Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

[RedThread12]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

To Tbilisi's question: the bac "high" doesn't feel at all like a marijuana high to me. I guess I'm extra fortunate 'cause it just makes me feel normal - or at least what I imagine other people who aren't craving alcohol or feeling depressed all day feel. While I've been feeling "high" with bac my friends remark that I'm behaving more like a sober person than I did for the 3 years I was AF without baclofen. Thanks to suggestions from other members of this board, I also take huge quantities of l-glutamine, and somewhere between the bac and the l-glute I quit taking anti-depressants. Oh - and I never get even sleepy, much less somnolent, from baclofen.

So, while being prepared for difficulties and challenges, be on the look-out for really good things that might happen!

I thought I had sag-face, too, Bruun. Then I realized I was looking at myself through eyes that were neither drunk nor hung-over for the first time in a long time. Yowsa'!

Can't speak to SagKnob, Murph. Hopefully it's one of those SE's that disappears at some point. I do have SagTits, however; which I believe is a SE of titrating down too quickly from high doses of baclofen. Or age.

[Bruunhilde]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Red, I'm still looking through hungover or drunk eyes.....

Congrats on no major side effects, what dose are you at?

[RedThread12]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

I'm maintaining at around 120 mg/day. I went up to 225 mg, but didn't feel any different about alcohol then than I did when I started at 30 mg/day, which is never a craving, very little interest, and able to have a glass of wine or two when it seems to be the thing to do. I also didn't have any extreme side effects at 225. But honestly, my alcoholic drinking stopped the day I took my first dose of baclofen. It was like being visited by the sober-fairy overnight.

At times I consider moving on down, but at this dosage, along with the supplements I started taking soon after I started taking the bac, I just feel really good. Why feck with a good thing? is my position at the moment. But I've lived decades without alcohol or bac, so that's in the long-term view.

[Bruunhilde]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

The Sober-Fairy, send her here! Or is it a him? I've no aversion to knobs!

That's a great story. I hope mine becomes like that, although it hasn't started like that! You said you've had decades without alcohol, though? That could be the difference between our stories.

[bleep]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

SagKnob would be welcome in these parts. I've got cannot-be-satisfied-no-matter-what-knob, which blows. Or doesn't.

I can completely understand the hangover / drunk eyeball thing, it makes prefect sense to me red.

This thread is hilarious!

[Murphyx]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Yesterday I only had one glass of beer and I had to force that down. I don't care if my brain is telling me I don't want a drink, I'll be buggered if I give in that easily.

When I wake up in the mornings one of the first things I think about, while I'm still in bed, is when can I start to get pissed. When can I have my first drink. If it's a weekday I plan my drinking around my work; I'm self employed and, without going in to too many details about my profession, I can generally meet my clients early in the morning and do the office work afterwards. That way I can start drinking by about midday. At weekends it's a matter of working out when I can sneak some early ones in (probably around 10am) without the other half knowing what I'm up to. But yesterday morning I felt utterly repulsed by the idea of alcohol and that feeling, to my surprise, remained throughout the day. I assumed it must be to do with the crappy night's sleep I had Thursday, but this morning I woke up ready to plan my drinking, but found myself instead looking forward to walking in to town and getting a cappuccino at La Piazza.

This is not me, not me at all. Yes I like good coffee, but no where near as much as I like to get a lash on.

I've only been on Baclofen for less than a fortnight. I had expected any sort of response to take many weeks or months. I had expected to have to go up to 450mg/day (using Amesien's dosage of 3.6mg/kg/day), but I'm only on 150mg.

Let me just explain, I am probably the world's most cynical person. If someone tells me something works I might try it, but resolve to find fault with it and that normally happens. I don't believe anything, especially if it seems too good to be true. ... ***EDIT*** ... The point is, this can't be a placebo effect because it's one of the things I am always looking out for and anyway I was expecting the effect to occur at a much higher dose. And it can't be willpower that's preventing me from drinking, 'cos I have none and I really mean none whatsoever when it comes to not doing things that are bad for me.

So that just leaves the Baclofen. Somehow Baclofen is working. Now I don't yet know if this is temporary or permanent. Maybe I'll be back on the piss by tonight. If the feeling to get lashed up again returns I won't fight it, I hate the idea of being one of those alcoholics who spend every waking minute fighting the urge. One day at a time? Bollocks! A day is far too long to stay off the sauce if you're gagging for a bevvy.

