New here and starting Topa and with a question

[playland]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Hi Taw, thanks for sharing, I sure feel for your story and long suffering with this disease. Mine started later in life around age 47 but I've been at it now for almost 20 years. I totally get it that you want to be free of the Cravings and Compulsion to drink, I 2nd that. When I first took Topa and the cravings went away it was the biggest miracle, then circumstances happened and I still have it, my story is all a ways back in this thread. Now the AB 5/7 plan is not taking away the craving but it at least is giving me AF time and some space to feel better physically. Yesterday I read on one of the threads that cravings actually will go away but only with total abstinence for us Alkies, that is something for me to think about in the future I suppose.

Dizz, so feel for your pain with BF and still applaud your refusing to take the blame for his irrational thinking and behavior, hope my daughter will set those boundaries with her own BF.

Hey Stuck, hang in there, love ya:l

:h

[playland]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

BTW, I took my AB this morning and won't drink till saturday

[Jay-J]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Hi all!

Long time...

Well, Day 63 AF for me. I also stopped the Topa for around 1 week already. No cravings. This is great!

Hope all is well with everyone!

[sunshinedaisies]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Hi everyone...

Jay ... WONDERFUL on 63 days AF - you must be so pleased with yourself. I am curious though - why have you stopped the topa? Do you think you can do it on your own now? I think that is great for you if you can ... please keep popping in and let us know how you are doing. What level did you get up to on it? Well done you !!

Play - good for you taking the AB. I decided after much thought, not to take it with week with my dental work tomorrow ...I also called the dentist and have a valium to take before my appt. !! I will definitely be back on board next week though - I do look forward to taking it and being AF for some time.

Bug .... so happy for you that g/daughter is moving out ! Where is she going? I asked before was there anyone else that could have her for a while and also why she doesn't live with her parents..... it sounds good though for you that she is moving - one less stress eh? Please don't be upset by what Play said - she didn't mean it in a bad way .... and yes, as Dizzy said, this is where we all come to vent in a loving space.

Dizzy - I so understand where you are coming from with b'f and always being the scapegoat and I don't blame you this time for standing firm, hard though it must be for you. Hugs to you.... :l:l Why couldn't you post even though it was too early? LOL

Taw .... thanks for telling us about yourself - I do understand about wanting the obsession/compulsion lifted - it gets very old doesn't it? But we will get out of this one day .... I have total faith that ONE day, I will be fine. it just seems a very long slow process.

Stuck - thanks for the link - I will check it out. I do remember you starting it though - I had just forgotten which thread it was.

Houtx - how are you doing? Did you take the AB this week? I remember my second week I didn't - but then got back into it the third week.

Off to work with me .... have a wonderful day everyone,

hugs, sun XX

[bugpieper]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Good Morning

PLAY Hello and good morning, no prob, sometimes words come thru wrong when written instead of said....

Why am i so weak, am curretnly taking 75mg topa and i guess it has cut back my cravings but i am still drinking, you'd think i would be able to use my own powers to ward off the rest of the cravings, but i just rolll over and give in , what's wrong with me. hubby is angry about it and insults me. can't blame him, he is sick of it. he doesn't drink much. he has no tolerance for weakness, or drunks as he puts it..... should i go up on my topa now, the se have pretty much subsided now, except a little dry mouth, but it is not bad...any suggestions? thanks bug

[DizzyBee]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Just saying thanks for the kind words and sending love to you all.
XOX

[playland]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Hi Dizz, so wishing I could put you on the mobile with my sweet daughter who is having similiar problems with her BF, he is so verbally abusive and she keeps engaging with him and really seems almost brainwashed into accepting all the awful things he says to her and accepting that things are her fault. Is very sad that so many beautiful kind women accept this abuse from husbands and/or boyfriends, I wonder what makes us so susceptible to thinking badly of ourselves and taking on the blame:upset:

So, Dizz, please stay strong and rational, just keep dealing with the situation in a calm and rational way, no matter what the outcome.

Love to you,
Play

[houtx]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Hi y'all - a few things here:

Stuck, I'm a huge Bukowski fan...or at least I was back in my younger, more irreverent days.

Meggie, glad you like your job. I think I've just been doing it too long. PLus I deal with middle schoolers. They are usually not fun or cute. Makes me feel justified to drink, but I really need to quit/cut back/ deal better. Thus trying the AB...

Bug, so sorry your hubby can be mean. So was my ex. He had no tolerance for my drinking. But his father was a bad alcoholic, so that was his excuse for being intollerant. Glad I don;t have that over my head anymore. Hope the TOPA works out for you!

