Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

[Zman]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Hi Bernard,

Im not having a problem with with titrating up per se. Im at 105 and will go up to 120 tomorrow. But I'm just not seeing the type of miraculous results others are seeing and am starting to lose hope. Not drinking throughout the week is definitely easier, but then the weekend comes and its the same old drinking. And even before the Bac, I only drank a couple of days during the week anyway.

I wiegh 80kg, so maybe i need to go higher and suddenly i'll hit the off-switch...but it just seems less and less likely as the days go by.

My wife, who has gone through this for 7 years now, has also started to lose hope, which is a real killer.

I forget...are you one of the lucky ones who have hit the off-switch?

[bernard]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Zman;684716 wrote: Hi Bernard,

Im not having a problem with with titrating up per se. Im at 105 and will go up to 120 tomorrow. But I'm just not seeing the type of miraculous results others are seeing and am starting to lose hope. Not drinking throughout the week is definitely easier, but then the weekend comes and its the same old drinking. And even before the Bac, I only drank a couple of days during the week anyway.

I wiegh 80kg, so maybe i need to go higher and suddenly i'll hit the off-switch...but it just seems less and less likely as the days go by.

My wife, who has gone through this for 7 years now, has also started to lose hope, which is a real killer.

I forget...are you one of the lucky ones who have hit the off-switch?

Zman,
I'm a bacoach of a friend, not an alky myself. She got more of a proportional effect than the step-change that Ameisen describes. She's at 150 and of ordinary size; no non-positive side effects. It's working astoundingly well for her.

NMA: Open that throttle, Zman, until you can feel it making you sleepy at least. You have a lot of headroom to go before you should even think about being discouraged. Ameisen, a spry 65 kg, got nothing at 180. Go to at least 130 tomorrow, please. Load it a more toward the evening so you're not sleepy at work. Go to bed early and set lots of alarms. When the weekend arrives, stay home (don't drive or run a chainsaw) and start accelerating. You might be too sleepy to fall prey to the usual weekend pattern. Steady out on Sunday but don't go lower unless the sleepiness is too much. The half life is 3-4 hours, so keep that in mind as you guage the sleepiness and adjust the rate of increase accordingly. If you get an urge to drink, make yourself a bac on the rocks (not a Baccardi). Shaken, not stirred. Go bac when you drift toward the bottle.

Enlist your wife's help in waking you up for work, diverting you bac from the bottle, and keeping a log of your dosing.

Go Zman, go.

[Zman]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Bernard, it does make me sleepy. Not so much at work, but when I get home and start watching tv or something, I can barely keep my eyes open.

Fri-Sat is the weekend over here, so will go up to 120 tomorrow and if no major side effect, will go up to 135 the next day.

A question for you though. You say load it up in the evening. But you also say it has a half-life of 3-4 hours. The question is then, that isnt it more important how much you are taking each dose rather than the total amount you are taking per day? Thats why I like to keep my doses even, even if it means breaking pills in half etc. I dont see the point of, for example, a 30-30-40 regimen. That just means youre on more Bac in the evening. Whats your opinion on this, given the short half life?

[Andy R]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

My Bac arrived from 4Rx this a.m. and I am on dose number 2.

Hopeful, determined, and a bit scared. Also - a touch of "do I deserve this?"

Anyway let's do this thing!

[Cinders]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Zman,

Do not give up hope. If you read others posts, you will see several took higher doses to get to their switch. It doesn't seem to be weight related, either.

I am 160 lb middle-aged woman and I had to get up to 160 mg/day before I could go AF. I had to back off of that and am now at 120 mg/day due to vivid dreams, unable to wake up, etc. However, I am able to stay AF and very happy to be here!!

Andy, Just follow the protocol and keep us posted.

I hope soon both of you are posting about how happy you are with your progress.

Cindi

[Zman]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Cinders,

I guess this goes back to my earlier question of whether bac is a silver bullet or merely a tool.

If it were a silver bullet, we would all be "cured" when we hit a high enough dose. We would no longer crave alcohol, and perhaps, when we drink, we would be like normal drinkers (i.e. not compulsively drinking to the point of black-out).

If it is merely a tool, then we are not "cured" per se, we merely have a lessening of cravings, and can resist such cravings with greater success. I guess that would still mean we are white knuckling, but not as bad as before.

As I said before, even if it is the latter, that is still a valuable tool, but I was led to believe it was the former...that when we hit the "off-switch", that's it, we are cured, like a miracle, and we are no longer addicts (so long as we keep taking the bac).

The latter is what OA and others like BillP have led me to believe - the miracle. And thats what Ive been expecting. Maybe the miracle will occur as i titrate higher, but I would be interested in hearing what others who have managed to reach AF have to say about this.

[me1455]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

im feeling similar to zman but i havent gone up that high yet, still around eighty..im having insomnia so bad, its killing me, since ive started taking it. do the side effects go away? anyone know? other than that no side effects. ive had insomnia to begin with. would taking it more in the morning and afternoon help that and is that allowed?

[bernard]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Zman;685131 wrote:
A question for you though. You say load it up in the evening. But you also say it has a half-life of 3-4 hours. The question is then, that isnt it more important how much you are taking each dose rather than the total amount you are taking per day? That's why I like to keep my doses even, even if it means breaking pills in half etc. I don't see the point of, for example, a 30-30-40 regimen. That just means you're on more Bac in the evening. Whats your opinion on this, given the short half life?

