Not feeling quite as enthusiastic as I was the last few days. Alcohol drinking still at very low levels but I think the pill is affecting my mood. I feel nauseous almost continuously a good part of yesterday and today. I feel right on the brink of tears and feel defeated, low, dejected, unsociable. I don't think this feeling is as bad as being hungover all day, and I am still sleeping well, so that's a positive thing, but still I feel so sad. I'm also really drowsy. I guess I should just give in and take a nap instead of fighting it. I work from home so it's easy to accommodate a short nap if that's what my body needs.

Don't worry, not suicidal or any of that. Just moody and irritable and sad.

I guess my body and mind are going through some unbelievable changes right now so I shouldn't expect them to be performing at tip top mood-balancing levels at the moment.

brittany - I know you and I had the same start day, so I found this interesting. I also felt a lot less enthusiastic today. Your mood sounds worse than mine, as I do not feel depressed or anything. I just feel "blah." I was so pumped up on Sunday and Monday.

Now I just got done with a long nap as I work the night shift and am headed in to work soon. I have no desire to drink right now. I am going to try abstinence from now until Friday when the neighbors are coming for dinner. No Nal until then either. I have read a lot of people talk about how important it is to have those non-alcohol days because the Naltrexone can make you feel down. It is preventing all those endorphins from being released after all.



If you can't resist a drink for a day - try to keep your spirits up with thoughts like this - you're on your way to freedom!

Thanks McDad... I am going to try my first nal-free alcohol-free day tomorrow and see if I can get my mood to rebound. I ended up cheering up later in the day... worked out, cooked, had ice cream, etc, and I felt better but was still more testy/sensitive/anxious than normal all throughout

Brittany. ..sounds like you are dealing with a few alcohol withdrawal symptoms. TSM is more gradual than going cold turkey, so withdrawal symptoms are not anything like a classic detox....but you will still get withdrawal symptoms. It should pass in a day or two. I know that feeling. ...it is no fun at all. Hang in there.

My first alcohol free day didn't go as planned. Was good till like 930pm. Then my housemate/renter started mixing a drink (he doesn't know I have an alcohol problem so he wouldn't have thought to be discreet) and I started craving bad. Took my pill and counted the minutes for an hour. Lol. Then had two shots.

So the day wasn't a fail because I still followed protocol. But it wasn't an alcohol free day. Still slept ok and feel good today. Today makes one week in. It has been one week today since the last time I got drunk or had more than 2 drinks in one setting. So that's amazing. Haven't been a week without drunkenness since last March when I tried to go cold turkey

Hey it sounds like you're still doing great! I had my first AF days on day 6 and 7 - but I didn't have anyone drinking around me. Today is day 8 and I just had a dose because we're having the neighbors over and I'm sure we'll be drinking.

Did you find it hard to wait the 1 hour with someone drinking around you? That is one of the things that makes me feel that this is working. I don't have that "I can't wait to get a drink going" feeling. Waiting an hour or more is no big deal. It is a liberating feeling.

Great job on the two AF days Mcdad! Wow, that's awesome. I have this fear that I won't be able to sleep without drinking so it's a hard habit to break right before bed.

I'm fine earlier in the day usually... I don't even care to drink mid day because I know I won't stop... But near bedtime it's so hard to resist.

Went to smoke hookah tonight with friends. Normally I like hookah, even though I dont use other tobacco products, but tonight it seemed way too intense. Not sure if that was some effect of the nal, or not, but I was very woozy and had to stop smoking. I had one drink and stopped. Didn't care for more. But on the way home I started craving. Drinking one glass of wine Before bed right now.

Mc dad, you asked if I found it hard to wait the one hour last night... It wasn't too bad. I felt like I HAD to wait one hour. There is no way I'm going to cheat this system. I'm hanging on to it for dear life. I was definitely clock-watching, but at no point was I tempted to drink early.

I don't know how clear I have made it in my previous post, but its not like I was only endangering my job, or my health, or my relationships through my drinking... I feel certain it was a matter of time until I killed myself driving drunk. I was a terror to myself. I live about 30 miles away from the bars that I frequent, and I would drive drunk multiple times a week. I always intended to get a slight buzz and be done with it, but that's never what happened. I don't know how I'm not dead.

Now that I know that there is some hope for having common sense, and interacting with alcohol in a normal way, I don't have to die that way. Or kill anyone else. Thank God.

I'm a smoker but haven't smoked "hookah" in quite a long time. Never found it "addictive." But everyone is different. I think I am probably drunk right now, by "normal" people's standards. But I didn't feel like I HAD to drink. Just wanted to. We'll see how things go down the road. I took Nal to stay on the TSM guidelines. So far I STILL believe this I'm on the right path. That's all that matters. I wan't to be free.

so I had a bit of a setback this past weekend. I didn't even want to post for a few days, because I was not feeling very good about it.

I got drunk on Saturday and on Sunday, both. I was at parties, both days, socializing with friends, & I went back to the old me. I drank too much, past the point of having fun, past the point of a pleasant buzz, past the point of a reasonable social drinking experience.

As usual, most people had no idea. My friends circulated around me as normal, and as usual had no idea I was even tipsy.

The next day, I heard from people wanting to do a post mortem of the previous day's events, and only then did they get some idea that I had been drunk, because I didn't remember most of what happened. Nothing bad happened, unless you count the fact that I got obliterated for basically no reason, two days in a row.

anyway, so that frustrated me a little bit. Not to mention, that the two days of drunkenness threw off my sleep cycle and circadian rhythm, basically instantly! I didn't sleep well Saturday night, Sunday night, or Monday night, and I felt terribly hungover and strungout for 3 days in a row because of it. It was very distressing.

I guess it further cemented in my head how very much I need and want to overcome this. I hate the way I feel when I have been drinking heavily habitually. It's like I'm not even the same person. My moods, emotions, self worth, anxiety, stress level, eating habits, sleeping habits, everything goes to hell. This is why I am convinced that if I can't get this under control, I will die young.

anyway, so I have been rebuilding my mental and physical state back to the positive levels that I had last week. I'm pretty much there. I am determined not to drink too much this weekend. Because I felt awful, and it was not worth it.

How's everyone else doing?

So sorry about that weekend. I can't even begin to count how many of those I've had. I hope once I can start TSM I won't have to deal with the embarrassment and shame of not remembering wtf happened and having to sort of play along like I do.

Stay strong!