Indifference.

[bleep]

Indifference.

Grommet, that makes a lot of sense. Given me something to think about, thanks.

[Longshot]

Indifference.

Hi bleep

I've just poured through your thread;

That whole getting into bed just nodding off and getting propped away suddenly has me jumping up and down and shouting "thats me! thats me!"

I've been so badly sleep deprived for so long I have no idea, what my switch would and should feel like, because I literally have no idea what a switch would be right now. I've been like this for months, and it's completely destroyed my emotional abilities.

Anyway well done sir....Good job.....

[Grommet]

Indifference.

Long,

You on Bac now? If not, you may find that you will sleep better than ever. If you are, your sleep will change at different levels - just keep after it. I found that after my drinking slowed I feel great on 6 hours of sleep, where before I needed a solid 8.

And like you, I feel I have much in common with Bleep as well.

[bleep]

Indifference.

Hi Longshot, thanks!

When the switch comes, you'll know, even if it isn't a Eureka! moment. There's suddenly a gap, into which the rest of life can just naturally flow and fill up. You realise how much life has been pushed aside and squashed into a corner for booze, and now suddenly has room to breathe, and it's great.

Grommet's right - I am sleeping much less, but the quality is obviously much improved. I feel refreshed and rested after 4 to 5 hours of sleep. As an example, it's 4:20 in the morning right now, and I'm waiting eagerly for the day to begin.

[Longshot]

Indifference.

Gromit wrote: Long,

You on Bac now?

Yes Gromit, I've been on Bac since Oct, titrated up slowly since then to 450 now. I have to admit, I didn't post much diary stuff at the time. Because at the moment I started taking Bach, my work went into over drive...

Thank god for Bach, theres no way I could have coped being a pisshead. I was doing flat out 12 hour days from Oct and Nov, and Dec. Drinking moderately and occasionally as I titrated up. Dec is when it (I wouldn't say "switched" for me) but when life started to become more manageable and positive.

And then I had the christmas from hell.

bleep;1059098 wrote: Hi Longshot, thanks!

When the switch comes, you'll know, even if it isn't a Eureka! moment. There's suddenly a gap, into which the rest of life can just naturally flow and fill up. You realise how much life has been pushed aside and squashed into a corner for booze, and now suddenly has room to breathe, and it's great.

Grommet's right - I am sleeping much less, but the quality is obviously much improved. I feel refreshed and rested after 4 to 5 hours of sleep. As an example, it's 4:20 in the morning right now, and I'm waiting eagerly for the day to begin.

I've just had such a insanely stressful january it started with being the Pallbearer to my wife's uncle. On New Years Day! The man was a chronic Alcoholic. And I was at 400mg, at that point. I drank heavily twice after that. Then I had insane stress levels just at every turn. Now I just can't seem to sleep.

I started the year hopelessly exhausted over that, then went to work and finished a job that should have been mine till April, in just 4 days. And life kept throwing more and more shit at me.

Last week it was getting rejected for a job that I was more qualified than the person interviewing me, Followed the next day by being ordered to attend weekday classes on "alcohol awareness" (I've been to these things before, there's always at least one guy pissed at the meeting, I know cause occasionally I was he), and I just could do without the hassle, and an insistence I go on prozac, which will just fuck with my sleep somemore.

This morning was a mad dash to get to the bank to with draw savings to pay our rent, and I literally was two seconds from nearly running over my neighbour, coming around a blind corner.

I can't sleep tonight freaking out about that.

So yeah back in the mind there's the idea that my switch is there. That maybe I've hit it, but my brain is just so fuzzy I have no idea whats going on.

Just four hours ago I got a IM message from my little brother, and started posting loads of crap about Wayne Rooney's goal today, how was Vancouver, and it took me like five freaking posts to realise that this guy was a old friend from college and not my little brother.

It's not even like their names even sound the same!

If I can't do this how am I going to notice when I've hit my switch?

eta i've just spent the last five minutes roaming the house unsure whether I've taken my last Bac.

[Grommet]

Indifference.

Long, I think you need to work it back down. You're burning the candle from both ends with a blow torch in the middle. 25 mg every 3 days was not problem for me. Get to a manageable dose, get your rest, and figure out where you are. You may have blown right through the switch, maybe not. It doesn't matter. Its a process and you will be playing with dose levels even after you hit your switch.

If all is cool after you come down and you feel you didn't hit your switch, then go back up and ring the bell.

Don't sweat about the neighbor thing. Everyone has episodes like that whether your on Bac or not. If you were drunk it may have been a far worse result.

Work it down for now and take care brother.

[Longshot]

Indifference.

