Antabuse thread

[Purple Troll]

Hi - new here and noticed that the original antabuse thread on the main forum kind of wound down a few months ago.
I'm wondering if any other 'newbies' like me would like to get one going here...
How it's helped, side effects, concerns, updates, relapses - that kind of thing.

I've been lurking around this site for a few days and yesterday got up the nerve to register.
Um, this is all I'm up to posting right now but I'll stop back tomorrow and maybe post a bit about myself.

[SpiritGirl]

Antabuse thread

Hi Purple? Are you taking AB? I have on and off with much success. It isn't something you want to test, that's for sure, but I have had a good experience. No side effects at all - NONE. I did drink after a few days of taking it and my face became beet red and I had deep red rashes on my body. I also had labored breathing. It was enough of a reaction to know not to drink on it. It's been awhile since I took it but I've been considering it again.

[Running4life]

Antabuse thread

Hi:
I am considering taking it again. It seems to be the only way for me to completely stay away from AL.
I have taken it off and on for a number of years but I continue to play with it. I too have had a drink too early after taking it and have suffered it's rath. You really don't want to mess with it.
It is funny, the head games we play with this disease.

[Purple Troll]

Antabuse thread

Hi Spirit & Running,

Yeah, I went to my wonderful Doc and said I need to get on something. I read on the main forum site on a thread that lists the 4 stages and I guess I'm stage 3. I'd researched the different meds and he recommended the generic Antabuse.
I went right to the pharmacy and since I'd made it a point not to drink the night before I took the pill then and there so I couldn't drink that night. That was a month ago. I was on it for three weeks, went off for a week and am now back on.

What happened is five years ago we realized my Mom had Alzheirmer's and kidney disease and five years ago we moved her into a mobile home right next to my husband and I. She was happy as a clam watching animal planet and game shows on cable and playing solitaire on the computer but there were CONSTANT Medical Issues and Doc appointments just overall STRESS and actually I ended up pretty much being and sleeping over there on top of working evening cleaning banks.

And I started drinking alcohol to help me RELAX at night before going to bed. I'd be Totally Stressed Out and I'd have a drink.

And it WORKED. I'd just calm right down.

I slowly worked my way up over the next few months.
I'd have a beer at night.
Then two beers at night.
Then two of those tall cans because they were cheaper.
Then a small bottle of cheap wine, which worked quite well.
The a LARGE bottle of cheap wine when I was having a mini stress breakdown. That worked well too.
I gained 40 pounds in those three years (on top of the extra 20 I'd already had).

Mom died two years ago in her sleep in her home just like she always wanted to. She was probably the happiest she'd ever been in her life those last three years.

And I'm still drinking every night.
I'm fine during the day but come evening I can feel myself slowly turning into a werewolf. I've stopped on and off in the last two years, a month twice, a couple of weeks a number of times but a high stress situation comes up and I grab hold of it with both hands to use as an excuse to start in again. I did manage to lose and keep off 10 lbs the first year and then this last year 20 more on that hcg diet and not drinking for a month.

Then same ol'....

And, really, things are going quite well now. The first year of getting back to a normal life was stressful but last year I began reconnecting with friends who helped me see I hadn't let myself grieve Mom's death and that I was depressed. I got on Celexa and boy did that help. All is well with Hubby and home life (we don't have kids).

And yet, Every Evening...

I'm sorry if this is all kind of boring but it does feel good to just write it all down. I think I've just gotten into a BAD HABIT that's lasted for Years and Years and that I don't have the willpower to break on my own.

Carol

[Abielle]

Antabuse thread

I took Antabuse for a month or so a couple years ago. It had such terrible side effects for me, that I had to stop taking it. I would wake up vomiting, I couldn't hold a pen to write, I couldn't think to spell words, food tasted awful, I had the most awful taste in my mouth all the time...and I was terribly sedated.
While I didn't drink at all during that time, I think it was more because I was afraid of the reaction that the Antabuse would cause if I did, than anything else.

[Adeey]

Antabuse thread

Hi Purple and others, thanks for starting this thread. I've been lurking for quite some time and come to this site most days to read. I have been a binge drinker most of my life, but didn't recognise that as a problem, as I 'only ' drank once a week or so. About three years ago my drinking escalated until a few months ago I was drinking nearly 24/7, my first thoughts on waking were: 'how bad is the hangover, where's the booze so I can take the edge off it, where/how am I going to get some booze today'. I knew for some time that I had a problem and that I was heading towards losing my husband, family, friends - I had to quit my job as it was interferring with my drinking.

