I just wanted to pop in and give everyone a warning. I wasn't active on this forum but followed it when I began TSM. I started taking Nal last September, and noticed effects immediatly. I used it to success but was stupid in not ordering my replacement NAL or having it on hand always. But never for extended periods. I would drink off the NAL. Then, I decided that due to nal-overs and a belief that only half the dose, or worse, a quarter, would work...and that was even OK. Then the last two-three months, I decided to stop taking it. No reason why, just stopped. That was a bad idea. I just recently went on a 5 day blackout bender, the worst I have ever experienced...and Am now finally recovering from that. I plan on going cold turkey as I have no desire to repeat this but have ordered Nal just in case and will continue TSM after I get my blood checked to make sure my liver is safe. I'm only 28 and I don't want to lose my life to this thing. But this being said....I know NAL works. It was working. Take the pill, wait the hour...thats all you need. Thanks

Thanks for that, Ellpo! More than a few have fallen into that trap. Unfortunately, if people respond to Naltrexone, it's often because there is an exaggerated response to the endorphins that alcohol releases. That never goes away. Drinking off Nal can be an especially big risk for bingers, as the blackouts are not so far away as one might think.

Is there anything I can do? If I drink again in the future as Sadly I probably will..will following the protocol yield better results or is it a try and see?

I backed out ON nai plenty of times? Just not as frequently or as intense and no desire to carry on the next day. Off nal turned into 3-5 day binges

This is just a general tendency that I've seen, Ellpo. Bingers starting TSM often find that the blackouts become history and later that they stop drinking everything in the house (again, my observation). Your results may have to do with lowering your dose of Nal, but still you got an improvement in the situation. I guess that avoiding the blackouts has a fair bit to do with conscious control, which is one of the things that gets lopped off in bingers because alch numbs the frontal lobes where conscious response originates. One of the jobs of the Cingulate is to tell us when something's going wrong, we're doing something wrong, "Danger, Will Robinson, danger!!!", that sort of thing. The Anterior Cingulate is the interface that the frontal area uses to view what's going on in the Cingulate, like you'd use a LCD screen to view what's going on in your computer. If your frontal lobes are numbed, you're going to have a hell of a time acting on that information, but the brain will gladly give you hell for your behavior the next time you're in a position to listen to it (as you recover from the binge).

My guess is that TSM helps bingers stay out of that danger zone by making them aware of when they're crossing the line. But that's just supposition on my part, I'll have to tap a binger sometime and ask them about it. I was a daily drinker and rarely (if ever) drank to blackout. We just seem to have that limit built in. For me, it was when I started careening off the walls and found myself on the edge of the "whirlys", a condition that I'd avoid at all costs. Also, this is just what's largely true from what I've seen and what I can piece together. There are always exceptions.

Yup and Dr. Eskapa warns us of this very thing happening in the book. Even if you are so called 'cured' you always have to take Natlrexone if you drink. For me personally, I started TSM almost a year and a half ago and I have not once from the very first dose of Naltrexone had a blackout and it was a common occurrence prior to that, in fact every time I drank.

Only once since I started TSM did I drink without it and that was because I forgot it when I traveled one day. That was about a year after doing TSM and I only had my normal 3 beers and was fine. But that's not unusual either from what they state in the book. IF you are cured you can go back full on alcoholic in about two weeks of drinking.

So yes heed this warning.