Can baclofen keep you stopped

[craving]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

hey lo0p,

at what dose are you now and are you still AF? I see you did not update your graph anymore!

[Guest]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

Am I the only one here that doesnt believe there is a cure? It's a disease that doesnt go away. If one takes baclofen to stop drinking and doesnt drink anymore, isnt that as much of a cure as one who has to continue taking Naltrexone to keep from drinking? I find it hard to believe that if you stop drinking on Naltrexone and you start drinking again that you will never become dependant on alcohol again because you are "cured"....

[craving]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

hoping,

I understand your thinking, but meanwhile there is no cure, we have to go with the solution that will give us the longest life expectation, and that can only be reached by drinking significant less or stopping drinking.

[4MyHealth]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

What is TSM?

[Guest]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

4,
TSM is "the sinclair method" If you google it, you can go to The Sinclair Method forum, its somewhat like this one but it is more focused on the sinclair method which is basically taking naltrexone to eventually be out from underneath AL's grip.

[ignominous]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

Reggie

Right on!

[ignominous]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

This seems the crux of the problem to me. For whatever reason I started alcohol, it became my lifestyle and it defined me.
With Bac I can once again look at the problems that made me susceptible to becoming an alcoholic/alcohol abuser.

[Sunnyvalenting]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

Nothing but judgment can keep you stopped. bac allows your judgment an upper hand over the compulsion.That is all. It cannot stop a person from drinking if they want to drink. IMO the ability to use my judgment is the cure. So Bac cured me!
Sunny

[ignominous]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

I agree that the decision to stop lies with the individual.

When I stopped heroin it was my decision. no one could have told me to do it. A friend of mine also stopped at the same time, within a few days.
6 months down the line we met up and we were still Heroin Free. We hadn't met previously because we were both avoiding heroin situations.
Another 1 1/2 years and I'm back in my home town and realise I'm actually enjoying myself talking with old friends in a normal social gathering. We weren't discussing our next score, who was dead/in jail/in detox, close brushes with the law, in short we weren't discussing anything to do with smack (heroin). I was back in mainstream normy life. I could now see that life could be fun without heroin.
For the first time in 2 years of 'white knuckling' it I was on the home run.
I learnt, during that same trip to my home town, that my friend had hung himself the previous month. I presumed he had relapsed and couldn't face any more. I will never know for sure because at that time I still couldn't trust myself to investigate further.
I wasn't prepared to live in fear of heroin for the rest of my life. So I had to test myself. I got a hit from a friend and that seemed to go OK so then I tried taking it for a day, that was OK. Then tried taking it for 2 and then for 3 days, that wasn't OK but could still claw my way from the mouth of the abyss. 2 days. not OK. Strictly 48 hours with 2 months abstinence in between sessions was OK. Several years later I found I was not only; not looking forward to those 48 hours but also was not enjoying them. That's when I realised I had beaten heroin. I am no longer a junkie in recovery.

I want to be free of al not just avoid it. I also don't want something else to take its place later down the line. For me one day at a time just doesn't cut it.

There was a pertinent reason for me writing this post, something to do with cure, switch, abstinence and AF

[Sunnyvalenting]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

I plan to never test my recovery. Just accept and embrace it! The reason for this decision is that the most common reason for relapse in rats is the first exposure to the substance even after a prolonged span of time.
The other reasons are : cues (place cues in rats) and stress.
In some respects I believe we are very similar to rats in all these ways. So if I never take the first drink I won't ever be doing the very thing which increases my risk. If I stay away from drinking opportunities and learn how to manage my stress those will help too. There is no need to "test" whether I can become dependent again. I know I can. My healthy brain is wired for it. I already know that. I am rewiring my brain to not want or need it ever again and a test would not be in that interest. In fact it would be the exact opposite of it.
sunny

[ignominous]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

I know I can be free if this. That I never have to fear it or shy away from it again. I know that is possible.

I can find cues everywhere. God day at work, lets celebrate. Bad day, lets commiserate with alcohol. Bored, lets get drunk. Happy, lets enhance the feeling with alcohol.

I don't know if rats do this but they're clever little buggers when you try to get them out of your house!

[Otter]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

TSM

Lo0p

I read one of your posts a while ago and I thought you said you still wanted to drink socially. TSM requires one to keep drinking so as to get the psychological effect of the loss of interest in alcohol. It seems you are saying something new and that one could actually just stop Naltrexone after a period of time and then all cravings would be gone. Would one still be taking the Baclofen at that point?

It seems at this moment you are on Baclofen, Naltrexone and you are still drinking. You made me think about getting some Naltrexone although it is probably too late for that. How long do you have to take Nal before you are, in your definition, cured?

I agree with Bernard about the debate over whether Bacloen is a cure is pointless. Baclofen is a chemical and has an effect on the brain. I haven't seen anyone debate that point. What you call that effect is of no great importance. Where we go from here, and we are still at day one of this, is what is important.

When Edison invented the light bulb I can imagine the debate this would have inspired here. "Yes, but is the room really brighter or is it only brighter when you turn the light bulb on?" Fortunately, we did not have Mywayout or no one would have moved on and invented the florescent light or the LED.

I went back through the threads recently and found that there were no Baclofen threads at one point but it has now taken over this site. Just imagine what things might be like in a year or two or three...

[ignominous]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

I've done the same thing, year and 1/2 ago relatively unheard of.

Its about time some Drs took this seriously and actually posted their findings, MYO could help by organising a Bac section.

[Sunnyvalenting]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

Otter,
I am likely confused about your wife's situation. I thought she was abstinent on bac at this point. If so why try TSM and risk a return to the upspiral of alcohol intake which virtually defines dependence?
I am also curious as to why you post rather than she? There is a section here for family members. I am not trying to pick a fight or say you shouldn't be on the thread. It just strikes me as different than I would have expected. Most of us are speaking of our own experiences here not those of others.
Sunny

[Otter]

Can baclofen keep you stopped

Abstinent on Baclofen

I have pm'd you.

I was looking for help for her. There are a lot of people who are not reached because they don't use or have computers or are too ill.

Baclofen works for those who want it to work. If you are not motivated and stop using it then its effects wear off pretty quickly. It does not permanently switch off the craving mechanism and there are a lot of other problems for people coming out of a severe drinking problem which re-emerge once the drinking has stopped.