It's been about 3 weeks since my last evening of uncontrolled drinking, 3 weeks of reading about The Sinclair Method, the book, this forum, the C3 forum, and a long wait for the naltrexone to arrive, but it came today. Yay! I'm excited to try this.

I was not drinking at all for about 2 weeks. Then last week I tried some very controlled drinking, one small (as opposed to my usual two large) glasses of wine. And then being careful not to let that turn into a bottle of wine.

And now I'm looking forward to combining careful drinking with the naltrexone. But not tonight. I have a colonoscopy tomorrow so there is no drinking tonight.

Curing my drinking problem is my first priority, but I'm also planning to use this extinction process on my sugar/flour addiction, so I'll be recording that journey here as well.

I'll start with the half pill, as everyone suggests. I'm looking forward to seeing how I respond to the naltrexone. Crossing my fingers that I'm a fast responder.

Valerie

Congratulations on your launch, Valerie!

Be sure to have a bit to eat and take the Nal with a full glass of water. Will you have the next day off so you can be at home in case the side effects are hard to handle?

Good luck to you Valerie. You have the right attitude for this to work. The pill by itself will, right off the bat, effect your consumption of alcohol, but you have to be an active participant in the process of extinction to ultimately achieve your goal. When I started TSM last summer I didn't read this forum; didn't read all these different outcomes and experiences people had. I just read Eskapa's book, got a physical at my Dr's, got a prescription from him, and just went full speed ahead. I think I felt a little nausea from taking 50 mg right away but nothing too bad, and my drinking was cut way down. My wife said I was cranky several times the first few weeks, and I attributed that to either the Naltrexone itself or maybe it was because I wasn't bombed all the time and was more in tune with what was going on around me and I was annoyed with things. Whatever. First and foremost, I had my drinking under control, and gradually my extinction sessions became just that; merely self improvement with very little enjoyment of alcohol. So I just stopped drinking completely, weighing the cost/benefits of partying, with the tremendous feeling of well being from sobriety. And sobriety won out big time.

Welcome Valerie - I hope your procedure goes well for you today. The Nal is a great tool - and I wish you well with it. It would be great if you were a fast responder - at times I thought it was NEVER going to work for me. The main thing is to never drink without it, and always, always, wait the (at least) hour! Post as much as you can as that also helped me too - the support and friendship here is great!

Hugs, Maggie

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the support and advice.

I hadn't thought about having the next day off in case side effects are bad. I could wait until Friday night to take my first pill and then I do have Saturday relatively free. I'm not sure I'll want to drink tonight anyway.

I know that folk mean well when they say to have the next day off or to be at home because SE's might be bad, BUT I think that if you expect SE's then you will get them - do not get me wrong, I know that some here suffer badly - but I have never looked up SE's of meds because if I do, then I might get them - if you follow! When I first took nal, no-one went on about SE's much - and I took a half a tab with food in my tummy. I had slight nausea but that was it - maybe I was lucky but I just think that we need to downplay the chances of SE's a bit! I DO know some people have bad SE's but they are the exception not the rule .....

Hugs, Maggie

It's true, Maggie. Most don't have a problem with it, but it is fairly standard procedure to take care when you're starting a new medication. If one does have an uncomfortable reaction to the Nal, it's just easier to be safe at home. There are the odd instances like nzspeak and barry.

Valerie, Nal blocks opiates too, including coedine, oxycodone, etc, so review any other meds you might have taken recently to see if there's any opioid content as taking Nal with such medications in your system could be quite dangerous indeed. If you take an opiate after taking Nal, it simply won't have any effect.

But yes, Maggie's right. Some people take Nal and think they've only taken a sugar pill, they really don't notice any difference at all, except all of a sudden they don't want to drink as much. From what I've seen, most of those that do have side effects get only mild ones and they're done with in a few days, though they can last for a couple of weeks.

Good luck Val!

So, I have a bit to report!

Friday Night - I took my first Nal Friday evening. Friday night is pub night for my husband and I, we meet the same group of friends for dinner and drinks. I took 25 mg (half a pill) about 90 minutes before I had my glass of wine. I might be over-reporting here, but want a frame of reference if I look back later. I didn't notice an appreciable change in desire for the glass of wine, maybe a little less than usual. The first thing I noticed was that the wine smelled odd, musty. I'm not sure if that was my imagination or what. The wine tasted normal though. I paid attention to that little rush of pleasure I normally feel taking the first sips. I still felt it, maybe slightly lessened but not significantly. It was a large glass of wine, 9oz, I drank it slower than usual, still felt the effects becoming somewhat tipsy but not much. On a scale of 1-10, the temptation to have a second glass was low, maybe a 3, easy to say no and switch to club soda for the night. No discernible side effects.

Saturday - I took a full nal Saturday afternoon (again no side effects - yay!) and then met a friend for wine and a visit. We split a bottle of wine. It was about 2-3 hours after taking a nal. Again, noticed a small odd smell to the wine. Again, no discernible change in how the wine tasted or felt or my desire to have it.

Often drinking that much will trigger a desire to keep drinking, to go out and buy more wine. It did here, too. Later I stopped to pick up another bottle of wine for home even though I've been thinking it's a good idea to not have wine at home (hoping the lack of availability would help me cut back). I didn't drink any more, partly because my husband was home and I didn't want to drink in front of him. The desire to drink quickly went away though, very soon I wasn't thinking about it at all.

Sunday - today - I went to spin class this morning at 8am, about 20 hours after my last nal. I hope that's enough time to not be inadvertently messing with my enjoyment/endorphins from working out. Good workout. I do workout 4-5 times a week so I want to make sure I'm not working out within a nal window and leaving as much time as possible after taking nal each time. Not sure if I will be drinking tonight, but I still have that bottle I bought yesterday, so I may have a glass with dinner tonight.

I do have a question, I'm sure everyone's experience is different, but the thing I've really been noticing lately is the anticipation of that first drink. I really look forward to it, the thought is with me a lot through the day. So, independent of taking the nal at first, just sitting here, thinking about the possibility of drinking tonight, part of me really is looking forward to it and my thoughts will come back here over and over today. Do you find that constant thinking/looking forward to your next drink goes away? Early in the journey? Later?

Glad to hear the SE's aren't an issue for you, Valerie!

Yes, the anticipation goes away further down the road for most folks. That's part of the craving and the craving is what you're responding to with the Nal and a drink an hour later. Your brain has the ability to compel you to drink. It remembers how to move you along the individual steps that culminate in that first drink by giving you little rewards of dopamine each step along the way. As the Nal slowly erases the endorphin reward you get from drinking, your brain will slowly discard the routine that moves you step by step towards getting that glass in your hand. A good mindfulness exercise might be to watch for those prods, because they happen in an unconscious part of the brain and usually just run right under your nose without much notice from your conscious brain.