This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

[RudyB]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

red! golly jeepers! you've got tough stuff there. i know food allergies can be real challenging, but i didn't know about the anxiety stuff. makes more sense that it'd be the food than the bac, given that you've been on the bac for so long, and the food changes just happened. sounds like you're sorting it all out.

i agree completely w bruun. one caveat is that sometimes i read about others' challenges and i wonder what the heck is my excuse! i've had a pretty smooth and charmed life. just the standard issue alcoholic and emotionally unavailable father, the mother with no voice. nothing majorly wrong, ever. but i do realize that it's odious to compare, and that i got the beast for whatever reasons (maybe i couldn't stand being happy?), and i have a lot to be thankful for and to protect from that beast. folks who have had so many challenges like you describe, red, are living pillars of the inner fortitude that DOES come in the package of a newborn babe. so good you've still got it and are making so much with it!

red, you're remarkable.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

RH-
I'm glad you clarified, though I think I had the gist of it. What I wonder is if the anxiolytic (hate that word.) anti-anxiety properties of bac also help in the moment. I can't even begin to get in to half lives (it's about as foreign as past lives. har har) But I wonder why I used to drink shortly after a missed dose when I didn't notice I'd missed the dose. (or even if that's accurate? I think so.)

Some of the stuff that I'm dealing with in terms of clarity and somnolence is driving me crazy enough that I'm starting to look at correlations with my food intake. The default, at least in my world, is always looking to the bac. :H but there is some indications, tenuous at best at the moment, that I can regain my mood and emotional equilibrium with the diet and exercise routine I was on before... Which I've since almost completely stopped in favor of couch-potatoe-ness and MnMs.

Rubilicious, check out the article I posted. It helps me to keep it all in perspective given that my life, outside of the burden of the beast, has been pretty charmed, too.
We're ALL examples of determination and many other things. Everyone on MWO. ya know?
xo

[Ne/Neva Eva]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Red, you are remarkable.

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Thanks all. You are ALL remarkable. Just a quick update. My anxiety went away. It was not bac, but maybe the food? I think often, everything that happens to anyone, is related to being on bac. Most of the time it's true. :H Not this time. I am grateful, that may have been a deal breaker.

Hugs and kisses.

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Update

I have made it up to 200mg/day. My switch dose before. I am not switched, but Dr L told me in his experience, it can take a higher dose the second time around. I'm hopeful it won't be too much higher. I should have been here sooner. Even with my slow titration (10mg a week), it's taken me longer. I won't go up if I've missed some of my pills a couple of days in a row, or if I'm adjusting the amount I take at a time. I've increased my dosages to 40mg at a time. This way I only have to take the pills 5x's a day and it is more likely I'll get all my doses in. It's working!

Even though I'm not switched my life has completely changed for the better in the last 6 months. I no longer drink to blackout or not remembering what I've done. My nine year old doesn't make comments about me not remembering because I was "drunk". I don't feel shame in the morning after I wake up, trying to piece the evening together. I don't wake up and have to look through my cell phone to see who I dialed in a near blackout. I don't have to try to remember all the crazy shit I may have told them. I did this often with my evil stepmother and my sperm donor father. They haven't heard from me in nearly 6 months. I no longer start drinking at 10 or 11am on my days off, worried that the school will call and need me to get a sick kid or something. These were all very frequent occurrences for me. In so many ways, I already feel free.

I have noticed my SEs are much worse when I've had a few glasses of wine the night before. My spaciness tends to sky rocket. I have a hard time concentrating. It makes it a necessity for me to try to avoid drinking on the nights before I work...which are most nights. I'm not always successful, but I usually am. Plus one for bac.

I'm getting tons of stuff done. I work like a mad woman, I'm trying to beef up my bank acct. When I'm off, I do work around the house. I literally never stop. I'm forcing some low time on myself this weekend. I don't have too may chores I'm making myself accomplish, and I'm spending some quality time with the wee ones.

I am the proud mother of a three year old girl today! My baby turned three. My plan is to bake gluten free, sugar free, dairy free, cupcakes. I'm not much of a baker, I can cook up a storm, but baking is not my forte. I'm still going to give it a whirl!

[Murphyx]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Yay, that all sounds good Red. Except for the cupcakes. They sound fecking disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself, I reckon that's tantamount to child cruelty. :H

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Bite your tongue Murphy. I plan on making them taste good. I'm going to do a cream cheese frosting sweetened with stevia. It's worth a try. If they suck, we'll go out for real cake.

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Oh, wait! If I do the cream cheese frosting they won't be dairy free. Oh, well. I guess I'm making gluten free, sugar free cupcakes. I just won't put the cream cheese on mine.

[Bruunhilde]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Happy Birthday, Red's baby girl! I love little girls, and cupcakes. Post the recipe if it's good. Are you using coconut flour?