So we'll see how it goes, but fuck me sideways its been an awfully long time since I didn't want a drink.

@Bleep: You need to work on strengthening the muscles in your forearms. Frantically fast and prolonged wanking is the only answer:bonkers:. You will however end up looking like popeye.

@Bruun and Red: SagFace and SagTits? I have the answer...SURGERY!!!!:H

[bleep]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Murphy, that's great news! What a result! I miss booze, I really do, it also happened quickly in my case, so there was no adjustment period. Tough shit. Looks like it should have been BacloFUN, after all...

[seeking_serenity]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Murphy--that's fantastic! I'm always so happy to read updates like yours. I've fought the Bac since the beginning as well, and have found some pretty drastic decreases in my drinking. Here's to your continued success. :yay:

[Bruunhilde]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Murphyx;1054465 wrote:
This is not me, not me at all. Yes I like good coffee, but no where near as much as I like to get a lash on.

I've only been on Baclofen for less than a fortnight. I had expected any sort of response to take many weeks or months. I had expected to have to go up to 450mg/day (using Amesien's dosage of 3.6mg/kg/day), but I'm only on 150mg.

@Bleep: You need to work on strengthening the muscles in your forearms. Frantically fast and prolonged wanking is the only answer:bonkers:. You will however end up looking like popeye.

@Bruun and Red: SagFace and SagTits? I have the answer...SURGERY!!!!:H

LOL, Murph, CONGRATS!!!!! That's fantastic news, I'm so excited for you, and you're fantastically funny! Keep us updated, I'm so hopeful you can be free at 150mg. I'd like that for all of us!

Bleep, I've always been a huge Popeye fan, go for it!

Regarding the Sag surgery fund, who will contribute the first smackeroo?

[Murphyx]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Thanks people.

It's still working. The last 3 days I've had 1 glass of beer each day, more because I feel I really should than I need to. Maybe the idea of abstinence just scares me. I dunno. The beer did nothing for me and each time I didn't even drain the glass.

I'm now less concerned about this just being a blip and starting to feel confident that the Bac has actually worked. It still freaks me out that it worked so quickly and at such a low dose. Maybe it's the way I titrated. Maybe the frequency of doses. Maybe it's my personal chemistry. Maybe it's something completely different. Who knows? There needs to be a lot more research in to different doses and dosing schedules.

I managed to get through the meal with the in laws today without wanting a drink, despite the fact that all 7 of them were getting off their faces on wine and they were all ripping the piss out of me about England beating Wales in the rugby on Friday night...I'm Welsh and they're Saxon pigs, oops I mean English.

[tbilisi]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Really glad to hear all this, Murphy. I picked Tbilisi for my nom de board because I have a dream of going back to my favorite city again and the amount of wine drunk there is staggering, even for a Welshman.

I'm following in your footsteps. The bac arrived on Friday, and I went to 30mg the first day with no SE. It may be having some effect because I took my first 10mg this morning and went back to bed for an hour. No other sense of the heavens parting or feeling stoned. Maybe 30mg is too small a dose to feel anything.

I wonder if I'll feel anything on the way to the click. Don't plan to touch any booze until either my one year mark in July or my birthday in April because I'm the curious sort. As I've said here, I want to find out if I can have a drink safely or if the desire will disappear so completely that I can go back to Tbilisi, or France, and not worry about it.

Go Murph, go!

[bleep]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Cool, it's hard to even comment on an update like that!

!0 points Murphy. Congratulations!

[Grommet]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Murphyx;1054465 wrote:

So that just leaves the Baclofen. Somehow Baclofen is working. Now I don't yet know if this is temporary or permanent.

A great post Murph in many ways. It may be temporary but it will also be permanent. It does work, even if you are not yet at the indifference point (sounds like you may be close). The great thing is that it does change your life, even before you hit the switch.

Great, great, great news!!

[Murphyx]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Thanks for the kind words people. I haven’t updated for a few days because I wanted some time to get a handle on what’s been happening to me.

Sorry in advance for the length of this post.

