jerry,
thanks so much for your response to my question. i literally sighed with relief when i read it. i think i am totally guilty of overthinking everything these days . your response was refreshingly level-headed. i am glad that you are now enjoying lower levels and tsm success.

also, thanks to you jim for posting the response from sinclair. i was particularly interested in seeing that sugar is another endorphin responsive substance. i think i am going to try to extinguish this along with al. it might be hard to give up that bit of sugar in my morning coffee, but all in all i think it's worth a try. i don't want a repeat of my last sober experience when i craved sugar non-stop.

i am still very curious as to what the mechanism might be that causes some tsmers to have an immediate reduction in units and others to maintain higher levels for a long time before extinction. also, is there a higher success rate among one group or the other?
there i go again think think thinking.....
thanks all,
path

Probably many things, but studies have shown that some people respond more strongly to Naltrexone than others, for genetic reasons:

https://www.23andme.com/health/naltrexo ... -response/

So if you have those genes, you're in luck. If not, Nal may not work as well or at all

I so agree! The days I don't drink in a day I don't miss it and when I decide to be the designated driver I don't feel sorry for myself.

I feel it's important to take days off. Fortunately, I've never been one to drink everyday but when I was thinking the Nal would do it all so I might as well drink... I got drunk.

I notice when I don't drink for a couple of days and then do drink I drink moderately when I do.

-Eskapa

Does this mean I should go to AA meetings and buy a bottle of scotch on the way home?

Seriously, I think in my case, what Jerry said about "if there are cravings, then there is extinction to be done" (paraphrase) rings true at this point. I tried to have an af day the last couple of nights but started thinking about it. cooking dinner and drinking was a big trigger, and still is. so I think I have some more extinction in that area to do. I will still try AF days but I refuse to fight it too hard. If I have to fight cravings all the time, then TSM isn't working for me.

however, Eskapa's comments on having learned to drink after periods of deprivation make sense as well, and I have done that in AA. So that explains how BENTSM went from constantly drinking himself into the hospital to 2-3 beers a day for weeks at a time, then had a spike. DOMD also had a little spike after being "cured"

so I'll continue to try for AF days, and I've had a few, but I don't want to fight cravings, as that defeats the purpose of TSM in my mind. I guess I'm still not ready for he big drop. AL is firmly ingrained in my life, and has been since high school, so I think it will take longer for me to disassociate activities with drinking.
on a good note, when I gave in, I only had 3 or 4 where I would've had 8 or ten, so that's progress without fighting cravings at all

Like Minneapolisnick says Nal+AL+PATIENCE=Cure

I totally agree. In creating this thread, I just wanted to stress that *some* effort, *some* experimentation can be a beneficial thing.

I agree, It can...and it has for me a few weeks ago. It just didn't happen last week. I'll try again

Thanks for this, Nemo. (Just catching this thread as I haven't been reading the board regularly these past few months.)

The odd thing is that in the two weeks before I began TSM I was mostly AF, and had no problem having AF days. I had recently scared myself very badly with my blackout behavior (driving my car to another part of the neighborhood and leaving it there) and I preferred not to drink until I got the Nal because I was worried about what I would do if I did drink.

Once I went on Naltrexone I felt like I was "safe" to drink because even if I overdrank and even if I behaved badly, it was all part of the process necessary for extinction. So I haven't been putting forth effort to do anything but take the pill an hour before drinking. Well, I have also been making an effort not to drive drunk, but that's common sense. (I guess that is progress - common sense was sometimes overridden by a desire to drink, before.)

What I have noticed with no effort to taper off or have AF days over 5 1/2 months of taking Nal: no desire to drink in the morning or early afternoon, no desire to drink when I have to be performing at 100% for whatever reason (work, need to drive in bad weather), on the odd occasions when I buy a bottle of hard liquor (which I haven't for about 2 months) it stays in the house for a week or two rather than evaporating in 2 days. I drink mostly beer, some of it quite strong, and the numbers tend to be higher when I'm drinking the stronger stuff because I still haven't taught myself the fine art of sipping.

So I wouldn't say I have "no" results, I just don't have the results I'd like.

Trying to figure out when I could next do an AF day. There's a Belgian beer event at a local pub today that we're going to, so that's out. Tomorrow a friend's band is playing at a bar and I was thinking of going. But I could do AF Monday and Tuesday. I think I will try committing to that, telling my husband, and doing it. There is nothing scary about an AF day; I have plenty of snack food around if it's the calories I find myself missing. So. Planning for AF Monday and Tuesday. Will let you know how it goes.

Luna, since you haven't had an AF days in 6 months, maybe just start with one AF and see what happens.

But AF days are not the only way to experiment with effort. Since you are six months in, I think it's worth trying just one or two nights where you consciously try to stop at some given number: 3 beers, 5 beers, 10 beers, whatever seems like improvement to you. See how easy or hard it is. See if after 6 months of Nal you are drinking out of habit or actual cravings.

Good luck, and share how it goes if you feel like it.

I have done that, stopping at a certain number. It's easy if I start late at night. I've even managed to stop at 2 1/2 drinks on at least one occasion, which is moderate by some definitions.

But... I had an AF day yesterday! In spite of all sorts of stressors and "triggers." I brewed a batch of beer, something that usually calls for me to at least relax and have a couple beers once I've got the wort boiling. All I drank was water, tea, & V-8. Ate a fair bit too. It really is amazing how many of my calories I've been getting from beer. (I'm in the normal weight range, albeit at the top of it, not trying to diet but wouldn't mind if I lost weight - but not at the expense of being hungry and cranky late at night, so snacks were definitely in order.)

Meanwhile my husband has been in an incredibly foul mood - he's taking classes, trying to finish up a bachelor's degree after a long absence from both school and the workforce, and he's shocked at the high prices of textbooks and was ranting about that as well as various political things he'd read in the paper. I just ignored him for the most part and helped him where I could with figuring out which online textbook package he needed to buy for his chemistry class.

Went to bed about midnight, slept with the aid of a melatonin pill, got up at 6:30 to shovel the several inches of snow that had fallen overnight. When we were having breakfast after shoveling snow, my husband was continuing his rant on the high cost of higher education, and he said that the main factor in the increase in tuition etc. was the increase in health care costs for faculty and staff "such as quietly alcoholic librarians..." at which point I felt motivated to tell him I'd had an AF day the day before (I hadn't been going to tell him, seeing as how he hadn't noticed). (And I may be a health care timebomb waiting to go off, but my drinking has NOT cost me health-wise yet, except for possibly being a factor in my high blood pressure.)

Anyway. He asked if it had been a planned AF day and I said yes, and I mentioned having read this thread and decided that I just needed to plan. I also told him I planned today as an AF day, although of course what they called in AA "stinking thinking" is creeping in, telling me I "deserve" a drink after being so good for the last 24 hours or so.

Today will either be an AF day or a stop at 5 or fewer drinks day, because lately I keep having 6 or more. It'll certainly be AF until an hour after I get home, because my Nal is there (normally I carry it with me but I left it home in order to forestall any drinking I might do).

Luna, it's these little victories that lead to winning the war. This is definitely progress. Now you know you can have an AF day because you did it. It is no longer the unknown. Way to go!