Grommet;1059118 wrote: Long, I think you need to work it back down. You're burning the candle from both ends with a blow torch in the middle. 25 mg every 3 days was not problem for me. Get to a manageable dose, get your rest, and figure out where you are. You may have blown right through the switch, maybe not. It doesn't matter. Its a process and you will be playing with dose levels even after you hit your switch.

If all is cool after you come down and you feel you didn't hit your switch, then go back up and ring the bell.

Don't sweat about the neighbor thing. Everyone has episodes like that whether your on Bac or not. If you were drunk it may have been a far worse result.

Work it down for now and take care brother.

Thanks think I'll give Doctor L a call on Monday

[bleep]

Indifference.

Grommet gives some good advice there. Bac certainly plays with your head, the number of times I've sat looking at the tablets trying to work out whether or not I've just taken them is ridiculous. It helps to sort out the day's dose at the start, to avoid confusion, but even then I manage to confuse myself somehow. High level baclofen is a mindfuck, I can easily understand the brother/friend switch. Done similar things myself.

It does sound like you are having a rough time, which sucks. It'll pass (hopefully!), and you should be much clearer on the other side of it. So far I haven't come across anyone who has regretted calling Dr L, so that sounds like a good idea. He will probably be able to give you a bit of perspective on the whole affair.

It helps, but not much, do just try and take a breath and relax, even for a bit.

[bleep]

Indifference.

Too far, too fast. Story of my life really.

Don't titrate down too quickly, if at all! Today hasn't been a good day. I awoke with drinking thoughts, rather than thoughts of drinking, for the first time in weeks, and proceeded to drink. Not a big day, compared to previous efforts, but certainly big compared to recent activity.

This is very dose dependent, for me. I think the switch isn't a point you reach, it's a point you have to maintain, as said by Red in her post about Dr L. So I am shooting back up, hopefully the dose will kick in before any shit happens...

I'm not overly worried about this development, I know there is a dose that prevents this sort of thing happening. I hope 360mg's wasn't the dose for me, I think I may have overshot the mark due to going up so fast. We shall see...

[Grommet]

Indifference.

You'll work it all out Bleep. It would be too easy to hang a nice, rounded number on it.

Think of the bright side, isn't it nice to know that you have the only sword that can ALWAYS slay the beast?

Bleep, it's time to pull the sword out of the sheeth and knock the bitch's head off.

Put it in YouTube if you can :H

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Indifference.

bleep;1059750 wrote: Today hasn't been a good day. I awoke with drinking thoughts, rather than thoughts of drinking, for the first time in weeks, and proceeded to drink.

Oh, Bleep, luv. I'm so sorry. It's just a blip, though. That's it. No need to go off the rails. No need to beat yourself to a pulp. Deep breath, regroup, keep your eyes on the goal.

It's there. It's not elusive. It's not ephemeral.
I wanted to drink tonight. Very much. Only reason I didn't was because I'm so damn angry, I think! But I knew that if I did it wouldn't be the end of the road, it wouldn't really matter.

Slow and steady, maybe, for this go round? Or maybe not? There is something to the way that you did it, don't start rethinking every damn thing, okay? Just wake up, take the damn pills and don't look at the bottle!
love and hugs to you my friend. Wish you were here right now so we could chat. I'm going to get a little kip and bac here in about 6 hours, I think. We'll catch up then.
:ls
Karen

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Indifference.

Longshot, brother, I'm very worried about you. Please figure out a way to get some sleep. I think you're across the pond, too, right? Dr. L should be available after 7:30am tomorrow morning, maybe 1:30pm (1330, right?) your time. I'll pm you his office number.
hugs to you too.
Karen
FTR, he's had a helluva bac journey and been around for a while. His wife is around too. Hugs, Ally.

[Isolde]

Indifference.

Just wanted to echo what everyone else has said, bleep. It's really just a hiccup, we know now that a lower maintenance dose might not work to stave off cravings indefinitely (guess I figured that out last month first hand!).
I think that going back up and then slowly coming down to see where you can hover for awhile is a great idea. The good thing is that the switch doesn't ever become less attainable over time, regardless of how many times we relapse or come down in our dose.
I don't mind see sawing back and forth with the bac dosage. I don't know if I could maintain anything much over the 100s personally though for a very long length of time, due to the sleep disturbances. All of the other SEs are manageable for me, but for now I've got to get to a point soon where I can get a good night's sleep naturally for a little while.

Just wanted to swing by and offer my support. I wonder now how many additional switches I will end up adding to my signature eventually! :H It might get to a point where I just stop keeping track I suppose.

[Guest]

Indifference.

bleep;1059750 wrote: Too far, too fast. Story of my life really.

Don't titrate down too quickly, if at all! Today hasn't been a good day. I awoke with drinking thoughts, rather than thoughts of drinking, for the first time in weeks, and proceeded to drink. Not a big day, compared to previous efforts, but certainly big compared to recent activity.

