Drinking while starting bac

[konakt]

Aloha--New here and have been lurking and loving the threads from all of you experienced members. Reading about your insights and bac adventures (?) has been much more helpful for me than going to AA meetings--where I felt that I was back in Catholic school and filled with such guilt that I had to drive as fast as I could to the nearest liquor store before I felt even more of a failure for not finding my Higher Power (or even believing that there is a Puppet Master out there with enough time on her hands to take up with my AL problems rather than, say, those of the middle east.) But I digress.

My question is this: How did you all get past the challenge of managing your drinking while starting bac? For me, it's been like throwing down a gauntlet--my two brains start arguing thusly: "So you think taking a pill will stop me from keeping our little private party going? Just try it! Here's to you, glug glug." I am so terrified/skeptical/disbelieving that bac can work, that I seem to drink even more just to prove myself right. Crazy, I know.

For background, I somehow talked my husband of 30 years into letting me and my youngest daughter move to Hawaii while he works insane hours in CA and travels constantly so that he would have a "restful place" to come home to whenever he had the time...while the truth is, I've built myself a little drinking oasis where I can indulge to my heart's content---inside with the curtains drawn on this beautiful island, until I can briefly sober up enough to put on a happy face and pick my daughter up from school then start drinking all over again after dinner. Great existence, right? So, now I've started down the bac trail and would like to know how y'all kept taking the pills without sabotaging yourself at every frigging turn.

Maholo for your insights,

KT

"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling. Looking for something, what can it be?" ~ Joni Mitchell

[bleep]

Drinking while starting bac

Hi KT,

It doesn't matter whether you drink or not - generally most here have drunk throughout the journey. What cn happen is it increases the side effects you can feel from the baclofen.

I know that personally my drinking increased when I first started baclofen, for exactly the reason you so eloquently describe!

You don't say what dose you are on, or how long ago you started? For me, this was mostly in the first week that it happened.

Baclofen most certainly works, let the other brain do what it wants, it's doomed. It's clearly quite a persuasive brain (the whole Hawaii thing), but it's days are numbered. Amazingly, you lose none of the good parts of it, just the insatiable need to get drunk. The good parts are even enhanced!

Post a few more details, we will be able to help more.

Good luck!

[Guest]

Drinking while starting bac

This is partly what happened to me. I generally wasn't an everyday drinker, more of an extreme binger. Anyway once on the Bac I thought that gave me permission to drink, because I'd be cured soon anyway. All that happened was that I ended up all over the place, with terrible SEs. Even just a few units I'd be groggy, hardly able to do anything for most of the following day.

[prancy]

Drinking while starting bac

Maybe you ought to give yourself some time without AL to adjust to the bac and see what effect it has on you. You sound pretty unhappy with where the drinking is taking you. Maybe you would like the feeling of being AF for a while.

[konakt]

Drinking while starting bac

Aloha Bleep--

You hit it right on head. It is my first week at 30 per day with the awful/shameful/ridiculous SE of increased drinking! (With a few bad dreams thrown in to spice things up.) Not surprising, but frustrating nonetheless. It gives me such hope to hear you say that the "better" brain will win out. It just doesn't feel possible for me at all at the moment, even though I keep rereading OA's book for reassurance and of course, these boards. I mean, all of the people on here for whom bac has worked can't be making it up, right? At one point I thought so many of the posts were so well-written and compelling that the drug company must have hired professional writers to do free subliminal advertising on here! --Quite a change from the AA rooms where the most complex answer was to "keep comin' back." Yeah, right...I'll be back after I grab some Chardonnay...

Losing the insatiable need to get drunk---I want that. Helps to hear (over and over) that it is possible to stop obsessing someday. Thanks for listening.

KT

[bleep]

Drinking while starting bac

Aloha KT

It's funny you say that, one of my first thoughts was that this was a hoax. Otherwise why wouldn't it be known about the world over? The more I got into into and read though, the more I realised it was too elaborate and long-lasting to be a con. I still wasn't convinced though, it seemed too easy - take a pill, and the problem goes away. And carry on drinking? Yeah, right.

Turns out to be the case though. Incredible. It's like a cheesy movie, it really is. It's like discovering bubblegum cures cancer, or something equally inane. Just chew a stick of bubblegum every day and you'll be cured. Not quite, but you get my drift I hope...

You will stop obsessing. It is as simple and as beautiful as that.

