My Baclofen Experience

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

SoFlo1;918408 wrote: YES - I white knuckled the first 10 days of being AF waiting for my shipment, felt immediate relief on Bac up to 20x4 doses and stayed with it craving free for about 5 weeks, then tapered down and quit completely without a return to the cravings I originally had. It really helped me get over the hump of those middle weeks and I'm not sure I could have done it wihtout Bac, at least not comfortably.

I am wondering if those who are AF when they start Bac don't need so high a dosage. Poll?
I am at 260 and still drinking, tho about 1/3 to 1/4 my usual amt.

I know Road to Recovery quit first and hit the switch at a very low dose.

I may have a good week as I am on the road with hubby all this week. His aunt died on Friday so we are driving to SC to the funeral now. Then, while getting ready to go to the funeral, his uncle died , (!!!) so we have to drive to Boston at the end of this coming week. No opportunities for the Phoenix to sneak a drinky!! Hope, maybe????

[moglor]

My Baclofen Experience

When I started baclofen, I was very skeptical of the whole thing, but I wanted to have hope. I think the skepticism was good, because it helped dispel any placebo effect.

Part of this skepticism was why I continued drinking. There's no way I could have stopped, anyhow. I'd tried many times before, but the cravings always won out in the end.

Even once the baclofen started to work, I continued to drink, mostly, I think, out of habit. It was obvious pretty early on that the bac was starting to have an edge on the cravings, and I was more easily able to not drink, or stop drinking after I'd started. I still had many times where I hit the "point of no return" though, and drank to excess.

After one of Sunny's posts about willpower, I took pause and reconsidered my bac strategy. Bac works, there's no doubt in my mind, but it's not a magic bullet. It requires active participation from me in the process, so I decided to make some fundamental lifestyle changes, ramping up my exercise and radically modifying my diet. This gave me the edge I needed to go completely AF. If I had chosen this route earlier in the process, it's entirely possible that I might have succeeded on a lower dose.

If I had NOT chosen the route of diet/exercise, it's possible that I would have hit a different switch at a higher dosage, but based on my body weight, I would have been looking potentially at 400-500mg/day, which was a lot higher than I wanted to go. It's also possible I would have just continued drinking out of habit or boredom, although I probably would have quit just because of the horrendous hangovers.

-Moglor

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

moglor;919456 wrote:
It's also possible I would have just continued drinking out of habit or boredom, although I probably would have quit just because of the horrendous hangovers.

-Moglor

I've never gotten the horrendous hangovers. Perhaps because since I've been on Bac I haven't gotten really drunk?

[moglor]

My Baclofen Experience

Phoenix: it didn't take too much for me to get really bad hangovers, but when I did, they were at least twice as bad with bac, as they were a combination of AL hangover effects and intense bac SEs.

17 days AF, down to 150mg bac.

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

Is it possible that Phoenix has hit the switch?

I was not going to go higher than 250, but thanks to Tip's nudging I took it up to the next level; 262.5 (10.5 25mg pills) Oh my, I just calculated it, and I am actually only at 237.5 - I counted them and am taking 9.5 pills DUH! Dang, I can go even higher. That makes me 3.49 mg/kg, squarely in Dr. A's range.

Anyways - I successfully passed Day 4 which has been my stumbling block forever. I keep track of my workouts and my drinking in a spreadsheet (I know, strange bedfellows...) and I have not gone past Day 4 in 5 years (that's how far back the ss goes). The longest I have gone is 6 days, and that's since I started drinking at age 18. So this week I have another funeral to go to (hubby's aunt and uncle died the same day, the uncle was getting ready to fly to his sister's funeral and dropped dead) so I will not have the opportunity to drink until SUnday, (and Lord knows I'd rather not drink than just have one - a total tease!!) and I am hoping by then I will have a grip on it as I will be more than a week sober by then. I would usually have had a bottle of wine last night, as I get into the mentality of "this is my last change to get drunk until Sunday" but I thought of how tired it makes me, how much I had to do with packing and all and just said "nah". !!!! This NEVER HAPPENS! I will brave snow, sleet, ice, angry mobs, hordes of locusts, you name it - to get to my beloved alcohol. but this one time, it was just too much hassle to pull over and go into the grocery store!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unreal, huh???