Sun/Play/Diz/TAW/Space - hope alls well in your corners. Always good the hear from everyone!

I took AB again yesterday. I drank entirely too much this weekend and aren't exactly sure how, except maybe my resistance was low. I felt kinda like shit yesterday, but I popped a half tab around noon, and had no reaction. I'm seriously wondering if this stuff will really make me sick if I drink...but I'm too scared to try it! What I am going to do is wait until Friday night again and take a few sips and see. Seems like a teensy dose like this will work itself out in 4 1/2 days. If it does, I will be very happy to go Mon - Fri aftn. AF. This week I'm not quite as obsessed with it as I was last week.

I managed very well, but I really want to be able to have my relaxing late Sunday afternoon wine and sit on my patio, read, gear up for the next week, etc. Especially this weekend being Mother's Day. My son graduates from college Saturday so I can't tie too big of one on Fri night as my daughter & I have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive 2 hrs. Hoping to see a few more lbs drop off too...

Feeling good :-)

[Jay-J]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Jay ... WONDERFUL on 63 days AF - you must be so pleased with yourself. I am curious though - why have you stopped the topa? Do you think you can do it on your own now? I think that is great for you if you can ... please keep popping in and let us know how you are doing. What level did you get up to on it? Well done you !!

Thanks sunshine! I stopped the Topa because of two things: I don't really like taking pills on maintenance. It's just a phobia I have. Even with vitamins, I only go for a few months. And also I want to see if I still need it. Because there were times early on when I would go on weekend trips and I would forget to bring my dose of Topa and everything would be fine. I got to the point with Topa that I no longer felt anything (I reached 100mg.). In the beginning, yes, I could really feel the "hit" or "buzz," then after 2 weeks, no more. Now, I'm about a week and a half on nothing and I feel the same way I did when on 100mg. 3 or 4 weeks ago. So I'm thinking, maybe I don't need it anymore. I'm hoping that is so, but should the cravings come back, I have the pills on standbye.

Regards and good luck to all!

[spacebebe01]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Well done Jay topa or not you are doing great, you must be so proud of yourself I hope.

Houxt glad that your cravings are less this week, I think the longer you go without drink the easier it will be, and with your system which I know I have never done I would assume that the habit of daily drinking would lessen and so hopefully become more of a habit of weekend drinking. It is reakoned that habits take around three months to change, something to do with the hardwiring in the brain and our automatic response system. I mean habit in the normal sense of the word not as in "having a habit" as used in addiction/dependence which is different and is when we require detox to stop which you dont.

Play glad you are back on the AB, I have thought a lot about the idea of cravings only going away with total abstinence camp of thinking. I am thinking you probably read this on general threads. I have two ways of thinking about this having had several times of having total abstinence mostly without use of any medications used to help acohol addiction, which is I think what I am doing now. Firstly as an onlooker I think a major flaw in the AB 5/7 plan is the idea of only taking the med on a certain day of the week ie. say a Monday, so if you are going out on a Monday or Tuesday and know you will want to drink then instead of taking the AB the next day and then still getting the 5 days of not drinking it seems you are waiting until the next Monday to take it as that is AB day and seems to be thought of as being written in stone, which of course its not. Anyday should be AB day to my way of thinking. Then comes the problem of the weekend, what happens if you simply dont want to drink over the weekend, do you drink just because its the time when you can anyway. But the major flaw in all of this I think is that its still all about drinking, whether your on none drinking days or not and I do think thats allowing alcohol to have too much importance in your life than it should. The goal in my reakoning should be that alcohol has such little importance in life that its become irrelevant and you dont have to think about it much at all. Until that happens craving will probably always be there because you are still thinking about alcohol. BUT not drinking 5 days a week is so much better for your health than drinking 7 days a week that it has to be appauded no matter how or why you do it.

In my past experience tho craving does not just go away with time or not drinking, especially when I focus on the time I havent drank, ie when I was in rehab or AA it was a lot about how many days sober everyone had been, once again I think that is still putting too much thought into alcohol even when your not doing it. and the big problem for me in that was I did get cravings still but didnt have a way to cope with them and was told so many times to just stay sober and they would go, that I felt myself a failure for even thinking about drink and having draving, they would then grow into such obsessions which eventually I had to give into, like the little boy with his finger in the damn the pressure got way too much and I would not just drink but end up on a big bender because I hadnt been allowed to find my own way of dealing with and expressing my thoughts about drink in such places, including some threads and groups of people on this forum but obviously not on this thread that demanded total abstinence. Also I think the idea of counting days or any time is so demoralising to me, you have one drink and your back to square one, as if that time before when you did so well and struggled so hard hadnt happened and counted for nothing. So I aviod the kind of recovery people who tout their ideas lof this like the plague, they make me ill.