[Nichau]

Drinking while starting bac

God I love this place!

Thank you all for the intelligent banter—and I truly mean it. Konakt, this is the first post I have read of yours, and I swear we could be sisters. And bleep...well said.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Drinking while starting bac

Hi, KT! and :welcome:
OH I KNOW! Bleep and I had it in common that we both thought that this place was full of people who weren't really real. In my case I thought it was like a computer generated something or other that enticed people in and convinced us to buy stuff or something. I was unbelievably (in hindsight) paranoid! Thought I was being wary.

But I'm real. I'm here. I didn't believe it would work, still don't. And yet, I'm sitting next to my husband who is drinking beer and I don't want one. That's reality, it's still unbelievable.

konakt;1065594 wrote: "keep comin' back." Yeah, right...I'll be back after I grab some Chardonnay...
KT

:H Yep, I can relate. I went to a 6am meeting because I wasn't a morning drinker yet, and wouldn't stop on the way home from the meeting to buy booze. Until I started to do just that. Nothing like stopping at the gas station for a 12 pack at 7am after leaving an AA meeting to make one feel strong. Lots to be learned there, didn't keep me sober.

Some hard truth follows, sorry.
Drinking may exacerbate the SEs. The SEs aren't fun. They suck. If you've been reading you know this so I won't belabor the point. If you can figure out a way to manage your life and take bac, it is worth it. Period. In my humble opinion, of course.

I drank A LOT in the beginning. (more than usual, and I had been drinking the same amount every night for years.) ouch. Then I drank a lot in the middle. Then I just couldn't or didn't want to drink a lot. Then I just stopped drinking.

YAY, you! Keep coming bac! You can bring the chardonnay if you really want to, though, well, ouch! It works if you, um, just kttdp! (keep taking the damn pills)
:l
Karen/Ne
Re-reading Dr. OAs book as obsessively as I once read the other book brought me immense solace. As did pm-ing and chats at all hours of the day or night.
That's never happened before in my life.

[konakt]

Drinking while starting bac

UK--That's exactly how I'd been feeling--like now that I'm starting bac and it is going to "cure" me somewhere along the line (have a hard time even saying that word), why not let out all the stops now? How long did it take for that over-the-top kind of using urge take to dissipate for you? I've not been a binge drinker (except for my nightly private luau!), but I realize I've not been AF for one day in ten years, so Prancy's idea of "just going AF" for now at the beginning is simply not an option for me. Actually, when I was a binge drinker (back in the pre-children, early thirties days) I didn't think I had a drinking prob. Everybody I knew binge drank, why not, if you don't have kids...? Denial is my middle name.

Neva, thank you for your warm welcome and all your really honest posts. Yikes! I am so impressed at your hitting a 6 a.m. meeting ever. One of the ladies at AA told me there is a 5:30 meeting here right on the beach, watch the sunrise, the whole shebang. I have not been up at 5:30 since my last kid was in diapers...so getting to an early-morning meeting for me--AS IF! But I can take a pill early in the morning. That I can do. Remind me again how long it took you to hit switch. I am planning on going really really slowly, but reading Bleep's posts, it sounds like it's going to be a pain, SE-wise either way, fast or slow. So is it better to try to get it (the process) over with? I admire all of you who have been able to keep showing up at work while fighting this epic battle...how how how did you do it?

Bleep--why do you not recommend doing your "aggressive" titration? Do you think it's too daunting for most to maintain?

Nichau--I could use a good soul-sistah! I have three brothers who have all struggled with AL, since the death of our non-drinking parents years ago...don't know why it bit all of us in the butt. "But," I guess I'm at the point of understanding that the "why" doesn't really matter, nor will it change my drinking behavior. Hopefully bac will????? What say you? I too appreciate all of the posts here!

OK, Bleep and Neva---so glad to hear you're not paid employees of 4RX or leaders of an underground bac cult!

KT

[bleep]

Drinking while starting bac

konakt;1065628 wrote: ...
Bleep--why do you not recommend doing your "aggressive" titration? Do you think it's too daunting for most to maintain?
...

Bear in mind that mine was extremely aggressive, 400mg's+ in 3 odd weeks. It means I have overshot my switch dose by some margin, and now have to find it on the way back down. Still I prefer to look for it from this side of the switch!

