so continues up and down.... ponder ponder why cant it always be down. Holidays mean that normal routine is skewed which mean the old side of me get there and says its ok to have a drink. So I end up having less af days.

It looks like with me that I will cut down my drinking with the AF days and not by changing what I have when I do. I guess I don't open that last bottle of wine like I did and I really wish I had an accurate record of my old drinking not the lies I used to write down, but I don't do moderation both in life/personality and not in drinking.

So all in all though it is lower... a lot lower... I'm happy

Pre TSM 30-45 un/wk 1af/wk us units
0 43/0 6 39/0 12 46/0 18 32/2 24 36/2 30 31/3 36 36/1 42 41/0 48 41/0
1 40/0 7 37/0 13 34/1 19 26/2 25 33/2 31 24/3 37 23/2 43 38/0 49 29/3
2 29/2 8 34/0 14 35/0 20 32/2 26 43/0 32 33/1 38 30/1 44 38/1 50 43/1
3 44/1 9 39/0 15 31/2 21 31/2 27 49/0 33 41/1 39 31/2 45 32/2 51 25/3
4 35/2 10 25/3 16 25/2 22 43/0 28 49/0 34 24/3 40 26/3 46 36/1 52 34/3
5 31/3 11 42/0 17 40/0 23 30/2 29 29/2 35 24/2 41 34/1 47 32/2 53 26/3

54 33/2 60 21/4 66 06/5 72 30/3
55 29/3 61 23/3 67 26/2 73 18/4
56 25/3 62 26/3 68 42/2 74 22/3
57 41/2 63 45/1 69 22/3 75 23/3
58 27/3 64 28/2 70 24/4 76 40/2
59 24/3 65 17/3 71 35/1 77 19/4

Nigel - yes, you do have progress - and you are having AF days now which is HUGE to me - it took me a LONG time before I could have one and yet look at you last week - 4 AF days! Your intake has gone down - so yes you are progressing! I am sorry that you do not feel as if you are a success but you are in a far better place than you were at the beginning. If it helps any - my intake stayed pretty much the same until all of a sudden, overnight, I just didn't want to drink. SO, that said, just keep on keeping on - I do think you will be fine.

Hugs, Maggie x

Nigelr,

I agree, and with me it is more about the habit of turning to alcohol for everything and not just the holidays, for old habits die hard.

I agree with Maggie, for you have made great progress (even if your tracking wasn't accurate pre-TSM).

Keep doing what you are doing for it is woking for you.

Jaba

Getting there, without a doubt! Your patience has served you well, Nigelr.

About the only thing I can think of to add in is to actively look for the soft spots in the habit as they show up, keep poking and prodding, testing...

The first thing I noticed (I'm a daily drinker, btw) is that I could put off the start time with not too much trouble. First it was only 30 minutes, that went forward and backwards, but now it's 2-3 hours from my 30 year habit of starting at 5pm. Another method I use is to keep the drink out of hand and out of sight. Again, I'd put it in the refrigerator (I'm a beer drinker) when I went out for a smoke and eventually left it in there longer and longer, while I got distracted by some other task. Not keeping the drink around me has paid off, but you may find your own way to "break up the habit" and discover another bit of indifference wherever it might show up. And the little bits of change add up over time, just like making that one little change of taking the pill an hour before you drink has added up.

There's a book I've been reading, "The Upward Spiral". On the face, it's about depression but in going through it, one finds it's much more about how we deal with anxiety and stress and how that often gets fobbed off onto the automatic, unconscious parts of the brain. Those parts just play a recording that "worked" in the past when we encountered anxiety or stress/conflict. It happens to be the same part of the brain that's involved in Alcohol Use Disorder (and similar disorders). It's an ancient part of the brain structure called the Striatum, it just operates on autopilot unless the prefrontal area steps in and interrupts the "playback" of the recording. When one brings the "mindfulness" strategy into TSM, it rousts the prefrontal cortex to jump in and have a say about the goings on and allows the opportunity to show the brain something it might like better. Well, might be worth a look, it gets good reviews on Amazon and GoodReads. You can probably find some previews on Amazon and Google Books and have a look through.

Other things that might slow the progress, benzodiazepines, some antidepressants (mainly SSRI's) seem to have positive or negative effect on drinking for some people, not at all for others, TSM or no TSM, it's just peculiar to the AD in question and the individual. Of course, if any of that is to be changed at all, the doctor has to be consulted first.

