This WILL work - don't let high numbers get to you. Trust me, I've been there. Sometimes I still have a random night of drinking a lot more than I wanted to, but it's all part of the process. For some of us, it's just going to take longer. I'm at 6 months and still slowly declining. Even in the book, it shows that numbers continue to decline even after 3 years! Just keep going and BELIEVE! You'll get there whenever you're supposed to - we all have our own schedule, even though we don't know where it ends.

Sure does seem like an incurable disease at week 14. My spike was at week 15; (your mileage may vary).

After my spike, drinking started to lose its luster and my desire waned. It was not an instantaneous "cure", but the next few weeks proved to me that TSM was actually working and ultimately it led me to the state where I was cured... something I never believed in my heart would actually happen... but it did.

Continue as you are and be patient. IT IS WORTH IT!!!

Bob

Forgive me for restating what you may have already heard, but IMO there MUST be another component in our drinking besides a simple addiction, if I can put it like that. How many of us have said we suffer from anxiety? Depression, Stress, work troubles, marriage troubles, relationship troubles, illness of all kinds?

So IMO we DO drink for reasons that are not really connected with addiction. If all your troubles are still with you how can you expect Nal to "cure" you of your addiction?

In my case, which is all I can speak of, I can now "feel" the specific triggers I have. They are all related to anxiety. The other day I was in the shower. The thought came to me that I have to go to my doctor for a prescription for rosacea. The thought of going to him brought on quite a bit of anxiety. THE FIRST THOUGHT THAT CAME INTO MY MIND AFTER THAT WAS "I WANT A DRINK."

This was a real wake up moment. Dig into what's causing you to NEED to drink, and work towards solving that part of your life - even if it takes a huge effort, and only happens very very slowly. IMO Nal will continue to work in your brain, but your habits, anxiety triggers, stressful situation will not abate until you eliminate them as well. Please don't think I'm unsympathetic because I'm very much in tune with your sufferings. But please make your approach a two pronged one. I'm very sorry that you have not been moving towards your goal steadily. Please don't give up.

Hi BGH,

I am in full support of what you have said and that's why I am digging into the reasons for my drinking as recently explained on my weekly thread. I think it's important to remember that TSM specifically targets the buzz that we get from drinking alcohol. In other words, TSM targets the release of endorphins. But, as Dr Eskapa has pointed out previously, alcohol is a "dirty drug" and it acts on several neurotransmitters in the brain - for example, GABA (associated with anxiety) and serotonin (associated with sleepiness). My feeling is that this goes some way towards explaining my lack of progress with TSM. I think I'm right in also saying that anyone with a medical history of anxiety or depression was excluded from the TSM clinical trials. In other words, the quoted 80% success rate would apply to a carefully-selected group of people; this is not necessarily representative of people in the real world.

D2M, I only offer my thoughts as factors that you may wish to consider. I am no expert in this field but, out of sheer desperation, I have read extensively on the subject of alcohol addiction in the hope of better understanding my plight. Please understand that I do appreciate your concerns entirely as I have now completed almost 32 weeks on TSM. I am particularly touched by your statement "But the last few weeks have been awful. Lots of external (not AL related) stress; and I can't cope without AL". I hope you don't mind my asking but, have you considered counselling/psychotherapy?

V.

Holy Cow, Virgil, if those with anxiety and/or depression were excluded do you think ANY of us would have been accepted ? I sure don't. From reading pages and pages of posts here I conclude (without prejudice!!) that we are a pretty anxious, depressed bunch!! So we just have to be strong ( ) and keep on keeping on. As you said: take the Nal...drink...try to fix what's wrong with your psyche, take the Nal...drink...= cure Virgil you seem to be taking a really active role in this process, as well as Nal + drinking = cure. Good for you. I'm going to have to do something too. I've been promising myself that I'll look into what makes me so full of anxiety = drink, but I'm quite loath to do this - it means digging up stuff and I don't know what I'll do with what I find. oh well....

Virgil, why do you think that people that had depression before tsm are in the group of the 20%? Is it something you read or heard from Dr. Eskapa that makes you think that? So what came first depression to make you drink or depression from drinking? It's sort of a catch 22 isn't it? We all seem to be here batting around all sorts of ideas trying to reach the same end and it can be all too frustrating. Why can't we have Dr. Eskapa on this board on a certain day and time and answer all these questions for us so we can have some relief on the direction that we're going? What do you think?

Hi BGH,

Firstly, I want to apologize in advance to D2M. I'm uncomfortable taking over D2M's thread. So, I'll keep it brief. For more information regarding the anxiety/depression issue, please take a look at viewtopic.php?f=15&t=516.

V.

Hi corkit,

As this is D2M's thread, I'll reply by PM.

V.

Hi drink2much, I'm really sorry to hear you're feeling so disillusioned, but I definitely wouldn't give up quite yet. Haven't there been quite a few of the 'cured' who had results at 20 weeks plus? And sometimes out of the blue, even when they never expected it to work? And the fact that you've had such strong feelings of an effect from TSM, even fleetingly, would definitely give me hope that something IS happening - just not as quickly as we would all hope for you.

I think there have been some questions to Dr E recently about how long to persevere with Nal, I hope we get some sort of answer. I'm fully behind WTE's hope that one of you longer-time TSMers will soon hit the magic mark, giving everyone here a much better real-life idea of timing.

<edit> here's a thread that I've just seen Virgil post a link to on another topic regarding timing:

http://www.thesinclairmethod.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=300

All the very best to you, fingers crossed for something soon

8