I started on bac just over 2 weeks ago and I’ve spent the last week trying to convince myself that I can’t possibly have hit the switch so soon. I’ve had a glass of beer most days and waited for the oh-come-off-it-you-know-you-want-to-get-rat-arsed-so-just-give-in-to-the-desire-and-get-seriously-pissed feeling, but nothing. I don’t want a second one. I didn’t actually want the first, but it just seemed like the thing to do. After all I’m a long term pisshead. It’s what I do. Well not anymore it’s not. I would honestly prefer a good cappuccino or a nice cup of tea to a skinfull of Stella. I can’t believe I just typed that, it sounds so …well … normal. And that’s what I now am…’normal’. I’m a normal drinker. I have a normal relationship with alcohol. I’m now one of those normal people who can have a drink…or not…it doesn’t matter. Bizarre!

While I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else, I think it’s important for people looking into using baclofen in the future to have some record of other’s experience to help them make their own decisions, So this is (as far as I can recall) how I started with Baclofen:

Day 1, 25mg, 4 evenly spaced doses
Day 2 as above
Day 3 50mg, 5 evenly spaced doses
Day 4 as above
Day 5 80mg, 8 evenly spaced doses
Day 6 as above
Day 7 120mg, 8 evenly spaced doses
Day 8 150mg, 8 evenly spaced doses (the switch!)
Day 9 as above
Day 10 until now 150mg in six doses: 8am, 10, 12, 2pm, 4, 6. Making 6pm my last dose to stop me falling asleep too early and allowing a (relatively) normal night’s sleep.

The reason I wouldn’t recommend this sort of titration pace is because from about day 5 to day 9 my head was seriously messed up. If I wasn’t self employed and was able to set my own work schedule I would be in all sorts of trouble. I can’t imagine going in to an office, or operating machinery or driving for a living if I was that spaced out. I’d have been fired, at best, and responsible for a hideous accident at worst. I think a more steady titration would be sensible for most people; allow yourself time to adapt to the changes and get over the side effects. Having said that, I do get the feeling that the quicker you get to your level (the level that works for you) the better to some extent. But then again, what the feck do I know? All I know is what worked for me. We are all different. There is no fixed path, whatever anyone says. You can’t say you need to be on 3.7mg/kg/day, or that everyone will switch on between 210 and 270mg. It just doesn’t seem to work that way. I switched on 1.2mg/kg/day. Others have switched on as little as 30mg or as much as 600mg. I think it’s going to take years and years of different clinical trials to get to the bottom of this and in the meantime people are just going to have to experiment on themselves, like we do. Not ideal, but we don’t have much choice.

Side Effects wise I think I’ve been fairly lucky. Having said that, some people seem to suffer next to no SEs except a little somnolence. Apart from that seriously messed up period of 4 days when I thought my brain was melting, I’ve had:
dizziness - seems to be easing now
nausea - never too bad, but I’ve never been a puker
somnolence – falling asleep in the middle of dinner and ending up with vindaloo all over my face, but taking my last dose at 6pm has helped with that
insomnia – I’m still waking too early but I think that is improving
electric shocks in the hands – was completely crazy for an evening, but less each day since
problems in the trouser department – 100% cured!!!! In fact now much better than before I started on the baclofen (being constantly pissed doesn’t help Mr Happy’s performance).
Feeling stoned/foggy – fun to start with but it got old really quickly. Fortunately also reducing each day. I no longer feel stoned but I am a little concerned that I may appear to others to be.

I won’t be updating this thread unless something changes; Baclofen has done it’s job, it cured my illness so there’s nothing more to say. But I will be sticking around and adding my tuppence worth in others’ threads because it was so important to me when I started, to hear from people for whom Bac had worked, even though I feel like a bit of a fraud because it was so easy for me compared with most other people.

Oh yeah and while I remember, I have discovered the joy of alcohol-free beer. If someone had said to me a month ago that they enjoyed the tasted of Becks Blue as much as real beer I would have laughed in their face (and probably given them a quick dig if no one was watching), but there you have it, it’s actually rather nice.

Now can someone point me in the direction of a forum that is packed with as many helpful, knowledgeable, inspiring and downright good eggs as MWO, that can help me lose weight and stop smoking. Then I really would be fixed.

[bleep]

Murph’s Baclofen (or should that be BacloFUN) diary

Jesus.

Well done Murph, good post. Glad to hear you plan on sticking around for a while, we can get to know you a bit more. Barely scratched the surface during your whirlwind that was baclofen.

It's a strange, strange thing.