I was prescribed Naltrexone but it didn't seem to help me. I had never heard of baclofen before discovering MWO, it obviously isn't used much here in Australia? I am a high achiever in my personal and work life, but simply couldn't control my obsession with alcohol. I detoxed three times and a few months ago went to a 28 day rehab program interstate as there was nothing here in Adelaide. It was terrific, I learnt a lot about addiction and myself in that I realised that I personally drink to gain confidence, get rid of anxiety, depression and compensate for a lack of 'meaning' in my life.

As per my usual track record I left the rehab and gradually started drinking again. As part of the rehab program I attended AA while there, and did go to some meetings when I came home - over 30 or so in total. I tried very, very hard to make it work for me but it just didn't.

Thankfully at that point I found a wonderful doctor who specialises in addictions. After turning up to seen him drunk a few times :blush: he perscribed me antabuse. My husband (who is very surportive and loving) was with me, the doctor spoke to him also, told him that one reason antabuse can 'fail' for people is non complience with regards to taking it, and that I need to take it in from of him every day so that we know I take it. I guess that's why my version of it is a tablet you dissolve in water - no being able to put it under your tounge and pretending you've had it!

I have now been sober 44 days! :happy::happy: Antabuse is the only thing keeping me sober. I know it's not the answer long term, and that it has potential to do some damage to your liver - a rare but definitely possible side effect, apparently, but what it has given me - in terms of my addiction - is the soberity to be able to now tackle my addiction. In other words, explore, with the guidance of a counsellor, reasons why I drink, learn skills to deal with cravings and feelings, etc.

Side effects for me - negliable. A wee bit of a dry mouth at first, that's all.
Concerns - how the HELL am I going to stay sober in the long run without it?? Well I have decided that I am not going to set a time limit to taking it, I'm simply going to keep taking it for the duration and deal with that down the track. Relapses? Not yet. With hubby making sure I take it, there's no hope of that for me. Interestingly enough, it's not the fear of being violently ill if I drink that stops me drinking - antabuse has given me an 'off switch', so to speak, it's hard to articulate it. I simply can't drink, and I don't obsess anymore as drinking is just not an option for me. I haven't had a lot of cravings but when I have I have been resentful that I couldn't have a drink as opposed to tempted to have one.

The doc also put me on some anti-depressents - what a godsend they have been, I didn't realise that over the years I had been slowly falling into a dark place. I feel so much more positive and happy now - hubby says I'm the woman I was a few years ago, happy, cheerful and positive about life. I actually didn't realise how mentally/emotionally 'low' I had become.

Purple I can relate so much to what your'e saying - my drinking escalated a few years ago when my mother was really sick - actually fighting a life and death battle with three bouts of cancer in 18 months - she survived and lives with hubby and I (we also don't have kids). I started drinking every night and the downhill battle with alcohol started about then. Fine during the day, but at night ..... boredom and habit set it ... I also turned into a werewolf. It was only in the last few months of drinking that I started to drink during the day, that was initially to combat the hangovers but became a habit also. (Damn these habits!).

The first week or two without alcohol was strange but already only 44 days sober it's amazing how I'm not missing it quite the same.

Anyway, I've just about written a book here, my excuse is that I guess I'm just so pleased that this thread has been started and I'm able to talk about what's going on with me and my journey.

[Turn Around]

Antabuse thread

I am on Antabuse again. This time I take them every day faithfully in the morning and honestly like to. Takes the battle out of my mind if I am going to drink that day because the answer is simply NO. I put myself in a good position where I cannot drink. Let's me focus off fantasizing about a bottle in my hand around a campfire or a ball game and on healing.

I tested the effects of Antabuse and AL way back then. I was curious and will never do it again. Ever. Not even a beer went down before I was throwing up until dry heaving, racing heart, whole body beat red and burning and many other uncomfortable things. Antabuse means business :H

Having that experience, I anticipate being on it and serious this go round. When I get to the point of not seeing AL as an enemy and just mearly something I don't want, like for me Caviar or Liver, that'll be the time I stop using it.

It has been working for me

[Purple Troll]

Antabuse thread

Abielle - I found the second week on it that I was just So Tired all the time and my stomach was a bit queasy. I actually thought I had a touch of some bug until it didn't go away and I (finally) realized it was a reaction. I cut the pill in half (from 250 to 125) and went from exhausted to tired - better but I can't feel like that for the long run. I stopped it for ten days and am now trying half a pill every other day. We'll see..

