All of my biggest fears, from going loopy to dying, resurrected themselves and lingered around all day and all night which produced a desperate need in me to escape. I didn't even try and not drink, I just knew I would or had to and would gleefully take my naltrexone every night. My mother got to see all of my drinking first- hand and asked, "tell me again what this method is you are doing to cure your drinking?" She said it with such worry in her eyes that I momentarily thought of telling her that I was already cured and I was simply cutting loose on vacation and would be abstinent when I returned home.
To make matters worse, I voraciously read and finished Dr. Olivier Ameisen's book, The End of My Addiction, in which he dismisses naltrexone as a temporary fix at best and says the ONLY true cure for alcoholism, where addicts become indifferent to the substance, is the muscle relaxant baclofen. What the f---?? Anyway, after I finished the book, I studied Dr. Ameisen's jovial, laughing face on the dust jacket and decided to contact him because he makes no mention of The Sinclair Method. He also doesn't mention if naltrexone's inefficacy is due to it being used while abstinent. And as all we TSMers know, this is doo-doo! I will keep you posted on what Dr. A has to say when he writes back.
I now have 13 weeks under my belt (42 units this week) and I'm anxious to see what the future has in store for me.
Before naltrexone: 42-50 units per week • Week 1: 18units • Week 2: 32units • Week: 3: 39units • Week: 4: 49units • Week 5: 32units • Week: 6: 25units • Week 7: 27units • Week 8: 28units • Week 9: 34units, 1 AF day. • Week 10: 42units • Week 11: 44units • Week 12: 39 • Week 13: 42
Everyday Fabulousness
CIGGY
Unfortunate Umbles
YogaRemedy
6 comments:
Every alcoholic is different, but for what it's worth, I took baclofen daily for five months. I experienced precisely zero reduction in my cravings, and binged with exactly the same frequency and severity while on baclofen as before it was prescribed for me. I ended up hospitalized in life-threatening withdrawal just as often, too.
Baclofen is not nearly as well researched as naltrexone, and it is used only in conjunction with abstinence. I do know of an Italian study that showed good results, but with a relatively small number of test subjects. Baclofen therapy is far from medically proven to work, as of now.
What I do know is that slightly over three months of TSM is nowhere near long enough to be even close to certain it is not working for you. One acquaintance of mine online did not drop below the upper limits of moderate drinking for 21 weeks, and he did not become a light social drinker and consider himself cured for a full year. But he's cured now!
My drinking has dropped from between 11 and 14 units per day to between 9 and 7, after weeks of being very high. The advantage I have is that I know TSM is working because no matter how much I drink on a given night, I never find myself drinking round the clock day after day, as I always did every single time I picked up a drink before TSM. And I have not seen the inside of an emergency room for alcohol problems in five months. That is the record for at least the last ten years.
Uninstalling your addiction from your brain and nervous system will take months more. I'm hoping you stick with it for at least a calendar year. Roy strongly cautioned me about baclofen, and recommended I continue TSM.
My life is already vastly better than it was. I am living alone for the first time in my life, at age 46, and have had no trouble running my own life without my mom or a girlfriend to help me extend my periods of sobriety as long as I could before bingeing.
This is a very long road, especially for Americans like you and me who are conditioned to expect instant results on every front from birth. "Lose the fat in 30 days!" "Whiter teeth in just two weeks!" "Internet so fast you'll see videos before they're even shot!".
I hope you stick with The Sinlair Method long enough to get to the place where you do see big reductions in drinking. Your blog has already been instrumental in helping a lot of people, both as an introduction to TSM as well as a source of comfort and information and humor for people like me who are already using The Sinclair Method.
One more thing. I worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant in two different long-term care nursing homes in my mid-twenties. I was younger and stronger then, and was assigned a ten-patient set on a heavy care floor. I worked with residents with advanced Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's-related dementia, and stroke victims with partial paralysis. I was also a bath aide in an Alzheimer's unit.I was good at the work and my supervisor thought I had a "theraputic personality". The residents did like me, and I cared greatly about them and enjoyed their stories. But it can be very hard, and very frightening, to see up close what age and disease does to some people. I think this was the beginning of my atheism. I could not envision a "mysterious way" that justified allowing such suffering by a being who is supposed to be omnipotent, and believed to be able to do literally anything. And if god simply couldn't cure them, then he was not all-powerful. Either unable or unwilling; whichever it was, it was inexcusable if this invisible being actually existed. Ultimately, it made much more sense to think that all we humans have is each other. It made it even more imperative to help and comfort people, not less, if there was nobody home in the sky. Yet people still think we atheists don't care as much about our fellow human beings as religionists do. What nonsense.
ToxicGirl, I too have had the experience of TSM and although I practiced it for at least one year I still continue to have my daily intake of AL.
It has destroyed my life, I have now lost everything dear to me, my husbands love, my beautiful home, my fabulous camp property, my entire financial security and myself respect and my very own inner self love.
I really enjoy your blog and I so much admire our ability to keep it all
together, I am jealous and wish I could be so functional.
As it is with my pending divorce, I am so very sad, lonely and depressed.
ART (not sure how to post so I choose anon.)
Thankfully I do have friends, and family.
I thank you so much for the brief moments of warmth I feel from reading and enjoying our wonderful writings.
ART, PLEASE don't give up hope! My heart goes out to you (and it is breaking for you, too). You mentioned that you did TSM for a year, so I'm assuming you are not taking naltrexone before drinking? I've heard of cases that take as much as 16-18 months and that may very well be YOU! TSM works for 78% of the people who try it and this success rate might even be higher because there are people in the studies that embark on TSM and then become non-compliers--in other words, they don't follow the protocol! BTW, recently there was a woman with a REALLY bad case of alcohol addiction and it took her 18 months, but she made it and has lost TOTAL interest in alcohol! So, think of yourself as unique and different and special--TSM could still work for you, please don't give up! You are also going through an impossibly hard and sad period in your life and you may think nothing will be good or nothing will work which is totally understandable. But again (and I'm going to sound like a repetitive, annoying coo-coo clock), don't give up hope. You also are not alone, you have a big support group (me! who is sending you positive loving thoughts right now) and the gang over at the TSM forum. Hope to hear from you soon.
One more thing ART!!! Divorce isn't conducive to sobriety even for a lot of non-alcoholics; some people, alcoholics and others, drink a lot in response to emotional pain and psychological problems (Dr. Eskapa's book recommends psychotherapy in conjunction with naltrexone + drinking for maximum benefit).
Talking through your pain, fears, worries etc. might help reduce your drinking. And your drinking could have a lot more to do with emotional duress than with craving. Naltrexone is amazing but it isn't a magic bullet that can fix everything although I wish it could!
Post a Comment