How's he feeling today??

Hi nmarie33,
I have been reading this post backwards and trying to make sense of it all. What may be going on is an internal conflict. Many of us experiences a revulsion to alcohol in the beginning. We called it the "honeymoon". If someone were in need of detox and took Nal and experieced the revulsion, they may be stuck between the proverbial Rock and Hardspot. The body is craving alcohol but they feel a revulsion.


I would not be too concerned in that the honeymoon is short-lived. After that, the focus is on the golden rule.

Well the doctor told him to stop taking nal. He took the last 25mg dose Sunday afternoon, and here we are on Tuesday and he's still feeling really weird from it (although much better). I guess he is just super sensitive to it...after a week the side effects were still incredibly strong for him.

I don't know what we can do now. I don't see any good options with as much hope as the nal would provide. Would it even be worth trying a 1/4 dose to see if the effects are so bad? Right now he's saying that he wants to just try tapering down on his own, but even though that would be wonderful I've heard it so many times before and then we end up back on this roller coaster ride. I just don't know what to do. We are both SO disappointed.

If he's willing to try a quarter tab or even less and titrate up very slowly it would be worth trying. It's certainly better that tapering off alcohol. Without nal, he eventually will experience Alcohol Deprivation Effect and just end up drinking more.

You are a kind and compassionate partner.

The deprivation effect is what I fear, and it explains the pattern I've seen before. At this point I think we'll try to wait until the weekend when we don't have to do anything in particular and try a 1/4 tab. I messed up cutting some of the tabs in half so some halves are pretty small, so I'll start by halving the smallest pieces for him. He is so motivated to make this work - it's just devastating that it is so difficult. I really hope that he can acclimate if we go more slowly.

If it were myself I would try to acclimate myself to the nal. Brutal as it might be, my life is on the line. Alcohol is going to kill me anyway. BUT that really is just me, I feel for your situation. There could be something else going on I suppose. I would try to read the fine print of the literature and see if I could find any cases where naltrexone has caused anyone harm. I know for a fact that there are no reports of nal ever causing liver failure, but thats not what were dealing with here.

Then I would rough it out.

As we who have had the initial side effects know, nal packs a powerful punch. But is the lowest-schedule of cotrolled substances and Eskapa hopes it will one day be OTC.

I'm really glad to see you're still posting nmarie, I've been thinking about you both and wondering how it was going for you.

I agree with everyone else who has said something similar; if it was me, I would definitely try to titrate the nal up from a very low dose, and as slowly as was necessary to be bearable. The side effects are very strong for some people - I was actually scared to take my fourth dose and actually almost gave up at that stage, but now a couple of weeks on I hardly notice.

At the same time, as you are so concerned about the side effects, have you contacted Dr Eskapa to ask his opinion? It's a wonderful opportunity at this site to be able to put questions to him.

Rooting for you both

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Hi all,

For the past 3 days my BF has taken a 12.5mg dose of nal. The first day didn't seem bad at all. The second day, I messed up and gave him a dose on an empty stomach. The effects were very strong and very bad for him. Today, he started feeling bad withdrawal (he's probably cut down consumption by 5 or more shots per day) so he decided to take a prescription the doc had given him for withdrawals...well, that knocked him out for most of the day and made him feel horrible. He had a 1/4 dose of nal about an hour ago and of course feels like hell, but it's hard to say which drug that is coming from. And then of course there is the issue of alcohol withdrawals (?) making him feel like hell.

Basically, it has been 2 full weeks of this and he is still really not functional in society. Everyone keeps saying that the nal side effects will go away, but I don't see it happening, or if it is there are so many other factors that we really can't see a difference. And at this point I am having to fight him to make him take it. What the hell. What do I do? He is probably going to lose his job. I don't know if I should keep pushing for him to continue the nal, or work toward something else. He can't possibly be the only person EVER to never acclimate to the drug, right? I just want this to work, like it has for everyone else.

Hi nmarie, thanks for the update, but so sorry things are still tough for you both.

He really is sick, so can he not be signed off work for a few weeks by his doctor?

Also, it doesn't strike me as very wise that he should be going into withdrawal. He should be taking the nal then drinking on it, even if it's less than normal. I know myself, withdrawal can be a very unpleasant thing, and that was even with dedicated medical treatment (as an in-patient).



I would think it extremely unlikely. I really think you should contact Dr Eskapa and seek his expert opinion on all this.

Wishing you all the best

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