It hit a point in the middle of it all where it hit me in the head with a sledgehammer. I could have avoided it, and had a pleasant easy ride all the way if I had just relaxed a little, even if only for a couple of days, at some of the levels. Looking back on the whole thing, I would probably do it the same way, with a few days between levels rather than a few hours!

Also, while the SE's weren't for the most part unpleasant, I really looked stoned. If your circumstances allow this, then great. Mine didn't really, but the difference between me looking stoned and me looking hungover isn't great, so I got away with it, just.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Drinking while starting bac

hmmm. I wonder if I could find someone to pay me to push a generic med off label when I have absolutely no qualifications that would indicate I know anything about medicine?

Thanks for the kind words. It took me forever! (4 months) Part of the issue was trying to manage my job/life and take bac. It's tough.

Part of it was that I went REALLY slowly. 5 weeks at ~50mg/day is just a waste of good bac, imho. I let the SEs dictate whether or not I was going to go up. They were just a fact of life for me, I ALWAYS felt better when I went up (moderately and with thought and a plan). I sort of feel now that my brain wanted and needed more bac. (but again, not too much more.)
If I had to do it again (whatever forbid) I would do it closer to bleep's method. More accurately, I would stick to the titration that Dr. OA used and is outlined in the book. 20mg every 3 days. Give or take.
If you can lay off the sauce now is the time to do it, again my humble opinion. White knuckle now may save some time on the back end when it's MUCH easier to avoid AL but taking the pills is a real burden.
Wish I had a 530am anything to go to on a beach in aloha-land to watch the sun come up. Seriously. That makes me a little green. And I don't even like the beach.

Keep it coming!
K/Ne
Love Joni Mitchell, but have found that angry and belligerent suited my mood much more so for this ride. Then again, that's probably a reflection of Ne, not just Ne on bac! ha

[ignominious]

Drinking while starting bac

Welcome KT

Common problems that you have here, though you may not feel that way.

Incredulous disbelief. In my search for a 'logical' reason why baclofen couldn't work I came up with: 'Dr L and OA were going for the slam dunk of serial killers'. Didn't last more than an obsessing day, thank gawd! But nor did it end my search for a reason why it wouldn't work for me.

It is too ridiculous right - take this pill and you'll be able to stop drinking. I suspect a lot of people here are fairly strong willed - they are used to getting what they set their mind too. Trouble is that after many attempts we know from experience that alcohol will out fox our most determined and considered assaults. When it comes to drinking our powers of reasoning have been gone for so long that we know there is no chance against alcohol.

Its a worry to again be investing so much emotional hope in yet another attempt. Do it. Don't get side tracked by side effects. Your sanity will return and you will be able to stop drinking.

[beatle]

Drinking while starting bac

Hi KT,

:new:

ops:

I meant:

:welcome:

And you are so welcome (and welcomed) as you can see.

I'm not at the switch yet, so won't weigh in yet with any advice, except to say that some of the heavyweights around here (and we're not talking kgs) have already weighed in and you can feel safe in their (muscular) arms.

As others have said, the psychological urge to drink more at the beginning of the journey appears to be widespread. There is also an indication that for some people (myself included), the hangovers were somewhat less severe, encouraging us to drink more.

All that matters is to take the pills.

And here's where I can (and will) give advice:

Set up a regimen, a schedule, early on, which makes it easy to remember (edit: impossible to forget) when to take your pills and how to record it. This may take a while, since you will be refining your titration schedule as you go along (see: https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ead-48260.html), but in the end, this could make all the difference. I speak from hard experience, both past and present. Oh how I wish there had been a titration thread (https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ead-48260.html) back then.

I guess I made my point

[DayByDay01]

Drinking while starting bac

Here is my 2 cents

I am taking my 40mg right now and taking it with what? You know it is not water.
But seriously, it is looking like hangovers gone easier unless it is not a BIG hungover after binge drinking.
After 2 days of binge drinking while on 70ng BAC , ( I mean starting with a beer at 6 AM and continue over 2 days a bottle every 15-20 minutes) the SEs are terrible. It is the worst I even had with my 20+ years of everyday AL overdose. That alone forced me to stop mixing tequila with beer. So I had a theory ( probably a wrong one) that SE from BAC will force you to stop drinking because it is incompatible.
Anyways, I take it very slow, adding 10Mg every week , so hopefully this magic "switch" will actually happen.

[bleep]

Drinking while starting bac

Day, have you considered that might be too slow? You could be prolonging the agony unnecessarily.