A little behind in posting week 21 progress. No changes during week 21. I was out of town and since I am almost out of Nal and no appointment for another week to get more, I only brought one pill. I figured I would drink on one night while out of town an AF the other. Well... first night I drank. Then the second we were invited to a friend's house (still out of town) and they were serving wine. I can't believe I caved in knowing I was doing it with no Nal! I had two drinks and then stopped. Can someone tell me what kind of damage drinking one time without Nal will have?

WTE - Thanks! I will definitely be more careful in the future. In fact I am going to order some extra pills online just to make sure I always have some. Plus, I never know when I go back to the doctor if she will decide to cut me off. So far she has gone along with this, but I can't guarantee that she will keep on writing scripts for me. Sticking to the golden rule from here on out...

Hi Cali
Snap!
I was out for lunch on sat and actually took a couple of sips of wine before i realised i hadn't taken my Nal - i had no nal in my purse cos i had a delay in getting my last order and had used up my emergency stash. I went ahead and finished the glass- but wierdly i had no urge to drink more. This is a record for me when lunching with this friend- i usually always have to leave the car and taxi home no matter how often i resolve to be good. what was wierd was i didnt get the old endorphin rush- i was very self conscious noticing my physical reactions, expecting any minute to want to guzzle down my wine but it didnt happen. All i can think is that maybe there was a residue of nal in my system from the night before.
Looks like it doesn't do any harm from what WTE says. I know it is hard to keep the faith at this point but it does look like you are making progress.

Hard to believe I am starting week 26 now. Would love to say that I am seeing changes, but not just yet. I will still forge ahead with my nal and know that my day is coming. I definitely felt that my units were increasing just a little bit over the past month or so (even though I posted my numbers about the same average, over all), but now I seem to be about what I would call my "usual" amount of consumption. The increase was very small, but it did worry me that it had inched up just a bit and wasn't gradually coming down like a lot of people experience. Again, I am 48 and have been at this for a lot of years so I am being patient that it is going to take longer for me to get to the cured list.

Well after looking over my consumption I realize that I am drinking more in the last several weeks than I have posted. so I have edited my numbers. Although I am not happy about that, I am hoping this is the normal upswing before something really happens. Otherwise I am still taking the Nal one hour before and really have nothing more to report than that. Thanks for all the encouragement!!

week 27 over. No changes. Just posting my numbers for now. Still looking for the checkered flag. Rooting for all of us!! I know we will make it!

Hi Calikime,

This is my first post to you.

Thanks for your posts, it will keep me from expecting too much too soon.

You know how I make sure I'm always covered? I keep a bottle in the car and a bottle in the medicine cabinet....Its worked to date....Best to you, Jim

Same thing - different week. No changes to report. Thanks Jim for your reply. I sure hope something is coming around that elusive corner....

Hi calikime, never posted to you before, but you're right it's just around the corner can't see it right now but it's coming. I'm cheering for you

Corkit

Ok Folks! Finally Calikime has some news to report. First of all I wrote on one of the threads that I wanted a "buddy" to help motivate me. I am in the closet at my house as far as my drinking so I wanted someone to share goals with, etc. Someone on this board pm'd me and wanted to be my buddy. For the last 31 weeks I have kicked back and expected Nal to not only take away my cravings but to take away all my habits. I felt like all this time it has not done anything. But in reality I think the cravings were waning but my habits were in full force. So, I wanted to try and do something about my motivation to try and move the process along. I am not very good about motivating myself too much, so I felt I needed someone to help prod me along or at least share my goals with. So I have found a "drinking buddy" here on this forum to help me. So for the first time I have had two AF's in a row. After that I was worried that I would do as I usually do after a night of AF.... go overboard the next night! But I made a goal that I would not finish my usual bottle and then start to dip into a second. Instead I would stop short of that first bottle. Well last night I was able to accomplish that goal as well. I truly think that those of us old timers might need something extra to add to our program. For me I need something to motivate me to start making some goals and stick with them. I realize I will fail and have to get up and start over, but I need something nonetheless. We both have talked about taking baby steps which I think is important. It is so easy for me to make one or two goals and then totally backslide. So I am taking it slow. But I do know that I just cannot only rely on Nal to do it all for me. Nal has done it's work (and continues to do so) but I need to do something also to help things along. So that is my update for this week. I will say that making these goals have been easier than they would have been without Nal or so it seems right now.