Turn Around - I knew when I stopped taking it I'd drink before going back on. After the ten days I had a bottle of wine then made sure to take the half pill the next day so I'm back on it. At some point I'll go off this dose for a week or so and see if I can drink - I seem to need to know exactly what my boundaries are. The good thing is I'm a rock in the mornings, it's in the evening my resolve dissolves into a puddle. So as I test the limits I'm only going to give myself one evening then back on track the next morning.

Adeey - loved your post. I think we could be cyber friends. I laughed at the whole dissolving it in water thing as we really can be so Sneaky and they've locked onto that. I'm going to be on Antabuse six months to maybe even a year. I'm thinking after six months I may try to go off it (and am terrified/certain I'll fall right back down). Maybe I'll be OK but if not I've got the prescription to last me a year and I know I'll just go right back on it and it would SEEM that by next summer I'd be OK.

Carol

[Adeey]

Antabuse thread

I have been on Antabuse and sober 47 days now. It's my first time on it. How long is the longest you have been on Antabuse and why did you stop? Was it because you wanted to drink? If I didn't have my husband supervising me taking it, I do believe I would have stopped so I could 'have just one more night on the grog and then go back on it' - famous last words, I used to go to bed every night for months on end telling myself that 'tomorrow I will stop drinking'. Every day was going to be the last day. :yeahright:

I even told my husband to hide the antabuse away and give it to me himself and WATCH me take it, so that I couldn't slip some dissolvable aspirin in the pill container and PRETEND to take it, which I know, if I'm being honest, I would be doing now cos there has been times when I've been a bit stressed or tired that I would have loved to have had 'just one drink' ...... ok, ok, 'just one BOTTLE' lol

It's a sneaky enemy :undercover:
(love playing wiv the smilies!)

:bow Long live the gods of antabuse for they are all powerful and have given me 47 days of soberity :bow

[Doggygirl]

Antabuse thread

Adeey, congratulations on your progress!!!! I know several people for whom Antabuse was the god send that got them on the path to sobriety. One person I am thinking of is now sober for over 10 years and the other one over 5 years. These are two of my mentors!

Anyway, I can really relate to the endless promises to stop "tomorrow." I was stuck in that miserable rut for so many years. I can also relate to the gamesmanship of possibly swapping pills or whatever, just to cling to my drinking. I did a lot of crazy stuff to hang on as well. Geez - it's great to be out of that cycle, isn't it? Wonderful that you have a good hubby that is staying by your side and helping you.

Purple, about the going on and off antabuse so you can drink once in awhile. I would love to hear more about how you really benefit by that? Or is that just keeping you stuck in a bad place? For me, alcohol is not my friend, period. A little or a lot - it's 100% soul sucking for me. And a little always ultimately led to a lot, no matter what. The only thing that has allowed me to get my life back on track, and get HAPPY again is abstinence.

DG

[Purple Troll]

Antabuse thread

Adeey - Your posts make me laugh. I love the guy bowing down to Antabuse!!! 47 days is Amazing. Clapping my hands in applause. Doesn't it feel, well, Odd to Not Drink?!! The thing that's surprising me is that it's Not That Bad - not that I wouldn't go right back to it if not for the med... But a part of my brain is now saying What is your Problem!!!

Doggygirl - Thanks for the, um, delicate way you post your question (as opposed to 'Are you CRAZY to even THINK you can PLAY AROUND with THIS!!!!)
I had a bad reaction to the Antabuse at first as the dosage was apparently too strong - the 250 every day and even cutting the pill in half and going to 125 the second week I decided to stop completely and let it go out of my system (10 days) and start over because I was Sleeping All The Time.

I know I should then have started on the 125 every other day immediately but I did buy a bottle of wine on that 10th day off knowing no matter what I'd start the pill the next day, which I did. Even though I was really nervous about whether 10 days had been long enough so I had just a bit, then a bit more, then, of course, finished the bottle...
I wanted to see how it made me feel and, actually, it just made me feel really tired.

The 125 every other day is working Great. Not tired at all. So what I should do is stick with the program and stay on it for at least 6 months then try going off it and if I find myself backsliding go back on it.

I guess what I was thinking is to try going off it, like, for maybe 7 days as I'm taking so little - in a month or so. And having a drink. Then going right back on and in another month trying it after 5 days - testing the boundary of the dosage I'm taking. Which, as I'm writing this the obvious question is 'And WHY would I want to do this?' and I'm thinking now a good comparison would be slipping dissolvable aspirin in the Antabuse bottle.
I'm trying to sneak in a drink, aren't I.

