The voyage begins. The drugs are in and the target date is set for this Saturday. I downloaded an app to track the number of drinks and have been collecting data last week and this week. I've pretty much drank the way I normally do so I'll have two weeks data in the field so to speak. the app is real interesting. Counting is something I never did and it makes it real easy to do. I can remember countless occasions when my wife asked me how many I had, I dunno. Because I truly didn't. I thought I was up to 15 a day but it turns out I am averaging about 11. Anyway 11 is way too much but once I start I cannot stop. I usually have a few AF days a month or even take weeks off at a time but once rolling I keep it going.

I've read the book and even followed some of the research papers and journals. I find it quite fascinating actually. The science is sound and so elegantly simple like many amazing things in life really are. I think I have a good attitude going into this and I hope that helps. I don't know that I'll miss drinking in excess and in any case once extinction occurs it won't really matter anyway. I sometimes ask myself when on a good drunk if I am actually enjoying it and the answer is almost always no but then I reach for another one any way. What I DO enjoy is that very first drink. In fact that is why I often start a night of drinking with a shot and a beer. You all know how it is. Then we chase that first one all night. So if I am an average person then I should be done by October just in time for my birthday.

Good for you for doing all of your homework! I think you'll be a fine patient until your out-processing in October.

Welcome!

With all that self-education, you're off to a great start! I'm curious: what drink tracking app do you use? The ones I've found all seem to need too much set up and it can be cumbersome to enter the next drink.

Welcome Ocean. My birthday is six months out from when I started too so I'm using that as a benchmark. And, yes, please share the name of the app.

Hey all. Thanks for your replies. The app is called AlcoDroid. So it may only work on Android adn not iPhones but I don't know. It's great, you put in your basic info like weight and some other things and then you are ready to go. It's simple you just open the app and there is a menu at bottom to add a drink. There are standards like 5% beer, glass of wine a shot and so on. You can also define a drink. I defined one called Strong Beer since I gravitate to those up about 6.5%-8% or so. I suppose you could also program in a double shot if that's your thing or a 100 proof shot. and that's it. Next drink just click add and it keeps a count and also displays a graph of your estimated BAC which is pretty cool. Mine is typically a pyrimid shape with a sharper starting side. I usually have a quick few first drinks so it shoots up straight then I gradually drink the rest of the night. But last weekend when visiting family I did my typical hide the airplane bottles and would sneak off and hit like three bottles, program into the app and the graph shoots straight up. So you can track your intake over time. You can also export the data.

It's very easy to use.

So tonight is the last time I will ever get drunk

Well sort of. I start tomorrow. Tonight will be the last endorphin drunk anyway. So long as I stick to the plan that is. In a way it's sort of like saying good by to an old friend. Some one you got to know at an early age. A good friend. We laughed together, trusted each other, were always together BFFL, we created beautiful music and poetry, had very romantic times, traveled the world together and then they became a total azzhole who all the wile was robbing my bank account, poisoning my food, even treating my life... My precious!

Last night 15 units, yuck! Two hard shots before bed at midnight wtf was I thinking? Oh that's right I wasn't. Not in good spirits this morning but since I am one of them functional alkeyholics I know how to fake it And I know my precious awaits me at 6PM after my Friday run the healing power of self destruction.

We are a crazy lot aren't we.

I've got the 50's so I'll cut it in half to start. Hope I am one of the lucky ones and have no side affects. I have to admit it's daunting and kinda scary the idea of being the rat in the cage. On the other hand, as a scientist myself, I'm excited about the process.

Let the experiment begin!

Good luck to you Ocean. Yes quite a few people on this forum have described AL as a toxic lover..............it fits. Someone recently posted that TSM gives you a chance to say goodbye...............more gradually, and it really is hard for most of us.

I hope your SEs are minimal and that your TSM journey gets you where you want to go.

All the best, Newlife

I balked a bit on my start date because I got worried about side affects and other things. But I got it started Friday June 19th. I was very hesitant so I thought I would just start of slow. My thinking was that I would try the Naltrexone Friday and then just go back to 'normal' on Saturday. Just to experiment. I decided to take 1/4 tablet to avoid side affects and get a general understanding for what I was into. So I dosed about 6PM and waited my hour and...

Holy freakin' hell.

