I recently started TSM and I've been so inspired by many of your progress threads that I decided to start my own. I'm hoping this will help to keep me accountable with tracking my progress and units, etc.

So a quick backstory - I'm a 30yo female who has been drinking heavily for about 10 years. I was able to abstain during my pregnancies but other than that I probably only average a handful of AF days a year, usually when I have the flu and am literally unable to drink fluids. Prior to TSM, I was probably averaging something like 10 drinks a night (a bit less on the weekdays and more on the weekends). I have a great life and a loving family, and for the most part I'm functional (which has been my excuse to keep drinking all these years) but I'm sick of waking up feeling foggyheaded and only slogging through the day just to drink and start the cycle all over again.

I'm finally ready to do something about this! My pills arrived and I started TSM 4 days ago.

I'm pretty sensitive to meds so I have only been taking 1/4th a tab so far. I'm glad I started out low because it hit me very hard - I felt weird and dizzy and everything seemed off - dinner tasted awful, my mouth and tongue felt weird. It was just a very uncomfortable feeling that I didn't like at all. The first night I had about 6 drinks, which tasted "off" in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on. I felt drunker than usual and not in a good way.

I still felt weird in the morning, like everything was "wrong" somehow. Coffee didn't taste right, food didn't taste right, I couldn't focus on anything, just a general sort of horribleness. It actually scared me a bit, but thankfully it wore off by late afternoon and I felt like myself again (just in time to take another pill!) Thankfully I haven't felt nearly as awful in the mornings since that first day. I've definitely felt more sensitive and weepier than usual though.

Over the next 3 days I drank 5, 5, and 6 drinks. Still a lot but significantly less than my norm.
The biggest thing I noticed over the last 3 days is that I didn't have the nagging desire to have a drink, and was able to wait until 6 or 7pm without any distress at all (usually I am thinking about drinking by 3 and dying for a drink by 4!).
I also noticed that the nal seemed to work beautifully on the first 2 drinks - I enjoyed them, but I drank them slowly (normally I drink the first two very quickly) and didn't feel compelled to take sip after sip. It almost reminded me of drinking a diet coke, in that it was nice to drink but nothing particularly amazing.

Everything seems to go downhill after the third drink though. I definitely feel the euphoria effect at this point, and then I start drinking faster and want a 4th...and a 5th... and you know how it goes.

I think maybe this is because I'm taking 1/4th of a pill and drinking through the nal? Time to go up to 25mg I guess.

So I went up to 25mg last night. I took 1/4th a pill an hour before drinking and another 1/4th pill when I started my first drink so I was sure I'd be covered by the 3rd drink or so.

Absolutely night and day difference after the third drink (compared to taking 1/4th a pill)! It made it undeniably obvious that nal is doing something and this isn't some sort of placebo effect for me. I still enjoyed the first few drinks, but I was able to drink them slowly and I didn't feel like I had this insatiable hunger to drink more. The 4th drink was just OK (normally this is when I lose control and just keep opening beers until I fall asleep) but I started to feel a little bit gross at this point. I really think I could have stopped here (which would be unheard of for me, I don't stop until I go to sleep generally) but I'm not trying to force anything at this point, and I chose to keep going to see if the 25mg was really keeping me covered for the whole drinking session. By the 6th beer, I felt like I was almost forcing myself to drink it. The feeling was both bizarre and amazing. Normally on a friday night I'd have no problem at all drinking 10+ beers.

Unfortunately I feel really awful again this morning, much like the morning after my first dose. I'm foggy and shaky with a lingering sense of doom and gloom hanging over everything. It's really unpleasant but hopefully it will subside after I get used to the higher dose. On the plus side this is the first Saturday I can remember in a long time that I'm not thinking about drinking by 12pm! My husband had a beer already and I didn't even have the slightest desire to open one yet. Hopefully I won't go overboard tonight (Saturdays are my worst days).