So, the SE's I've had (and I will copy this to the SE thread as well, and the whole lot of it to the Bac progress thread so if you see this more than once don't think old Phoenix has lost it (tho my orbit is a little off-center anyways!!)

The worst:
Extremely shallow breathing (this scared the shit out of me so badly back in December that I got off Bac entirely, only to cave and give it another go in Feb).

Visual hallucinations - usually just a couple milliseconds in length - the scariest was seeing someone at my bedside, the least scary having a brief visual clip repeat itself. Not bad unless I have driving! This usually only happened when I was tired.

Tiredness - I have literally caught myself from falling out of my chair at work. I've taken to napping on my lunch hour - just closing the door to my office and lying on the floor. !!

Once I took 50mg too much by accident (!!!) and had HORRIBLE spasticity - so bad I looked like I had cerebral palsy. I just cut back on the back and it went away in 24-36 hours.

The easiest:
Spasticity - the irony of which is not lost on me. Also, crampy muscles, but this could be because I'm at the gym hitting it hard.

Slight nausea. Not bad at all.

Parentheses (you read that right!) I now enjoy parentheses more than before I started the Bac; my love of semi-colons has remained constant throughout.

Positives:
I am kickin' it at the gym. My strength has increased more in the last 2 months than it ever has.

My drinking slowly decreased. I went from 25-35 drinks a week (and sometimes higher) to 13.5, then 12, then 4 and now 0.

Self confidence is through the roof.

Energy - since I now have evenings, my house is cleaner and my gardens are weeded. I am making bread and jam regularly and reading a lot more.

Clear headed - I am usually a morning person anyway, but now I am 100% every morning. It rocks!!


The alcohol voices have stopped. No more good angel/bad angel on my shoulders. "You deserve it - get a nice bottle of wine" "But you've already gone 3 days, you're on a roll - stick with it" That kind of crap is gone.

I never had the bad hangovers on Bac of which others spoke. I also was never able to just quit as others seems to have been able to. Road to Recovery encouraged me to, and said the Bac would be more effective if I did, but the cravings were just too intense.

So now I have the chance to go more than a week without. Next Weds hubby is out of town for several days, and that''s my Biggest Trigger Ever. So, how will I do? I am thinking I will be ok...

So, have I hit the switch? If not, I am pretty darn close. I never thought I would, I quit Bac once already. I credit all the information I have read here, all the encouragement from my wonderful friends here and from Cowgal from beyond the grave, bless her soul, and my loving God most of all.

It will remain to be seen if I can keep up the momentum, but for the first time in 35 years, I actually have hope.

So, for all those who struggle, look to me. I was about to give up for the second time. I thought the Beast had won. I now think I have a chance on taming the Beast, but I never for a minute will think he is gone. The Beast will always be lurking in the shadows, ready to take a nip (sorry, bad pun!) out of me the second I falter. I can never forget that and get too confident.

God bless you all.

-Phoenix (finally rising from the ashes)

[moglor]

My Baclofen Experience

Way to go, Phoenix!!!

I had a similar experience when I passed Day 4, since, like you, I hadn't gone more than a few days between drinks since my late teens.

I don't find myself preferring parentheses much more, but I have certainly come to embrace the lovable comma!

I've titrated down from 200 to 150 over the last week, been at 150 for 6 days, and haven't experienced any increase in cravings. I still think about alcohol a lot, and my "reptilian hindbrain" (thanks Rational Recovery) keeps informing the rest of me how awesome an ice cold beer would be, but the thoughts just never turn into the unstoppable urges that they used to, and are easy to set aside. Even easier by the fact that I'm on a strict paleo/low carb diet, which precludes drinking entirely, and I've lost 7 pounds!

