Bob, I'm sorry to hear this. If SR were here he might say something about the non-linear progression of TSM and might speculate that "the beast", while facing impending death, is pulling out all the stops, including deeply-held triggers, in its desperate effort to survive. You will have to defeat these remaining, stubborn triggers before declaring "victory" but your progress to date shows conclusively that you will slay the beast.

I know it's hard but try not to get too discouraged.

Signed,

SR's baby brother

Bob, I hear you. As you'll see from my post, I've had some confusing spikes in cravings recently, and I'm even a little further along than you. As WTE and Nick said - this is the beast desperately trying to confuse and defeat you. On the contrary - YOU will be victorious in this battle. Tell the beast to F*** OFF!

I can't explain why, but that made me laugh out loud!

Good advise folks! I would address each one of you, but something came up that made me stop drinking altogether.

I came down with some kind of illness yesterday. Feeling sick has always been an "anti-trigger" for drinking. So yesterday when I started feeling sick, all cravings vanished and I easily had an AF day. I continue to be ill today so today will be AF too. Who knows how long this virus will last. Until then I am dry. It may be a blessing in disguise.

Bob

Didn't feel well yesterday as I stated in my previous post. I slept most of the day and had no thought of AL. Likely today will be an AF day too in celebration of Q's victory!

Bob

A less smug Bob, survives week 19 with another spike in drinking, but a declining peak as can be seen from the graph below. Talk about a roller coaster ride!!!

Bob

Well done, Bob! I have been following your progess for some time now and have been very inspired by your honesty and perseverance. I am a fellow benzo user and my progess thus far has been fairly similar to yours (I started May 1st). Do you mind if I ask what program you used to create your line graph? I have been keeping a detailed drinking log since I started tsm but at this stage in the game I think it would be helpful to track my progress on a linear graph. It might help me focus on the "whole picture" rather than the spikes in my drinking pattern.
Allie

The roller coaster ride of TSM is probably the most difficult part of this treatment. It is so easy to get down on yourself during those peaks. You are right there Bob. You had something that needed extinguishing last week, so all you can really do is ride it out and let NAL do its thing.

Q

I use MS Excel 2003. The graphing functions are fairly comprehensive, but sometimes the cool features are well hidden such as the linear average and the polynomial average. If I look just at my numbers, I cannot see a clear trend. It is only when I graph it that the true downward trend is obvious.You can't look at this treatment as being successful or not on any single particular day. It's like figuring out the climate of a location by picking a single day and looking at the weather for that day. It is only when you look at it for a number of days or weeks or even months can you truly see the big picture. Yes, last week must have had some new daily trigger that needed extinguishing. Then when I felt under the weather those 2 days, I stopped drinking altogether and haven't had a desire since then. I guess the Naltrexone accomplished its extinguishing for that trigger. I have a different week this week, so we'll see how it goes.

Bob

Thanks I'll give it a whirl