Good for you! It sounds like you are on your way. I have found that I can 'drink through' the NAL if I reach my regular # of drinks pre NAL. That amount (8) is really hard to do and I've only done it a few times. Keep us posted on your progress.

Thanks Goat! Glad to hear that it is going well for you! I felt well-covered with 25mgs, so hopefully I can stick with this dose because I'm finding the side effects to be quite awful D:

I think I'm going to end up making a lot of posts this week to keep me on track, I promise I'll post less later on


So I think I must be experiencing the honeymoon.

Saturdays are usually bad days for me, especially those rainy saturdays where we decide to stay home. I often open a beer by 1pm (becuase I'm just going to have one or two to enjoy the afternoon of course... yeah that never happens) so it's not unusual for me to drink 12-15++ light beers over a saturday afternoon and evening.

Yesterday was one of those gloomy saturdays - but somehow I didn't feel the urge to open a drink all afternoon, even though my husband had been enjoying a few. It wasn't even in a take-it-or-leave it sort of way, but I actually felt like I did NOT want to drink. How odd.

So by 5pm I was ready to take my pill, I felt like I would like to have a drink but it wasn't my usual craving. I ended up having 6 light beers (still a lot but that's the lightest saturday I've had in... I don't even know how long) but I drank them slowly and just sort of enjoyed the buzz instead of chasing my craving into oblivion. The amazing thing was after about 3-4 drinks, my husband and I are having a great time and laughing, listening to some new music, watching a hilarious tv show - this normally would be a major trigger for me - when I'm having a particularly good time while drinking my brain just starts SCREAMING at me to drink more more MORE to keep the party going. But it didn't. I assumed that when I started the nal I'd have to give up all the fun stuff (and I was OK with that) but there I was, having a blast after only a few beers and not feeling like I had to chug 10 more beers to keep having fun. Is that what normal people feel like when they drink?

I'm a little worried about tonight though - we're going out to a new restaurant (korean fusion, yum) and I'll probably have a couple strong beers. Usually after a few restaurant drinks I go home and over-do it, so fingers crossed.

Sounds like you are on the right track Queen. If you are like me and the chase is the root cause to your excessive drinking then Naltrexone will cut that off. That's the beauty of TSM, you don't have force abstinence, a round peg into a square hole, and you can still drink and have a fine old time doing what you would normally do only now you don't as you said have to chase it into oblivion.

I used to pick up a 12 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon (cheap but okay beer if ya don't know) and a six pack of the good stuff on my way home from work. I'd always have a bottle of vodka too. I'd go in the house with the good beer and the Pabst would get hidden in the garage or seperated out into hiding spots. FOr each good beer I'd pretend to sip I'd pound a PBR and if I really needed to up the levels have a shot of vodka too. By the end of the night it would look like I had 4 or five beers when I really had 10 and a few shots of vody.

I started TSM 5 months ago and while I still do drink most nights I have not hidden nor had the desire to hide alcohol not one single time. I just don't need to anymore.

queenofcups it is all sounding really good for you!! You can see that the nal is having an effect. Keep taking it and keep posting. Welcome to the forum and looking forward to reading how you progress. Newlife

Welcome Queen! We're glad to have you here and don't mind the posting. (I was a terrible offender in the beginning... in fact, I posted a billion times BEFORE I even got my Nal...)

Anyway, you're doing great by keeping track of your drinking and waiting the full hour. That's the prefect thing for you to be doing now! Looking forward to hearing about your progress. Keep on Keeping on!

MinneMom

Thanks Ocean -I'm so glad to hear you've had such great success with tsm, your thread was an inspiring read!
Hah I can very much relate to the garage stash! We have a beer fridge in the garage and when we have guests over for dinner I can sneak in there and chug a couple before I go upstairs and look presentable with a glass of red wine (and I'll drink 3 or 4 before anyone arrives of course!)
It's so liberating to have this craving off my back. I haven't been in a situation where I'd normally sneak drinks yet, but I feel like all the anxiety and compulsion that drives my sneaky drinking is gone. I know I'm probably in a bit of a honeymoon but this is already feeling like a miracle pill.

