Twelve weeks and no interest in alcohol. Bit stunned.

A quick recap: 51 year old male. Drinker for 30 years, heavy drinker for the last ten, 200 units a week last year, Started Naltrexone at the start of January. Weekly units on Naltrexone: 81  114  98  48  20  110   91  95   90  70  122   0

?So. Here we are. Week eleven was a hard week for me and, even though I have been taking my tablet every day one hour before drinking, I had to make a real effort to keep the units at 122 during week eleven as I could quite easily have hit 200 again. On the last day of week eleven I felt terrible. Not exactly depressed, certainly not suicidal, but lost. There was a sense that the pills might not be working and I felt that everything in life was wrong. My wife is currently working overseas and I felt like buying a ticket that night to run away and live with her for a while.

?Then, on the first day of week twelve I woke up and felt very different. I was full of energy and spent five hours running around doing household chores that would normally last me a week. I then thought about going to the pub and the answer was no. But this was a different 'no'. This was a genuine lack of interest in going there, a genuine lack of interest in drinking and a real desire to do something else instead. I've had plenty of non drinking days in my life but I can't remember ever feeling like this. A genuine, deep, lack of interest in alcohol.

?End of week twelve and nothing has changed. Seven dry days without any effort. No desire to drink at all.

?To be honest, I'm a little scared. If I can go to bed and wake up teetotal then maybe I can go to bed and wake up a drinker again. Seven days is too short a time to declare victory even if it feels like the war is over. Maybe this is an oasis on the road to recovery or maybe this is it. I'll know soon enough.

?But here's the irony. I wanted to do TSM and join a forum like this because the religious aspects of AA really annoyed me. But it looks like, thanks to naltrexone and the posters on here, I've been born again.

?Any thoughts?

4 likes, 22 replies