I So Need this Site.

Carol

[Doggygirl]

Antabuse thread

You got it Carol. That is the insanity though. Trying to hang on to something that wants to destroy us. CRAZY. But that's how it is. And you are right - we all need each other to keep ourselves sane and honest.

AL is OUT of my life now, and I intend to keep it that way. NO WAY do I want to return to the ball and chain of active addiction (and insanity!)

DG

[Adeey]

Antabuse thread

DG you are SO right - "Trying to hang on to something that wants to destroy us. CRAZY. But that's how it is." I don't think anyone who hasn't had a problem with alcohol would understand us. I wouldn't have, a few years ago. I was very very excited to hear that you know of several people for whom Antabuse has been the path to soberity - and that one has been sober 5 years and another 10!! WOW! I have changed my 'mood' from hopeful to optimistic. Because now I am. I think perhaps I have been waiting for the bubble to burst, but now I know that that doesn't have to be the case. I'm really, truely, thrilled to hear about the people you know who have been helped by antabuse.

I read where people are at in these forums and some people are are in a really bad and sad place, which was me several months ago and would be me now, if not for 'the gods of antabuse'. I am passing the point of wanting to 'have just one last drink' but are still grieving a little at the thought of never having another drink, ever, ever again. To be honest I don't want to contemplate that. I have always been an over-analysier (sp?) and have conciously decided not to with this journey, I am taking it one day at a time.

For those reading who are contemplating antabuse - give it a go, I was absolutely terrified at the thought of it - but am overjoyed at what it has given me - soberity and a live. I am blown away with how good a tool it is, I didn't expect it to be as good as it is.

On another note, I have been plagued with sugar cravings. Real bad. Searching through MWO has lead me to take glutomine and chronium - I started yesterday, a teaspoon of powdered glutomine an hour before eating and one chronium tablet with my meals. I think it's going to help. I have put on a wee bit of weight in my 49 DAYS OF SOBERITY ( ) which of course is way better than drinking.

[Doggygirl]

Antabuse thread

Hi Addey! So happy to hear that stories of others success gives you hope!! That is the goal and that is why we are all so much stronger and better together than we ever could be alone.

Have you read the My Way Out book? It's only about $12 or $13 IIRC. You can download it and start reading right away. You might find the suggestions about supplements, diet and exercise very compelling. I followed that regimen when I started my journey and still employ lots of it. I also got the hypnosis CD's which I really liked. Tools tools tools!!!

There are several threads around the forum where people with lots of AF time post pretty regular. Newcomers are always welcome!! This is not the only one by any stretch, but one I post to daily the AF Daily Thread in the Monthly Abstinence section of the forum. There is a new thread each day and several "regulars" plus new people coming on board. You might find some good support there!

One day at a time rocks. Today is all we've got, really.

I stayed away from sugar (per the book) when I first quit drinking and that worked well. Somewhere in the last year+ I let sugar back in and OH MY what a mistake!!! I believe sugar and AL are close cousins and holy moly....I've had a hard time lately with that one. Day 4 without, for me. Lot of FAT and not many carbs is what I'm doing right now. (pretty much what the book recommends too).

Anyway...Your post filled with hope made me smile. That makes my day. I dear friend of mine passed away last fall - he was AF for over 40 years and didn't even drink when he found out he was dying from cancer. That was an inspiration for me. NOTHING in life is so bad I need to drink over it. I love being clear and present for today. Some days are hard. Life isn't always a bowl of cherries. But life is SO much easier and better sober. When I was drunk every day, I could take a problem and quickly make it 10 times worse by drinking over it!! :H

Anyway...I hope you are having a good day! I love how Antabuse takes the drinking decision off the table, for today, the minute you take that pill. Keep doing that - one day at a time.

DG

[akazia21]

Antabuse thread

I put myself on antabuse as I have taken it before and besides being pregnant, that was my longest stretch of sobriety in 8 years. Anyway I am taking about 125 every few days. I know that's all I need to get a reaction from alcohol, and having tested the reaction before I have zero urge to test it now-eyes blood red, skin itching, heart racing-no thanks!
So I'm 6 days AF and took 125 tonight as I am headed to bed. At this rate it should last me at least 90 days to six months. It's way better than the destruction I was doing to my liver as I slowly got back up to a bottle of wine every night or every other night. Nice to know every time I take it I'm getting another week AF-and I admit I was severely tempted to drink tonight, if not for the antabuse I would have, that's why I took one when I got home.