Week 9: Marching on; holding steady. Wine is still delicious. It was a thirsty sort of week. A couple of nights I could easily have said "the heck with it" and plowed on past two or three drinks all the way back to my normal full bottle, but was able to talk myself into stopping. Usually the thought of stopping is worse than the reality of it. AF day still nowhere in sight. I'm certain one will arrive in the next few weeks, probably unannounced.

Graphtime:

Hi PV, Really nice graphs - and definite progress! You're probably right: your first AF day will just sneak up on you. I look forward to hearing about it.

PV,

It's great that you are able to stop at a few glasses. How long do you crave another glass after you tell yourself no? I usually need to leave the scene of the crime if I tell myself 'no more'.

Seems like your progress is coming along fast - that's awesome!

Until I go to bed! I drink r-e-a-l s-l-o-w to make sure I end up "finishing" with less than an hour to bedtime.

Well PV although my geography of the US is crap I'd say you look like you have maybe just left Nevada on your metaphorical journey!

That's an excellent approximation if I could extrapolate from progress so far. But if I assume a three-month journey, I figure I'm probably stopping in for a microbrew in Denver, Colorado about now. And looking at crossing the Rocky Mountains next! It's all good, though.

Week 10: "Steady as she goes, helmsman."

After a couple weeks of progress, the realist in me was preparing for a spike or backslide this week, but it never came. I'm happy as a clam that my units are inching down and I am getting very close to my target levels. Still no AF days in sight, but I am not at all worried. Even if I plateau out for a month or two right where I am - or again, if a temporary spike occurs - I am confident that the final drop will eventually happen.

In terms of what the experience is like in my case at this point, Craving made my update for me, in this post offering support to WTE.


Bingo. To that I would add that I am no longer obsessing or even in a hurry to take my Nal so I can start. I can wait until dinnertime to pour my first glass, and there's usually still some left when I'm done. I occasionally pine for a beer at lunchtime on the weekend, but I'm "saving my units" for dinner. This means I'm still thinking about alcohol more than I'd like, but it's most definitely tapering down. I'm now able to actually carry out the internal negotiation and deliver on it.

Thanks to being able to follow along after the well documented experiences of other generous members here, I don't have much to offer that would be news to anyone.

I guess for myself it has been helpful to recalibrate in my mind what might be meant by the concept that the method works without need for willpower. For me the learning has been that it is requiring *effort* - which is not really the same thing as willpower. In my case, I guess I am consciously trying to "drive" my numbers. At least at this point I have to stop after my second glass (or before I pour it, so as to plan the rest of my evening) and try to make a conscious decision that "this is it - this will be my last glass tonight." And when it's done, it takes some small effort to make myself go to the kitchen and wash the glass and put it to dry, and grab a sparkly water to see me through the rest of the night. Once I am over that tiny, tiny hump, I am good to go ... I don't revisit the decision for more than a moment or two, and am happy with it and myself. It does not take any "willpower" to carry on with it, but it did take an effort to make the effort ... if that makes *any* sense at all! Pre-TSM, I would find myself back in the kitchen, grabbing another glass, and saying, "Oh well, maybe tomorrow ... " In the past week, there were two nights I'd given myself permission to go to three units, but after two I decided to make the tiny effort to see if I could stop even earlier ... and I did.

Steady as she goes, helmsman.

Charts:

Fantastic. Yes, Dr. Eskapa said in respose to a question here that cutting back is fine if yu can manage the craving. I agree completely that the ability to cut back is remarkable progress. Gaining control is what we seek and you're getting it! Here's hoping for continued progress.

Well done PV great news. I am interested in the approach you outlined and might try it. I don't drink everyday as a rule anyway and am at the stage of never being able to predict when i start whether i will be disinterested in more than one or two or drink a bottle.

It's worth a try

At this stage my main goal is to simply not regress. So I set myself a weekly target that is the same as last week so I know how many units I have to "play" with. I am a daily drinker, so I know that at my current level I'll have some 2-unit days and some 3-unit days. On any given day I'll tell myself, "If I can 'bank' a unit by staying under today's ration, I can 'spend' it tomorrow and have an extra!" I'm finding that when tomorrow comes, my natural limit is getting to be what my current consumption is anyway (my tolerance is definitely lowering) and that I'm unlikely to 'spend' my credit from the previous day. That's how I nudged down just a couple units for the week.

Simply by counting, even if I 'bust my budget' on a given day, it's likely to be by a smaller amount than if I made no effort to pay attention.