This is very dose dependent, for me. I think the switch isn't a point you reach, it's a point you have to maintain, as said by Red in her post about Dr L. So I am shooting back up, hopefully the dose will kick in before any shit happens...

I'm not overly worried about this development, I know there is a dose that prevents this sort of thing happening. I hope 360mg's wasn't the dose for me, I think I may have overshot the mark due to going up so fast. We shall see...

I'm going to stick my neck out and post because of what Bleep has just said.

This happened to me today BUT I DIDN@T DRINK why? because I used EVERY non-bac tool I have in my tool box from all the years of not using bac. I'm supposed to be trying to reverse the recent effects of alcohol via diet, fitness, studying, concentrating on work because all 3 are relevant to my job/life goals and imminent.

Anyway I decided not drinking is more important than anything else. So I've fought like I used to with sheer will power because I think every AF day has got to be important. I know having X number of sober days provides a massive confidence incentive, and a sense of "I don't want to ruin this good work or go back to day 1"

So I've scoffed cake and chocolate, put off work, put off study, put off anything else and gone to bed early. Kept myself safe, locked the door and banned myself from going to the off-licence. If I tell you I live more or less right next to an off-licence, I think you'll get my drift that it's as easy as falling out my door to go pick up a bottle of alcohol. I can't go anywhere without walking past an alcohol outlet, so one of my tools is to mentally 'lock' myself into the house.

I also have convinced myself that not drinking might help the bac work better, and I also don't want to 'test' my sobriety because I know every time you drink you can risk progressing the disease. I'd rather not.

All of this could be a load of rubbish but I figure it MUST be better for me not to drink, not to break my 10 days AF. I've also bumped up my dose by 20mg today incase I've had a false switch.

I know my methods are questionable but what I'm saying is that I've not given in, and I hope that using these other tools will help me regards keeping my switch point. I think anyone would like that to happen and remain as low at a low as possible dose.

Sorry if I've written anything that is misconceived, even if it is it's kept me sober today. I've been concerned about Bleep because he drank right from the off with the switch. I know I don't always understand how bac works, but my instinct was one of danger.

So I'm posting about my struggle today to try and show it can be done, there are ways of avoiding drinking whilst waiting for the bac to do it's job. Because I've used other tools before they are there for me, and there is no harm in using them now for anyone(I can't see any anyway). I know your goal is moderation but I feel that can sometimes fog the issue. Maybe you could try some time AF?Getting away from old habits can help you get used to simply not drinking - making sobriety a habit so you are used to not drinking with a combination of the bac plus other tools.

Anyway sorry if this goes against the thinking or science of the mechanism of bac, but I've fought today and stayed sober. That's got to give me a better chance for the future I'm certain. Whatever it can't have done me any harm not to have drank - and my cravings started this morning.

Bleep also posted on one of my threads saying something about "good luck on titrating down". I'd not thought about this when I was dosing up, but my gut instinct was to wait and I'm glad I did. It also reitterated something others had been saying to me over the last few weeks - don't give false advice, don't tell others stuff that could harm them. I'm glad I'm stubbornly blind at times, because I'm pretty sure after today that if I had started to titrate down I'd have drank. Redheads post re questions for the Dr have backed up that you shouldn't go down too.

[bleep]

Indifference.

Thanks everyone for the support. I agree, just a blip. Neva, in true bleep style, I went immediately back to my old dose (Titration? What's that?) and that should work. I'm back in Side Effect City though! The swallowing one, the tingles, the buzzing, etc., have all returned for a visit. On the whole, I realise I actually like the SE's, and I missed them when they weren't around. After a couple of days it gets a bit wearying, for now it's cool though.

UK, you are right, the cravings could have been resisted if I had put my mind to it. Having the baclofen safety net made it much easier to drink - knowing it's a blip, and not a lifestyle meant I could just relax and go with it, it'll be over by Tuesday at the latest. I know that's not really in the spirit of bac, but that's how it works for me. Thanks for your post. I'm also going to put my neck out and cautiously suggest that you may not have hit your switch dose if you are also fighting cravings. Indifference for me meant exactly that. Perhaps you agree, since you are increasing your dose? It's good to see you are taking your dosage seriously this time, and are seeing results!

My biggest regret is not taking advantage of the lower dose and having a shag! Perhaps I'm doomed to having to drop my dose, have quick shag and a mini-binge, then go back up! :wow: Whatever - the level of choice that baclofen has given me, with regards to my whole lifestyle and life choices, is just phenomenal. I am truly grateful to Dr Ameisen for this.

Is, you're spot on, as usual - see-sawing with the dose is just a part of the process. If 180mg's did it for you, I would tentatively suggest there isn't much point in going higher, based on Red's post?

Again, thanks for chipping in people, it really helps.