I am going down to 100mg today. Interesting fact: most people cite around 3-3.5mg/kg as a therapeutic range, but my body size would have required me to take over 430mg/day to get there!! There is no doubt in my mind that I achieved a therapeutic dose at only 1.6mg/kg, so total concentration doesn't seem to be a factor (for me.)

For anyone trying to push the envelope and get to higher doses, just listen to your body. After my experiences drinking with lower doses, I would be afraid of the outcome were I to drink to excess at 250mg or higher. As Dr. A and others have implied, if the baclofen doesn't seem to be working, try a more holistic approach, such as supplements, therapy, changing diet, changing habits, other drugs, etc. I do not think I would have managed to go AF without becoming fully engaged in my gym and my weight loss goals, which included major lifestyle changes.

Best,
Moglor (18 days AF)

[moglor]

My Baclofen Experience

Hi All,

I've been between 75 and 100mg for the past week or so, and I remain AF. I've had some difficulties lately with depression. The first couple weeks of freedom from alcohol were exciting and new, but the shine has worn off as I return to my regularly scheduled life. All those triggers that drive me to drink are still present - the work stress, the personal stress, the loneliness, the boredom. The anxiety is not as bad as it once was. At least now I have one less thing to fret about, not being drunk all the time. I think I may have over-sold my sober lifestyle to myself- how everything would be different and better, but in reality, it's all just the same, minus the drinking.

I had a reallly crappy day at work last week, missed a couple bac doses, and I ended up going from 150 to 75 in one day. I had some pretty strong cravings that day, but I was able to resist.

I've been somewhat ill the last few days, that general malaise that I recognize all too well as the start of a major depressive period. Fortunately, other than that one day last week, I do not have any significant alcohol cravings other than the psychological "habit" of wanting to open a beer when I'm bored. I will continue at 100mg for the next week, and explore some options for dealing with the depression from a sober perspective.

-Moglor

[Rusty]

My Baclofen Experience

Moglor,

Congratulations on being AF! Yeah, I hear you about the stresses being there still and life being pretty much the same minus the AL. I'm at 50 mg per day and the sleepiness is something I can handle. I go through depressive periods too where I have that general malaise.

Congratulations again,

Rusty

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

Moglor - now it's easy to see why we used to drink, eh? :l

[tiptronic_ct]

My Baclofen Experience

This feels all too familiar

30 days into sobriety, the depression hit really badly... The honeymoon had passed.

That was where "I'll do whatever it takes" really kicked in - changing and / or dealing with the things that nudged me over the edge in the first place.

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

tiptronic_ct;924906 wrote: This feels all too familiar

30 days into sobriety, the depression hit really badly... The honeymoon had passed.

That was where "I'll do whatever it takes" really kicked in - changing and / or dealing with the things that nudged me over the edge in the first place.

So, do the cravings every go away???

[tiptronic_ct]

My Baclofen Experience

PhoenixRising;925398 wrote: So, do the cravings every go away???

The indifference remained - its not as if I had cravings.

What I meant by my post, was that I had to start dealing with the empty space that used to be occupied by alcohol, with my depression (which preceded alcoholism), repairing relationships etc etc...

At the risk of sounding melodramatic: I had to learn to live all over again.

[havefaith]

My Baclofen Experience

Hi everybody,

Im pretty new to the program and have been AF for 8 days now!
Topomax has definately been helping(I'm on 75mg,it makes me kind sleepy)
I was curious about the baclofen- does that make you as sleepy?

[moglor]

My Baclofen Experience

I can't compare it to Topa (never tried it,) but baclofen at higher dosages makes me very sleepy. It takes a few days maintaining a dose before the sleepiness goes away. I think for some people it never really does.

[PhoenixRising]

My Baclofen Experience

havefaith;925644 wrote: Hi everybody,

Im pretty new to the program and have been AF for 8 days now!
Topomax has definately been helping(I'm on 75mg,it makes me kind sleepy)
I was curious about the baclofen- does that make you as sleepy?

I actually pulled a muscle in my back catching myself from falling out of my chair at work. The worst sleepiness imaginable. But, it really only occurs when you increase your dose.