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

No, rice flour. I didn't find any coconut flour recipes, but that would be delish!! How are you Bruun? I owe you a PM still, I'm just terrible sometimes with private correspondence. Please forgive me. I also owe your thread a visit. I was missing you for a while!

[redhead77]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

So, the cupcakes are done. I'm thinking nicht so gut. Okay, they might really taste like arse. I think they taste okay (but I'm not a good judge, I haven't eaten anything normal in months), it's how my kids are responding. They were pretty cool, they are used to being experimented on, but i could tell the cupcakes just didn't cut it (my eldest was kind of gagging and asked for h20 right away :H) I think we're going out to dinner. I'll get me some tasty whatever and they can as well, and then they can enjoy some cake for dessert.

My garden is coming along. I have enough romas to make a sauce for some gluten free pasta. Or I could use the sauce on my large spaghetti squashes. I have regular squash, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, green beans...oh shit, that's it! That's what's actually grown. I then have 7 eggplants that are halfway, more tomatoes, 2 watermelons that are halfway, and of course I've had plenty of fresh herbs all along. I am hoping the other fruits and veggies have time to come to fruition before the first frost. I'll let you know...I guess this is what happens when you plant your garden in mid to late June.

[RudyB]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

heya red! good luck with that garden thing. golly, mine went crazy and grew like mad. now i'm BEGGING the neighbors to come over and harvest! i can't keep up and i feel GUILTY! isn't that silly?! judge's kid here is ALWAYS on the guilty end of the gavel. i never staked my tomatoes and so most of them end up rotting on the ground before i can get to them. my romas seem to take it the best, though, so, now that i have power i'll be freezing a ton for that mid-winter sauce.

sorry about the cupcakes. they sound better than the birthday cake i made for my son's fourth, which had no recipe and too much salt. he still mentions it from time to time.

happy 3rd birthday, red's third!

glad you're finding a way to get down all them pills. sheesh! IT -THAT- is a chore in itself, huh?!

sperm donor father, ha ha! that's a good one. i have one of those, too! this weekend, this long weekend, mine had too much to do to give me a break. nope, couldn't hang with his son sat nite cause he had plans. sunday too. maybe with his new girlfriend? the dude doesn't waste any time, and he's proud of it! thank god i said good riddance long ago!

i fully relate to your commentary on life post-bac. all that stuff about not drinking so much, to blackout, your nine yr old's comments about your consumption. you're doing great, huh?! scrolling down the phone... eek. i'm so glad that when i don't remember shit now i don't have to blame it on being a drunk. such a fucking relief. big fat phew!

ok, dear. nitey nite.
xo rudy ru

[Sammi33]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Hi Red,

I really enjoyed reading how much your life has changed even though you haven't switched yet. Gives me some hope that there will be relief even before complete indifference is achieved.

Ugh, scrolling down the phone. I can't wait for the day when that is out of my life for good. I can't even bring myself to do it anymore, I just avoid EVERYONES phone calls for weeks. Until the next binge and then I feel brave enough to ring them and it all starts again. Yuck.

Congrats to you, I hope one day I can post something similar.

[RudyB]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

heya sammi! you will get to that point when you'll be posting EXACTLY the same kinda thing! you will! the ways that life changes when you give up the drink is worthy of tomes and tomes of books! i haven't gotten caught up on your thread recently. i've been out of power and that's a bitch when it comes to using the internet! i look forward to checking in on your progress, and i hope you're doing just fine. yes, red's is a compelling story, isn't it? it's good to have such bright souls 'round to tell their stories and inspire the likes of you, dear sister.

red, so glad you never gave up on your post. i remember, not so long ago, having exactly the same 'i don't really know if i should keep it going' kinda thoughts. i'm so glad yours is still here for me to read, and my own thread, to write about and chart my progress, and to stay in deep touch with my friends at mwo. tis good to see that doing so does inspire newbies to keep the faith that a really cool life awaits on the good side of sobriety.

spainsh word for the day: preciocidad ~ preciousness; precious thing
ustedes son mis preiciocidades.

besitos para todos,
xxx rudy b

[Murphyx]

This Redhead's Baclofen Thread

Sammi, if you haven't already done so, read through this thread from the beginning, it's a hell of a story and I don't just mean just the juicy bits which Red has probably deleted anyway.

Red, congrats on the harvest. I remember when you started planting, I didn't think you had a snowball's chance of getting anything out of it in that short time span. The hard work digging and enhancing the soil must have paid off. I had my first of the season apples yesterday, Yuchhh! I hope there're no more high winds for a few weeks.

Your sprogs are preciocidad indeed! If, as a child, I'd have been given that god-awful cupcake to eat, I would have spat it out and thrown a complete wobbly. Hell, what I am saying? I'd do that even now.