Afternoon all,
I've been reading this forum for some time and have decided to dive in. I'm currently a 7 days a week heavy drinker and weed smoker, occasional cocaine, mdma and ecstacy user. Growing up in the rave era of the late 1980's early 90's, this use is true of a lot of my generation and it continues in us (most of us just about in our 40's, some in our 50's) , especially my circle of friends, to this day.
I average 15 units per night and approx 10 joints a day (more if it there's a night out etc etc). Smoking (I smoke cigarettes also) weed starts in the morning and continues throughout the day/eve. Drinking starts at approx 6:30pm and continues until either a) blackout, or b) manage to not blackout and head to bed, c) wife moans at me to go to bed.
I can't recall when the drinking became a problem, but I went to a drug councillor some 7-8 years ago. I wish I'd continued as I'm now 7 yrs further down the slippery slope, but the reason I stopped seeing him was because he told me "I don't think you'll ever be able to stop". I hope he's now in another profession which involves manual labour. I then went, a couple of years later, to another councillor who helped to a certain degree and I was having days off drink during the week, taking care to not break strong ties to it, ie Chelsea play in the champions league on wednesdays make that an "on" night. the smoking continued unabated. Because of working for my parents (a huge cause of stress and anxiety) I had to stop my weekly councilling sessions as I didn't tell them (or want to) what the cause of my doctors visits were and it became a problem.
It was about a year or two after that that I read Dr Amiesens book. Enthused by this, I contacted the last councillor I had had and filled her in on the details. She was very interested but as I had moved out of the catchment area for that Medical Practice I was no longer able to see her. about a year after that, I contacted Dr Jonathan Chick as I had seen his name in Amiesens book. I arranged an appointment with him in Edinburgh (he also holds appointments in Harley Street, London) where I explained my situation and told him I would like to be prescribed Baclofen. Upon his advice, I instead was given a prescription for Naltrexone. This had an extremely small effect. The first evening on Naltrexone I drank only 2 x 500ml cans of my then tipple, stella artois, which was an immediate improvement on my normal 6-8 cans. The next day I had three and it eventually crept back up to my normal limits. Through stresses at work and other issues which I can't recall (foggy weed memory, FWM) and through a lack of satisfaction with Naltrexone, the prescription lapsed and i set back in to my drinking ways.
I tried a couple of AA meetings but never took to them, it may have been the particular meetings I went to but they were full of religion and sounded more like sermons. I left thinking, "how the fuck is this helping me?". I happened to meet an ex partner of one of my wifes friends who is now alcohol free. He advised me to visit my local addaction centre (a drug advice and help centre service based in the UK) which I did. I tried to get along with the group meetings but again I couldn't, so in conjunction with my appointed key worker, I was put on a 12 session one on one councilling service which was more akin to Psychiatry than any previous councilling I'd had. I was working towards a specific date just after the completion of my sessions to give up the drink. I had never entered any councilling sessions with regards to my use of weed, I thought that I would get round to it in due course but the bigger problem was alcohol, as you don't get weed poisoning. The date came to stop and I did it. For two months. I think I thought I'd cracked it and probably said that a couple of beers will be fine. Well almost a year later and I'm back up to my regular 6-8 again./>
So about 2 weeks ago, after speaking with my keyworker at addaction, I went to my doctors surgery for an appointment with a new dr who was there. she listened to the issue, saw that I had previously been on naltrexone from Dr Chick but told me that there was no way she could prescribe baclofen for my alcohol issue. In fact, if I had gone in with that irritable bouncy leg syndrome thingy, she would still have referred me to a neurologist to discover the reason behind it before she would consider prescribing baclofen. Disheartened (great excuse for a beer), a couple of days later I contacted Dr Chick. I booked an appointment with him for early next month. At about the same time I told my keyworker what I was doing and explained a bit about baclofen. He had never heard of it, was extremely sceptical, and didn't believe for a second that a simple, well known and incredibly cheap pill could be such a help.
I got a call from my keyworker, Sean (who has himself been sober for 3 years), on Monday morning this week. He told me that he was at home on Saturday night and had a couple of really strong coffees. Knowing that he wouldn't sleep for a while, he decided to go online and do some reading up on baclofen from the links I had emailed him (there was a link to some threads on here, to an nhs report by dr chick, the news article about dr amiesen and some others). Fascinated by what he was reading (and in good part due to the coffee) he didn't stop until 4:30 am. When he called me on Monday morning at approx 10am, (sounding so enthused that i thought he'd just had four espessos), he had already spoken to a head doctor in the correct part of my local health authority to make enquiries about baclofen. By stroke of luck, it appears that my local health authority are in the process of starting clinical trials with baclofen specifically for use in addictions, within, I believe the next few weeks. Although I already have an appointment booked with Dr Chick and he said that he will prescribe baclofen to me, I will of course see if it's possible for me to get included in this trial.
Either way, I shall be on baclofen within the next 6 weeks and look forward to contributing to this wonderful resource. After reading a thread from bobsd on here today, I'm hoping that baclofen will also get rid of the beast of weed from my back at the same time as the booze.I hope to maintain an accurate account of my journey with regards to both alcohol and marijuana so that others can benefit, as I have done by reading this site.
Apologies about this long winded post being more of a history than a hello, i promise to me more concise in future.
