long-term antabuse success?

[ransomxyz]

This is my first post.

I want to ask a few questions and make a few comments about antabuse. I realize there is much more interest in baclofen on this site (I've just spent a few hours reading about it), but right now I'm hoping to hear from other people with antabuse experience.

I've been taking antabuse on and off (mostly on) for almost three years. My ultimate goal has been abstinence, not moderation (I don't even like the taste of alcohol very much). I think I have had more sober days (probably many more) than I would have had without the pills, but my experiences have been frustrating. For example, I just had a blistering relapse. Once again I had stopped taking the pills, without really planning to, and everything went to hell. This has happened many times.

I would love to know if anyone out there has used antabuse for very long periods with success, or do most people stop taking it after a few weeks or months? Judging by the thread on the subject here, people don't seem to stay on it. Or maybe they do and just stop posting.

For those who might be interested, here are a few things I wished I'd known about being on antabuse before I started taking it.

While I have had no side-effects from the drug, at various points early on, I convinced myself that the pills were making me feel strange. I would then start skipping doses and eventually start drinking again. I finally realized I was just making excuses for not taking the pills. It turns out this is a pretty common scenario.

Studies have shown that people on a supervised antabuse program have a dramatically increased chance off success. With this in mind, I started to keep some pills with a co-worker, and some with a very good friend. It can be a little embarrassing to take a pill in the presence of someone else like this, but both of these people understand that alcohol had been killing me, and have been happy to help.

This set up led to better success, but I now fell out of the habit of taking pills on my own. In my experience you can take as few as two or three 250mg pills a week (spaced a few days apart) to make drinking pretty awful (not worth it, in other words). But if you reduce the dosage to this level, you can drink again in as little as five or six days after the last pill. My most recent relapse occurred when it suddenly struck me that I had not taken a pill in six days (my co-worker had been away). At this point the desire to drink took over. The experience was brutal: blacking out in bars in dangerous parts of town, getting my face smashed in by a crackhead mugger (I told friends I'd been in a bike accident), etc. I'm lucky I did not end up in hospital or jail.

One reason I am more interested in antabuse than baclofen (at least right now) is that once I've been AF for even a few days, I rarely have cravings. It's just when I do have cravings (and if I'm not on the pills) I crack immediately.

Are any of these experiences familiar to anyone else out there?

[Popeye]

long-term antabuse success?

Hello ransomxyz, and welcome.

I started taking antabuse in January 2009, after many years of heavy drinking. I took it for a year, as advised by my doctor, and it worked for me. It's gave me the chance to live a little without alcohol and to find other healthier ways of dealing with life.
The thing is, Antabuse isn't a cure. It's a tool that I used in conjuction with will power, counselling and anything else that would help, to give myself the time needed to work out what direction I need to go to get myself back into a way of life that I hadn't experienced since I was a young man. The trick is though, to keep your eye on the prize. Even after a couple of years of sobriety, there are days when I feel I could easily head for the store, grab a bottle of something and just go fot it, but for me, it's all about what you want. I've changed a lot of things in the time since I quit. I live by a different set of rules that I have set myself and I'm enjoying it. There will always be things that I would like to be different, but we don't always get what we want, and often that works out to be just fine.
When I started taking Antabuse, I was a real mess, mentally. I'd lost everything, and I do mean everything, and I really didn't care, until the day my son beat me up. That was the thing that made me want to change things, not for him, but for myself. It's hard to describe how much I hated myself; how weak and useless I felt, but if you can imagine it, you'd realise how close I came to finishing it all off, so for me, I had two choices: Get it over with, or get a grip. I went to my doctor and asked for all the help I could get. Antabuse was part of the package and it helped me a great deal. I know how easy it is to plan ahead and skip it for a week so we can get drunk, but it all depends what you want.
It gets better as time goes on, but occasionally drinking thoughts arise. You just have to learn to let them come.....then let them go. It takes practice, but anyone can do it.
I wish you well on your journey

[ransomxyz]

long-term antabuse success?

thanks

Thanks for your reply. Reading it was very encouraging.

I plan to continue to use antabuse, but I really have to more to change my life in other ways, as you suggest.

Thanks again.

[autumn]

long-term antabuse success?

Popeye, you have said it all. I have only been on it for 6 months, and it is six months sobriety i have never managed before it.

I binged once at the start, stopped taking it and planned my binge. I learnt alot from that in the way that the befuddled AL mind can talk you into drinking and justifying a binge. I am on a very low dose, and mostly have no cravings. If I find I have missed it for a few days, the 'ah go on' voices start up. That is when I take a dose asap, so they cant go any further with talking me into drinking. I can't give it any head space!

It has bought me six months of clear head space, but its just one of the tools in the box. Popeye is right, I am working with my counsellour to develop different ways to tackle the voices that lead to slips as I cant be on it forever. It's working for me, I just wish I had the courage to ask for it years ago.