Checking Back In – Still At It

My last blog post was on March 26, 2017. I stopped blogging at that time because I felt like I did not have anything new to report. My drinking had been slowly, steadily decreasing but there were not enough new insights at that time to sustain a regular blog. At least that was how I remember feeling at the time.

I suppose I should be honest and say that I took a few months off. I’m not sure what my thinking was at the time. I probably thought that my drinking had gotten to a point where it was manageable and not so much of a problem as it had once been. Also, naltrexone sort of made me feel queasy and gave me a headache.

I told my doctor that my decrease in drinking had plateaued. She suggested that I increase my dosage from 50mg to 75 mg. For some reason I was reluctant to do this. Perhaps I felt the queasiness and headaches would increase. Perhaps I felt that this would end my drinking entirely and part of me did not want to do this. At any rate this combination of things resulted in me taking a break from being compliant with the Sinclair Method. I did this (if memory serves) around Christmas 2017. The holidays seemed to make it easier to make this decision.

Luckily, nothing dramatic happened except that I started to gain weight and drink more again. At some point (three or four months ago) I realized it was for the best that I got back on the Sinclair Method. At first I began with 50mg. Again, I was afraid to up my dose for some reason. But about a month ago I increased my dose to 75mg. I can report that I did not experience any increase in the negative symptoms when I did this. My drinking decreased a little bit but not dramatically. Now I pretty much only drink on the weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and can have anywhere between 3 and 5 drinks a night when I do drink.

I have noticed that I do not really enjoy drinking but do it mostly out of boredom or a fear of being bored. Alcohol seems to act as a blunt instrument to the head that beats the boredom out of me but does not leave me feeling satisfied. I guess dissatisfaction is preferable to being bored according to my psychological calculus. I have also found myself looking forward to Monday nights when I can have four weeks of non drinking ahead of me. I am a member of two Toastmasters groups that meet on Monday and Tuesday nights respectively. Having these creative outlets makes it much easier to go without on those nights. From there it is easy to go another two nights because a rhythm has been established. But then the weekend arrives and it feels natural to drink.

So, that is where I presently stand. It seems as if at some future point I will approach abstinence or near abstinence as long as I remain compliant. I have no doubt that I will. It would be nice to find a method that addressed the boredom that did not involve having a drink because I often regret not feeling 100% the next day after drinking. Drinking now seems like a waste of time but no obvious alternative seems to have presented itself yet. In conclusion, I would definitely say that TSM has worked on me to an extent but perhaps not as dramatically as other people seem to report. If anyone has insights they would like to share with me please make a comment.