad to hear of his untimely passing. My worse thoughts are unlike UKB how many make the wrong decision and fall backwards instead of getting off the train.

Thanks again

hello thistime,

hows it going? has it continued well?

Hi nigeir

Thanks for the lookup, I've been away for a few weeks and just got back, so your post was very timely. I will update my post in the next few days. Just have to get back into the swing of posting etc.

Stepping off the train is on all of our minds, but it's interesting that it's not really addressed in Eskapa's book. In the book, cure simply means drinking at safe levels, and it seems clear that TSM deals with the physiological side of addiction, but not so much the psychological. It's like a smokers that overcomes the addiction to nicotine, but miss the feeling of a cigarette in their fingers.

Hi all

I've kind of been absent for awhile, nigeir gave me a prod so here is my update.

With all these things it's complex,

As some may remember I managed to reach the point where I no longer felt compelled to drink but when it happened it came so fast that I wasn't prepared mentally. So I continued to take the pill and drink as and when I felt like it.

However the drinking was horrid and it effected my appetite as well. It was like antibuse. I began to realise that it isn't possible for me to control my drinking using nalmefene so initially I stopped completely.

Then I tried to drink without the Nalmefene and the drinking was still naff for a while so I decided to see how long it would take to go back to old drinking. About 3 weeks, then I started up with the Sinclair method and 2 weeks later I lost the compulsion but gained the horrid effects of drinking with the pill.

I'm not actually worried about the experimenting on and off the Sinclair method, it's a journey and I will work it out in the end.

I was concerned to continue posting whilst others were waiting for a breakthrough it seems a bit indulgent for me to be juggling with my own little experiments.

For me I now know that it's total abstinence or back to hell. Sinclair is a powerful tool but it's me that has to get off the bloody train.

Thank you nigeir