Snap I hope you're recovered from your fall and that your sprain is healing well.

Your plan to add AF days sounds like a good one. Maybe a good way to get started is to try and plan them around an event where being AF would be beneficial.

Hey Snap, I think you're doing great. I don't consider your numbers up at all, in fact, they're really good. My 2 cents is ....you can't out smart this protocol. Don't you think Dr Sinclair considered everything that has been mentioned or will be mentioned? Why concern yourself with af days when you're only 6 weeks or so into the protocol? You're responding great. It's evident by the fact you shaved pre TSM levels dramatically and have been steadily building a base under them. Remember.... you can't have extinction without the alcohol. No way around this. Take some pressure off yourself, enjoy your holidays as you always have. You want to drink, no problem, you know the Golden rule. I know its hard to believe that your desires and behaviors around alcohol will change. But they will and this is TSM. Just give it time and you will see. You can do it. Peace.

Plant pro is absolutely correct that one must drink in order for TSM to be effective. I found it to be more effective if I drank less than if I drank more, which seemed to negate the extinction effects of the TSM.

There really is no sense in rushing it, it will happen over time, overall better to taper then to suddenly Stop completely, and hope for the best.

That's why abstinence programs fail. it's hard to not drink it all, occasional alcohol free days are pretty easy in the big picture. Moderation is a no-brainer, and it helps you to get a handle the "why" of the drinking, and come to terms with what you're doing.

The pleasant surprise with TSM that sneaks up on you, is that you develop a real loss of interest in alcohol, but it takes time.

Just being here, posting and being accountable is huge !

Good luck!!

I always say don't force it BUT if you don't want to drink, then don't drink.

I took enforced AF days at around the 6 week/two months stage and found it really helped BUT the difference was TSM was forming a new daily drinking habit 'because I could', and I knew I wanted to stop that, it wasn't compatible with my desired lifestyle. Others have found benefits from 'enforced' AF days, but as already specified it was only because they wanted to have the AF time.

My motto has been that any AF time is good, it's all teaching you how to live without booze.

I am sure you'll work out what you want to do.

Well - this week has been a strange one for me. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a bit nutty! I almost feel embarrassed to explain myself, as it's too bizarre for words.

I feel that I am actually forcing myself to drink even when I don't want to - and I'm not sure why I'm doing it. It's almost as if I'm testing the fact that I don't want to drink by making myself. My drinking is way up this week - yet my cravings and desire to drink have been down.

For example, on Tuesday evening I had no real desire to drink, but when I went shopping to buy food for dinner, I thought: 'Oh I'll buy wine, because I know I will want it later.' When I got home, didn't feel like drinking but took the pill anyway - still convinced the craving would hit later. When it didn't, I thought, what a waste of a pill I might as well open that bottle. I drank a couple of glasses - didn't enjoy them or even want them, but felt this ridiculous compulsion to finish the bottle simply because that is what I do!

Similar scenario last night. I think my mind is fighting what is happening - it doesn't believe that I'm not feeling cravings or wanting to drink so it's insisting that I do it to prove a point. I think part of me is scared to not want to drink - even though this is what I have always wanted.

So - what I need now is to get my head straight. Maybe this is the point mentioned when the rat is hitting the button? I'm definitely feeling the difference in my need for alcohol, but feel that I'm deliberately sabotaging my own recovery. Has anyone else experienced anything like this - or am I just a complete fruitcake?

You're not at all crazy at all, I think most of us have the same or similar thoughts. Our brains have to learn a "new normal" and we naturally resist........it's the old same good-change bad idiocy telling us to keep doing what we're used to.

But here's the important thing, in your case there's no question that TSM is doing it's thing. TSM promises to reduce craving somewhere in the subconscious inner-workings of your brain. But that's not synonymous with reducing consumption is it?

I'm of the opinion that for some TSMers drinking less just happens naturally when craving is reduced/eliminated, but for others a little effort is required to take advantage of what TSM gives you. bad habits need to be replaced with good ones, which is pretty much right out of Eskapa's book. Success is still right there in front of you, you just have to reach out and grab it. I'm definitely the latter, with close to 40 years of bad habits on my back.

Naltrexone is a tool in a toolbox for retraining your brain. Some people pull a hammer out of the box and drive the nail home. Others bend the nail, straighten it and get it on the second try. Still others end up whacking themselves on the thumb and walk away cussing the defective hammer.

I have no doubt that you'll get it right Snap, just stay the course

I think your inner rat is hammering away at the AL lever

if you really, really didn't want to drink, then you wouldn't. clearly some part of you still does want to drink, even if consciously you think you don't want to. it's all part of the process, stay the course & hopefully we'll all be genuinely indifferent before too long

I wonder whether your taking Nalmefene at £4/pill is making you feel obliged to drink once you've taken one? my Naltrexone works out at about £1.50/pill & I don't think twice about taking one, or even one and a half on occasion, but I might at £4/pill. I suppose that's a rather short-term view, & if you're tolerating the Nalmefene well then it's probably better to stick with that

on a bit of a tangent, but out of interest - why is it that it's not possible to take part-doses of Nalmefene? is it packaged in a capsule or something?

-badger

Breaking the relationship with alcohol is hard, and it can feel like a huge thing to let go of - because it is.

Is that what it feels like for you Snap?

Hi everyone - Yes UK, I think I'm scared to let go of the relationship I have with alcohol. Subconsciously I think it's almost like self-harming. I have always used alcohol to blot out stress, boredom, depression, unhappiness etc. I started drinking initially when my first husband was away on business for weeks on end and I was stuck at home with three small children. I never drank in the day or whilst they were awake, but as soon as I put them to bed I would hit the bottle just to make the long evenings on my own bearable. It also felt like a 'grown up' thing to treat myself too - having been surrounded by little people and their needs all day, it was a way of saying 'right, this is my own adult time'. This habit grew and then when my marriage was on the rocks and went through a messy divorce I drank to blot out the unhappiness.

I think this pattern has continued to become a very destructive habit, even thought I'm not unhappy now. I'm very happily married, enjoy my job, have a lovely family etc, but seem to associate evenings at home with drinking wine. If we go out for the evening, I'm quite happy to not drink - I don't associate drinking with having fun.

I know that somehow, I need to change my association with drinking wine at home in the evenings. I think my ultimate goal needs to be to stop drinking at home and to only drink wine when we go out for a meal or with friends as I don't have the urge to binge then.

All41 you are sooo right. I do need to put a bit of work into this as I know I am responding to the Nal and now just need to start changing my routine and kick bad habits. The first will be to stop drinking whilst cooking - this is my first bad association of the day. I no longer crave wine, so I need to replace it with something else. I'm sure that once I've got over cooking the meal, the feeling that I need to have that 'grown up' drink in my hand will have passed anyway.

Badger, regarding splitting Nalfemene, I'm not sure why you can't, but it says on the packet that you must take it whole and not chew or crush. The tablets are only 18mg and are film coated designed to slow release so maybe it would rush into your system too quickly if you did?

Anyway - as Cheeto says, NAL on - I'm a work in progress!!

Early in the game I wouldn't quit drinking altogether while cooking, since that is the behaviors/sets of conditions you are extinguishing. But while undergoing TSM if I observed that my craving was reduced during that evening hour while cooking, I would commensurately reduce my consumption. That would allow you to grow accustomed to the new behaviour.

Make sense?