Have you ever seen the movie Awakenings? It was kind of like that. As a skeptic about every thing in the universe I could not believe my eyes ears and senses. Not once ever in my entire life even going back to when I was a child and had my first drink (I still kind of remember my cousin and I sneaking our dad's beers out of the cooler) did I not have a desire for more. As child and then a young adult, my preschool and high school alcoholic education, the desire was never over whelming but it was still there. Then of course it just got compulsory. Only drinking on the weekends became only not drinking one weekend a month which became month long binges into a week or one month abstinence and the viscous cycle continues. One drink after abstinence always led to the insane desire for more, you know the score!

But that Friday night was just absolutely unreal. I know from reading many of your stories that many of you have the same experience. Later that night I had one more beer. That was two beers in one night. I have not had two beers in one night since I was probably 16 years old. I'm writing this more for folks in the future who come here wondering what it's like. Those of us practicing TSM know. But to have an experience like that is absolutely life changing. I literally went from an average 13 drinks per night to 2 and since then I have not gone over .08BAC and had a max of 4 beers over the course of one long night...Insane.

Now let me explain some fears I had in the hopes to quell any fears some curious onlookers may have. I know I had a lot and read a lot in these forums. One was that, if I practice TSM does that mean I will make the love I have for my wife extinct? LOL Yes these are the thoughts that go through your head. Without giving too much information.. Will sex be unpleasant or even possible? Yes it's possible and not at all unpleasant. Will I become indifferent to my sweet little purring cat who greets me every day when I come home? No not in the least bit =^,=^=. Will I get violently ill, not be able to sleep, become angry, become a drone, experience a chemical lobotomy? No no and no.

What will happen is that you will no longer have the insane desire to chase the first drink into oblivion. That's it pure and simple. I'm sure it's different for every one but this nips it in the bud for me. On Naltrexone after one hour when I have a drink I can feel it affecting my body but my mind does not rage. This brings up my next thoughts.

I was wrong about one of my models for my own addiction. I always saw it in two parts. When I wake up hung over and head off to work I start to feel better after some coffee and after lunch I'm fine but then around 5-6PM it starts acting up. The desire. It's a physical desire. So my model was two parts. One, a physical addiction, my body is feeling sick because it needs the alcohol molecule to do simple tasks like digest food, have a regular heart beat and so on and two, there is a mental addiction as well, there is anxiety and fear and even after being abstinent for a month there is the mental voice in the head that says 'just go ahead you can have one now' and then habit and all that.

What I was wrong about was the first part. There definitely is a physical addiction to the molecule Ethenol but at least in my case it's no where near as bad as I thought and that is the cruel part. The cruel part is that the physical break down that you feel, the irregular heart beat, sweating, stomach ache, shaking and so on all comes from the mind. The mind who wants the endorphin so bad punishes you physically like a cruel slave master till he gets what he wants.

How do I know this? Because after binging for 4 months straight at an average of 13 drinks per night I finally decided to try TSM on Friday night. I was already feeling ill from the drinking the night before. The craving was strong. But after taking Naltrexone and drinking one hour later I had absolutely no physical illness. Prior to TSM if I had one beer then about 20 minutes later I would start feeling very very ill till I had another then another and so on. That is the cruel master torturing it's host into submission.

I'm astonished by this frankly. Absolutely astonished.

So... Here I am today. I could continue to write this novel but I wont. Suffice to say I don't know if this is my honeymoon or not but I started this off slow thinking I'd go ahead and start getting drunk again but honestly when I think back on it I don't ever care to wake up in the middle of the night with a cracking dry throat desperately reaching for water, I don't want to have that conversation with my wife again where I pretend to remember all the things I said, I don't care to ever have to hide my morning hung over breath from my boss at work, I don't care to say to myself every morning please just don't drink tonight only to stop off at the store on the way home for more, I don't care to have to hide bottles around the house, garage, workshop, bathroom, laundry basket, trunk, and ceiling rafters so that I can sneak drinks to get my levels up.

I think I've found a new friend.

Ocean, good for you!! And thanks for sharing with us............it sounds amazing and I hope it continues for you.

Please keep posting!! Nal on!! Newlife

I'm at 11 weeks or so now and I've actually forgotten that feeling altogether. Until you saying it, I forgot that I used to have that MUST HAVE MORE feeling.

I'm still having trouble with the habit of it, with filling the time with non-drinking things, but it's still great to remember how far I've come.