So how do I cope now, well most of the time I dont think about drink at all, I think the years of struggling, drinking, having to go to places like AA and lsitening to the stuff I hated and made me worse to please some members of my family but knowing what they said was not right for me, then ending up drinking again, trying different meds, I have taken Campral, Baclofen and Topa and ended up drinking and ill every time that I have got sick of the whole thing. I am bored by it and realise it is all just a mirage anyway. The idea that alcohol will somehow work and make my life better is just shit, it wont it always makes my life worse in one way or another. The idea that I cannot relax of an evening without it isnt true, it makes me less relaxed although quite possibly because I do have to hide it but I dont think if I drank it openly it would make any difference. I am scared to try a drink right now, I dont want to get dependent again, I dont want it back in my life. you are right Play when you say its like an abusive relasionship and one tha having broken away from I dont want to goback to.

[spacebebe01]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Sun why cant you take AB because of the dentist? there is no alcohol used in dental practice is there, if there is cant you just explain to the dentist about the AB and Im sure there is an alternative they can use.

I havent read back enough to properly catch up on everyone else but

Dizzy I take it things are not going well with you and your bf. Have you split up, sorry things are not going well for you right now.

Bug one thing I have noticed about not just you but I think a lot of us is our ability to be able to beat ourselves up and I think you have this knack as well. I dont know whether you should go up in dose, as I have jsut said I havent been able to read back and catch up. You are having a tough time of it so please try to go easy on yourself, my family, by which I mean my mum and older kids where horrible to me when I drank, I think there are a few reasons for this, they are worried and want you to stop, are sick of having their own lives messed up and constantly not knowing what state you will be in, are sick of always being stressed by the worry and maybe mostly because they want the real you back because thats the you they love and need. Most people without alcohol addiction cant begin to understand why we cant just stop or take it easy, they have no concept of this and no way of dealing with someone when they are addicted. Im not by any means trying to make excuses for him and if he is being physically abusinve then you need to get out to a safe place right now, but if not then this relationship can be saved if all your hubby wants is you to be sober again and you want that as well then you are both at least starting with the same goal. Things will get better as long as you dont stop trying.

Space x

[sunshinedaisies]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Okay ..... valium tzken - znd feel So strange. never had this before. Wow.... not sure if I like it or not, but I don't feel nervous about my appt any more. Am not even going to attempt to respond to posts - I will post later when this wears off... !

Back later today to check in..... wish me luck,

love, Sun XXX

[StuckinLA]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

I AM SO JEALOUS.

I've only had valium once, and it was in the ER, via IV, and it was 20 then another 40mg about 1/2 an hour later. But nothing had made everything else go away so quickly before or after. I took a nap. And I loved the whole wide world. And I finally knew everything would be OK.

Hang in there, Sun. It's going to be just fine. :l:l

[spacebebe01]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

What are you getting done sun, is it something serious I am wracking my brains to think of what it could be, but good luck I hope it all goes well for you, I dont like the dentist either.

Stuck I think having valium by IV is probably different, also you had a large dose. When I get it off my doc I just get the 5mg pills and dont really notice anything exept for later when I realise the anxiety had gone. I actually rang my pdoc this morning about getting another weeks supply of them because I have been suicidal lately, the only reason Im still here really is because I couldnt do that to my kids so I know I am safe because they are keeping me that way but Im not at all well and when I saw my doc yesterday he said there is nothing else I can take that will help that he knows of but he cant give me any more at the moment because I only had some a couple of weeks ago. There is strict ruling on how often gp's can prescribe them nowadays. Please dont anyone tell me how addictive they are, I know already but since Im addicted to opiates anyway and have to be right now to be able to move so I really do know Im not going to get addicted to valium because I dont get enough from the docs to do that. Unlike the pain meds which I have to takeevery day. To get addicted to valium you have to take it every day for at least two weeks my gp says, I have also read that elsewhere so do think a lot of research has gone into its safe use. Not sure why I went into all that its just that often mention of it is often met with dont touch it!!!!!

[StuckinLA]

New here and starting Topa and with a question

Space I am so sorry to hear you've been so low. I wish nothing but the very best for you, but don't know what else to say.

About the IV Valium, I was given the standard protocol for AL withdrawal, and with being an alkie and being cross-tolerant to Valium (and benzos generally) it just relaxed me and put me to sleep for a while. So I'm at my doctor appointment now, B/P is pretty high, and we shall see how all this goes. Hope everyone is well. I'll be around a bit later, I'm sure.