Newlife & Minnie - Thanks so much, I've enjoyed reading everyone's progress and it really helps to know that other people are going through the same thing. When I was waiting for my pills to arrive I was obsessively reading all the minutiae of the daily posts so maybe someone will get something out of this (myself at the very least!)

So a full week is over. Sunday was my highest consumption day (8 or 9) but it still felt like a big victory for a lot of reasons. It actually should have been closer to 6 or 7 but we ran out of light beers at home and I ended up drinking a couple pumpkin beers that were a lot stronger than I expected.

Big Sunday victory: Restaurant drinks (during happy hour no less!)
Until yesterday, I didn't even realize how much obsession with alcohol consumes me when I go out to eat. I ordered a beer, enjoyed my food, enjoyed the beer, and that was it. I ordered another one out of habit and I actually sort of regretted it (that happens.. oh yeah NEVER) and ended up sharing it with my husband.

Pre-TSM would have gone something like this: I'd have 1 or 2 drinks at home (because why not? I'm not driving) then we'd get to the restaurant I'd focus on what drink I wanted first - probably an IPA or something with high abv so I'd get more bang for the buck. Then I'd constantly be focused on how much beer is left in my glass - am I drinking too fast compared to my husband? I'm getting a little low... is the waiter going to be back in time to order another one? We're almost finished with our dinner and I haven't had an opportunity to order another drink, it will look weird if I order another one now! I'll order one anyway and chug it while my husband gives me that look. Then on the drive home I'd be eager to get home and open another one immediately, then continue until bedtime.

When we were done eating, I wasn't thinking about drinking on the way home, and I didn't open one immediately. I sobered up completely before I ended up having any more drinks (this never happens). The eagles were playing (and won) so my husband was enjoying himself more than usual. He's a pretty heavy drinker but he almost never gets sloppy, so I'm pretty much always the drunker one. It was weird being so lucid when I'd normally be even more far gone than he was. I ended up having several more beers (we only had those strong pumpkin ones so the units add up quick!) but I felt in control the whole time. Husband insisted that I try a scotch (I hate scotch, and don't like liquor much in general) but it was actually kind of nice. It was so weird genuinely trying to appreciate the flavor (I still don't really like it ) and not secretly be obsessing over how much alcohol was in it.

So overall my drinks for the week were about 43 - still a lot by most peoples standards but that's a HUGE improvement over my pre TSM levels. And after counting drinks so diligently this week, I'm pretty sure my pre TSM levels were even higher than I was estimating (yikes).

Victories for the week:
-Other than maybe the first night, I only ever felt buzzed or a bit tipsy, never drunk or sloppy.
-No hangovers, though I did feel a lot of awfulness from the nal.
-I remembered going to bed every night (I even took off my bra! small victories )
-No drunken fights with my husband. We actually had a few really nice nights that were enhanced by a few drinks instead of being a shitshow that I couldn't remember in the morning.

Big Victory: Control
I had no idea how much cravings/obsession about alcohol absolutely CONSUMED me. I didn't have any anxiety at all about when I was going to get my first drink of the day. Normally my brain is just screaming at me to have a drink by the time my daughter gets home from school. I usually would wait an hour or two but I'd be thinking about it the whole time. This week - nothing really. I had no problem waiting until the evening to have a drink (because I wanted it, not because I wanted to shut up that stupid anxious craving in my head). I never had a drink before 6 or 7, other than sunday when we had an early dinner. I didn't get hit with a bolt of anxiety as soon as my drink was getting low. I could finish one and wait a while before I opened another one, and I felt like I could actually maintain a buzz (impossible for me, it's always a descent into serious drunkeness).

So of course I'd like to get my units down to a healthier level, and hopefully that comes with time, but just having this feeling of insatiable craving and anxiety about where my next drink is coming from dissolved away feels like a f***ing MIRACLE.