My thinking is that the fading of the side effects seems to be based more on the total per day. That's why it takes a few days to get used to each higher dose.

At any given dose, the sleepiness is on a time scale of hours. Thus, if you're at work, you want less sleepiness. TV is expendable so just sleep and get up on time for work. This way you'll maximize the rate at which you're increasing the dose but steering clear of too much effect on your work time. On the weekend just space it evenly, and take more if you have an urge to drink.

The goal is to get to a high enough dose to be able to avoid the bottle. Because you're in a state of despair, you need to get there ASAP.

One more thought: There has traditionally been debate about whether depression causes alcoholism or the reverse. Vaillent, the most authoritative alcohol epidemiologist, says that the weight of the evidence indicates that alcohol causes or exacerbates depression and not the reverse. So you might be suffering both psychological and organic depression from the bottle.

[billyb]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Zman;685131 wrote: You say load it up in the evening. But you also say it has a half-life of 3-4 hours. The question is then, that isnt it more important how much you are taking each dose rather than the total amount you are taking per day? Thats why I like to keep my doses even, even if it means breaking pills in half etc. I dont see the point of, for example, a 30-30-40 regimen. That just means youre on more Bac in the evening. Whats your opinion on this, given the short half life?

Adjusting doses is a terrific technique. If you generally drink in the evening, then you could take just enough bac in the morning to keep it in your system (to avoid withdrawal symptoms) and to keep the anxiety down. Then, you can take larger doses in the afternoon or evening to kill the cravings. This was really key for me in getting to my magic dose of 150mg. If I had split them evenly, I would have certainly gone higher, since I wouldn't have been able to kill those evening cravings.

If I remember correctly, I was taking 25/25/50/50 at one point (that killed my cravings), reduced to 25/25/50/25, and I'm now at 20/20/40/20. (That's my recollection, but if you're really interested in my exact doses, you can search my past posts - they're probably more accurate.)

And don't forget about the "as needed" dose for extra cravings. Ameisen used 20-40mg extra in cases of particularly strong cravings.

The short half-life is actually a big benefit, since it enables you to tailor your dose to the right level for the right time of day.

[louise]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Zman, don't despair yet! You are still well below what a number of people took to hit off. In the meantime, are you using any of the other mwo tools such as nutritional supplements, exercise, hypno tapes, etc.?
ME, I think it was Cindi who said she needs to take the last dose 3-4 hrs before bed.
Update on me. I'm doing well on not drinking and made a 30 day AF pledge. The only trouble now is cravings are reduced (due to out of sight out of mind rules at home) to the point I'm forgetting to take the bac!

[j-vo]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Hi all,
I'm looking into buying the baclofen online. I've read a thread that explained where I could purchase online. I would like to do this on Sat. as I'm going away for the week. I just have one question. Does anyone here order online, and if so, how much do you order at one time. I don't want to order too few then run out. I guess I'm having a hard time doing the math and could use some assistance with this. I was going to purchase the 400 tablets then go from there. How long would that last (ballpark)? Thanks for your help.

[Cinders]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Update on me. I'm doing well on not drinking and made a 30 day AF pledge. The only trouble now is cravings are reduced (due to out of sight out of mind rules at home) to the point I'm forgetting to take the bac!

:H:H I went through that, too. Now I am more careful so I don't forget and have to take my last dose too late for the sleeping issues.

Me, I sleep too well on the Baclofen. That is why I have to take it early enough to get past most of it before I go to bed. Otherwise, I zonk out like a zombie, have oddball dreams, and have a hard time waking up. On top of that, if I fall asleep too early, then I am up and wandering around the house in the wee hours of the morning. If you need a sleeping aid, I would do like I do and take the bac early enough that you can safely take a sleeping aid when you go to bed.

ZMan, I can only speak from my experience. I would not describe my "a drink would be nice" impulses as cravings. For me it is a silver bullet. I am doing what I could never do before, and that is stay AF. Sometimes I sigh and wish I could drink like a normal human being but I sure don't dwell on it or let it get me down. I just grin and say, "but I can't."

There is no way I want to ever pick up a drink again. If I failed at moderation, I would lose everything dear to me. It just isn't worth it to me.

J-Vo, I am horrible at the math, myself. What I would do is consider what you might have to titrate up to, and figure that as a month's supply. Depending on who you order from, figure out the timings with a safety margin.

Has anyone heard from OliveOyl? I am concerned. His last post was "withdrawn."

Cindi

[j-vo]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Thanks Cindi,
I've been playing around with figures and found it may be in the ballpark of $150 per month possibly. I've seen so many of you have different dosages and I'm looking at my weight (125 lbs.) and calculating how much I think I'll need. It's encouraging to see so many positive responses to this. I think I'm a good candidate. I'll be ordering on Sat. so it may be here close to when I get back from vacation next week.

[j-vo]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

Another question I had: I see that people talk about taking their dosage and sometimes with more
p.r.n. Don't know what that means. Also, don't know the meaning of semenolense? or something like that. Thank you.

[Cinders]

Consolidated Baclofen Progress Thread

J-Vo,

prn means as needed. It is recommended that you keep a bit of Baclofen on you and if you find yourself in the midst of a situation where you are craving, take an extra dose.

Some people say as high as 20 mgs, although if you are just starting on it, that may be way too high.

I have never done it so I can't speak to it.

Somnolence is just another word meaning sleepy or tired.

Good luck, J-Vo, please post your progress as you go.

Cindi