Well I am now into week two! My first week on Nal was rough, but thanks to the help I got from others posting their experience with side effects, I am doing much better. I definitely experienced a lot of nausea and some headaches the first week. I started off at 25 mg. and then cut that in half for a few days because the side effects were so strong. The side effects diminished over a few days and I went back to 25 mg. Last night I took a dose in between the 25 and 50 and seemed to do fine. I plan to move up to 50 mg over the next few days and hope the side effects stay away. I am thankful for all the advice here because I may have given up otherwise not knowing you have to stay with it and let your body get used to the medicine. Cutting back on the dose for several days definitely made a difference for me though.

Good going Calikime, you are on your way

There is no way I could have started on the full 25mg then up to 50mg either- although now when I take it I don't feel a thing.

Great news! You're on your way. Keep us posted.

My second week was better than week one in terms of the nausea and headache. I took the advice of others and decided to take it slow and not rush into 50mg since I am so sensitive. I am now on I guess you would say 38 mgs give or take. I cut the pill in half for 25 mg and then cut the other half again and take one of the cut pieces along with the 25. Hopefully by next week I can finally go up to 50 mg. I also didn't do a good job of really writing down how much wine I drank, so I want to start doing that from now on. I guess I don't have anything else to post at the moment, just looking forward to not feeling any effects from the Nal and being patient with the results!

I thought I would post an update since I haven't done one in awhile. I hadn't posted my progress lately since things are pretty much the same. But then again, that is normal for this point in the progress. I am in week six. My intake is the same, but I am taking the Nal one hour before I drink, every evening. I was very uplifted by reading Springriders progress. I can't wait to reach that point also!

I did notice the question from LaBear for Dr. Eskapa regarding the Klonopin. I also take the same .5 mg. dose as LaBear and want to hear what is said about that. I must have missed reading about that on the posts here. I hope it doesn't have too much affect on how the Nal works, but would like to have the facts so that I can decide whether to try and go off it completely. I did purchase a device called the Alpa Stim SCS, which is a Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulator. At about the same time as I started using it, I had run out of my Buspirone (another anti anxiety med I was on), and wasn't able to obtain a refill for the medication for a week. But by the time I got the refill I just tried not taking it at all, and so far (after three weeks), I do not feel I need it at all. I am not sure whether the Alpha Stim was the reason or it was just a coincidence. I say that because it takes several weeks to see results with the Alpha Stim and I had only just started using it a few days. Anyway, if the Klonopin is definitely something I should not be taking while on the Naltrexone, I may try to get off of that. I hope I am not getting too off topic here, but I do know many others on this site have anxiety related issues as I do. Anyway, I am excited that we have this board to keep on encouraging each other and to stay the course. I am glad I am not alone.

Calikime, thanks for the post. Nice to know we are not alone. I have heard about these devices. Wondering if you could tell me where you got it and a little about how it works. You can pm me here. If you are going to go off of the Klonipin, by all means do it gradually, try and cut the pill in half and do that for a week. It is strong medicine and if you have been on it any length of time it has an addiction quality to it, be careful!

Well I haven't written for some time in my progress thread. One reason is that the weeks went by with really no change in drinking patterns. I would chime in on other threads, but haven't posted back here. I am now starting week 19. Like many who are ahead of me, this gets to be a time where you can get very discouraged because it doesn't seem like anything is really happening yet. But the advice has always been to hang in there because the 3 - 4 months is really just a minimum, so I know I need to be patient. I am a daily drinker who drinks about the same every night. On Friday though I drank much more than usual. Consequently I woke up Saturday feeling pretty bad. At that same time I had written on a different thread asking for advice about whether or not I should be putting effort into cutting down, or just simply go on as I was doing (which was take the nal, wait and hour, then drink as I usually do ie: as much as I want). I decided to try and put some effort into cutting back and/or doing an AF day, just to see how it would go. Of course I decided this the day after drinking so much, so trying to do an AF day was pretty easy. I felt so bad that I didn't want to drink anyway. The next day I still felt kind of bad (maybe something else was going on since I was having stomach problems), but I thought I would try and do another AF. Well, I did get through it but it wasn't easy like the night before but I wasn't white knuckling it either. I made it nonetheless so I feel good about that. Last night I tried to cut back, but probably drank about as much as I usually do. Anyway, my plan is to keep trying to cut back but not beat myself up if I don't accomplish that. It seems like some of the ones who have had success feel they really turned the corner when they got below a certain number of units. So I am hoping that if I can start to inch my way down in unit consumption that the elusive switch will be waiting for me too!

I was hoping week 19 would be a turning point, but it basically was the same. So today starts week 20. I did have one night that was very successful in that when I got home from work I didn't feel like drinking, so I thought about going AF. But then even though I changed my mind and took the Nal, I was able to drink just one very small glass of wine and then stop. Mind you, that was all that was left in the fridge! But, I could have opened a bottle of red (which I don't really care for) if the cravings got too much, but they didn't. For some reason when I seem to have a relatively good night, I seem to drink more the following night. Not sure if others experience this, but it is definitely a pattern. Like I am trying to make up for what I didn't have the night before or something. Not much else to report, but I am getting hopeful that the long awaited switch will be flipped for me in the coming weeks! The switch may be further out there for me since I am a 25 year daily drinker. I know there has been discussion on the board about those of us who have been drinking much longer that it may take longer to get to the finish line.

Hi calikime,

I wouldn't worry about weekly numbers - just focus on the times you've had a decrease in the craving level. That is what matters, because it proves that TSM is working. I think I also sometimes drink more after a day of light or no drinking. It's like I'm proud of myself, feeling great, so I want to PARTY! Celebration will always be a trigger for heavy drinking with me, and it's OK if I want to drink at those times - I just want to get to the point where I drink less when I indulge. I'm getting there - slowly but surely, and I know you will too.

Ok week 20 behind me and now into week 21. It's hard because your expectations begin to really rise at this point. I know so many have been cured at the week level I am at, but I know my day is coming. I did have one evening where I did as I did the week before - take the Nal and try and just drink a small amount of wine. I did this because I thought of doing an AF night, but decided I wanted to also do a "treatment" night but just have a little wine and see if I could manage that. I was able to do it which was great. All the other nights were about the same as usual. So nothing else new to report. I haven't noticed much of a decrease in craving per se, but that may be just around the corner. Again, I am one of the 25 plus year nightly drinkers, so I may take a while longer.