Richard.
I've been reading this forum for some time and have decided to dive in. I'm currently a 7 days a week heavy drinker and weed smoker, occasional cocaine, mdma and ecstacy user. Growing up in the rave era of the late 1980's early 90's, this use is true of a lot of my generation and it continues in us (most of us just about in our 40's, some in our 50's) , especially my circle of friends, to this day.
I average 15 units per night and approx 10 joints a day (more if it there's a night out etc etc). Smoking (I smoke cigarettes also) weed starts in the morning and continues throughout the day/eve. Drinking starts at approx 6:30pm and continues until either a) blackout, or b) manage to not blackout and head to bed, c) wife moans at me to go to bed.
I can't recall when the drinking became a problem, but I went to a drug councillor some 7-8 years ago. I wish I'd continued as I'm now 7 yrs further down the slippery slope, but the reason I stopped seeing him was because he told me "I don't think you'll ever be able to stop". I hope he's now in another profession which involves manual labour. I then went, a couple of years later, to another councillor who helped to a certain degree and I was having days off drink during the week, taking care to not break strong ties to it, ie Chelsea play in the champions league on wednesdays make that an "on" night. the smoking continued unabated. Because of working for my parents (a huge cause of stress and anxiety) I had to stop my weekly councilling sessions as I didn't tell them (or want to) what the cause of my doctors visits were and it became a problem.
It was about a year or two after that that I read Dr Amiesens book. Enthused by this, I contacted the last councillor I had had and filled her in on the details. She was very interested but as I had moved out of the catchment area for that Medical Practice I was no longer able to see her. about a year after that, I contacted Dr Jonathan Chick as I had seen his name in Amiesens book. I arranged an appointment with him in Edinburgh (he also holds appointments in Harley Street, London) where I explained my situation and told him I would like to be prescribed Baclofen. Upon his advice, I instead was given a prescription for Naltrexone. This had an extremely small effect. The first evening on Naltrexone I drank only 2 x 500ml cans of my then tipple, stella artois, which was an immediate improvement on my normal 6-8 cans. The next day I had three and it eventually crept back up to my normal limits. Through stresses at work and other issues which I can't recall (foggy weed memory, FWM) and through a lack of satisfaction with Naltrexone, the prescription lapsed and i set back in to my drinking ways.
I tried a couple of AA meetings but never took to them, it may have been the particular meetings I went to but they were full of religion and sounded more like sermons. I left thinking, "how the fuck is this helping me?". I happened to meet an ex partner of one of my wifes friends who is now alcohol free. He advised me to visit my local addaction centre (a drug advice and help centre service based in the UK) which I did. I tried to get along with the group meetings but again I couldn't, so in conjunction with my appointed key worker, I was put on a 12 session one on one councilling service which was more akin to Psychiatry than any previous councilling I'd had. I was working towards a specific date just after the completion of my sessions to give up the drink. I had never entered any councilling sessions with regards to my use of weed, I thought that I would get round to it in due course but the bigger problem was alcohol, as you don't get weed poisoning. The date came to stop and I did it. For two months. I think I thought I'd cracked it and probably said that a couple of beers will be fine. Well almost a year later and I'm back up to my regular 6-8 again./>
So about 2 weeks ago, after speaking with my keyworker at addaction, I went to my doctors surgery for an appointment with a new dr who was there. she listened to the issue, saw that I had previously been on naltrexone from Dr Chick but told me that there was no way she could prescribe baclofen for my alcohol issue. In fact, if I had gone in with that irritable bouncy leg syndrome thingy, she would still have referred me to a neurologist to discover the reason behind it before she would consider prescribing baclofen. Disheartened (great excuse for a beer), a couple of days later I contacted Dr Chick. I booked an appointment with him for early next month. At about the same time I told my keyworker what I was doing and explained a bit about baclofen. He had never heard of it, was extremely sceptical, and didn't believe for a second that a simple, well known and incredibly cheap pill could be such a help.
I got a call from my keyworker, Sean (who has himself been sober for 3 years), on Monday morning this week. He told me that he was at home on Saturday night and had a couple of really strong coffees. Knowing that he wouldn't sleep for a while, he decided to go online and do some reading up on baclofen from the links I had emailed him (there was a link to some threads on here, to an nhs report by dr chick, the news article about dr amiesen and some others). Fascinated by what he was reading (and in good part due to the coffee) he didn't stop until 4:30 am. When he called me on Monday morning at approx 10am, (sounding so enthused that i thought he'd just had four espessos), he had already spoken to a head doctor in the correct part of my local health authority to make enquiries about baclofen. By stroke of luck, it appears that my local health authority are in the process of starting clinical trials with baclofen specifically for use in addictions, within, I believe the next few weeks. Although I already have an appointment booked with Dr Chick and he said that he will prescribe baclofen to me, I will of course see if it's possible for me to get included in this trial.
Either way, I shall be on baclofen within the next 6 weeks and look forward to contributing to this wonderful resource. After reading a thread from bobsd on here today, I'm hoping that baclofen will also get rid of the beast of weed from my back at the same time as the booze.I hope to maintain an accurate account of my journey with regards to both alcohol and marijuana so that others can benefit, as I have done by reading this site.
Apologies about this long winded post being more of a history than a hello, i promise to me more concise in future.
Richard.
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