All that said, you seem to be getting to where you want to be so even if you change nothing, it's "head you win, tails it loses"! Keep on Rollin'!

thank you guys for your continuing input and attention. I will keep going as its a good discipline for me to put down number and have a chance to reflect every so often. Joe is coorect about keeping looking at triggers and brain pathways.. I have started the rubber band idea I read somewhere else, and ping my wrist each time I think about booze in a good way (my wrist gets very red!)

So since last time I have re ordered 100's of pills! I also went on a two week holiday walking in Germany with some old friends. I have done his for the last 5 years and with the same people so it is interesting to see how I cope in a high alcohol situation. It would be safe to say a couple of the guys drink far too much, and the other I always thought not too much (lets call him J); anyways over the last three years this has happened, I used to out drink J a lot, then last year 5 months into TSM I drunk about the same, this year I drunk far less than J, in fact whilst they enjoyed beers after a long walk I had coffee. My numbers were still large, however less. (average 50 units/week in 2015, 44 and 35 in 2016)

I am hoping that I continue to decrease drinking over the next year; however I am happier with where I am than 2 years ago.

Next time ill do some averages of the figure hit below!!

Pre TSM 30-45 un/wk 1af/wk us units
0 43/0 6 39/0 12 46/0 18 32/2 24 36/2 30 31/3 36 36/1 42 41/0 48 41/0
1 40/0 7 37/0 13 34/1 19 26/2 25 33/2 31 24/3 37 23/2 43 38/0 49 29/3
2 29/2 8 34/0 14 35/0 20 32/2 26 43/0 32 33/1 38 30/1 44 38/1 50 43/1
3 44/1 9 39/0 15 31/2 21 31/2 27 49/0 33 41/1 39 31/2 45 32/2 51 25/3
4 35/2 10 25/3 16 25/2 22 43/0 28 49/0 34 24/3 40 26/3 46 36/1 52 34/3
5 31/3 11 42/0 17 40/0 23 30/2 29 29/2 35 24/2 41 34/1 47 32/2 53 26/3

54 33/2 60 21/4 66 06/5 72 30/3 78 32/2
55 29/3 61 23/3 67 26/2 73 18/4 79 44/0
56 25/3 62 26/3 68 42/2 74 22/3 80 35/1
57 41/2 63 45/1 69 22/3 75 23/3 81 20/3
58 27/3 64 28/2 70 24/4 76 40/2
59 24/3 65 17/3 71 35/1 77 19/4

Thanks for the continued reports, Nigelr!

One trick that I just started using is to set my spreadsheet to calculate a running total for the week as I enter the daily numbers. It does give me a bit of pause for thought as I reach for that next beer, "do I want that beer or do I want to hit my number?". It's just another way to approach it, another chance to throw in a conscious "interrupt" into the process. I think your rubber band idea is great too. Another trick that I heard from an AA'er: H.A.L.T. - Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? Again, it interrupts the unconscious process and promotes conscious awareness. "Hungry" is a big one for me, I still deny it in favor of that first beer, so that's a good one for me to work on.

Nigel, you remind me of myself a little. I am much better off than I was, though perhaps not where I want to be. But I will take the progress, and yes I am much happier.

Be proud of yourself for hanging in there and thanks for coming back to share with us!!!

Newlife

well its been an age!

Something happened to my link to this website and I thought it had gone down.

I have been continuing over the last 6 months, as always ups and downs, I am not going to post each weeks units as I am over 105 weeks now and it makes a mess. here instead is a lovely graph



so as usual is going down, but very slowly. if I read this right my total lowering is from 35 units average to about 28 units, and I seem to be stuck there. Recently I have been taking more af days, these in the summer were few and far between so you can see from the last two months apart from one bad week I have been keeping at about 25 units.

Am I happy with that? yes I am. would I like it to be less? for sure.

I am unsure how long a time on TSM that you still should be seeing results and like many its not quite what I want.

Anyways I might not be very active here but I still log in once a week and catch up on people

Thanks for the update, Nigel! It's a long, slow road for you, but as long as you're getting results, stick with it.

The website was down for extended periods a couple of times and "thesinclairmethod.net" links might not work (as opposed to .com links).

Have you ever tried bumping the dose to 100mg for a week or so?

hello Joe,

I tried before with 75mg, and had results but for some reason best known to myself dropped back to 50mg (I was getting low on Nal I think).

So I am back up to 75mg now

I think my question would be, how long do you go on for as compared to actual change in your drinking before you think this isn't working enough? So for me if I was drinking 2x per week and having 5 units each time, I would be happy.. where as 4-5x per week and 28 units isn't happy.

Not sure what I would do if I wasn't doing TSM however.