My Baclofen experience so far

[RudyB]

My Baclofen experience so far

hey drunk (and this could and does apply to most folk here), keep reading these insightful threads, and keep posting! if you want to read A LOT about what you're describing your current experience to be, hop over to my thread. i have been going through very similar stuff for a few weeks, so go a few pages back. i bet you'll relate and it will help.

[Godwhacker]

My Baclofen experience so far

Holding on 260 for the moment, going to go up to 280 tomorrow. No additional side-effects, taking some water-soluble sachets for the constipation. Gym is helping with the sleep, though I need to rest for a couple of days because I'm feeling stiff as fuck from the last five days.

Greg wrote: I just wanted to say that I relate 100 percent to using alcohol as a self-medication for depression. My depression came first, alcohol came second (strictly speaking, social anxiety came first, then isolation/loneliness, then depression, and finally drinking). I really grew tired of people at AA re-interpreting my story, saying that my depression had to be caused by alcohol and would go away if I stopped drinking. A few suggested I was making excuses by saying the depression came first. I do have to say that alcohol does cause more depression of its own in many cases however, even though it helps with escape from it for a while. For me, when nothing else was able to reduce the depression, I was glad to just have a few hours of relief from it with alcohol...I knew alcohol wasn't an overall answer but the escape was enough for me until alcohol really started causing me severe and constant problems (including worsened depression).
RudyB;1139619 wrote: ne and god, i would love to have an open discussion about aa. it's something i've been thinking and talking (like w sis) about a lot latetly. should we be so bold as to start a thread on it?! i say LET'S!

It's a tricky one, since it does seem to work for a lot of people- but it fails a lot of people too, and no-one ever talks about that. But it's tricky to decide whether or not to bring up Baclofen at meetings. I will say this though- if you have the option, go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting rather than an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They're usually more focussed on problems that people are currently having rather than just rote recital of various peoples' life stories that you've heard twenty times before. It's still 12-Steps but it's much more relaxed and interactive, and you get to see addiction from more perspectives than simply alcohol.

When I was in rehab I asked to go to those instead and found them much more satisfying... but there isn't one near where I live at the moment, so it's AA or nothing at the moment.

The meeting I usually go to is a 'newcomers' meeting, but we've only had about twenty newcomers in two years, and only three have stuck around. All too often the meetings are identical- there is the primary guest share, where someone talks about their life-story and how they managed to use AA to get better, then all the old hands will take their turn to follow the same script. It sometimes seems like a competition to see who can be the most redeemed. "You just abused your wife? Ha! That's nothing! I used to hit my kids AND I didn't even make it to my mother's funeral!"

All the practical advice- keep it in the day, phone out, fake it 'till you make it, take what you want and leave what you don't, play the whole tape, etc- seems to get put by the wayside, but it's practical advice that I came looking for. I got a sponsor and started on the steps, but we were looking for a root cause of the problem rather than really dealing with how I was feeling now.

Thing is, there were two root causes- the depression that started it all, but also that I really, really, really liked drinking. There wasn't much we could do about either, and raking up all the bad stuff and blaming myself for it was just making me feel terrible. "Don't beat yourself up" my sponsor would say, but what else was I supposed to do?

There was this push to make me admit that I had always been an alcoholic, but I just couldn't see it- when I started drinking seriously I just wanted to lock myself away from the rest of the world and be on my own. Indeed, most of the bad things I've done in my life were done before I became an alcoholic. But nothing was off-limits, and I couldn't get my sponsor to listen to this. He had this theory that certain types of people tended to become alcoholics, but I wondered if it was more that alcoholics tended ending up in similar circumstances.

The only thing keeping me sober was fear, but fear was also keeping me from leaving the house and doing anything with my life. Baclofen is far less emotionally and spiritually draining and far more effective.

[Godwhacker]

My Baclofen experience so far

Oh, and Greg, I'm with you on the depression thing. Alcohol became the only way I could function in normal society. It's not a long-term solution, but it was either that or start crying at my desk.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

My Baclofen experience so far

That is some really good insight, GW. Thank you.
I have started attending a meeting weekly for several reasons, but not because of the program, exactly. I'm sober because of bac and bac alone. I just don't know how step one applies anymore, in general, given what we know.

I noticed this week that it was the same people sharing the same stuff, and I've only been to 3 in a row. There was only one woman in her first 30 days.

Still, I enjoyed the meeting, sort of, and got something out of it. Not sure where I'll go from here but your thoughts will help me with that I think. I've always avoided NA, because I don't "get" the people who pop pills, among other things. :H Silly, ridiculous thoughts born out of the dark ages. It's been fun, if disconcerting, to dispel so many of my own myths.

[RedThread12]

My Baclofen experience so far

I agree with Rudy, D&T. It would be great if you started your own thread. If you need some support or suggestions or encouragement, that would be the best way for us help. (i, of course, have never followed my own suggestion :lalala

Minor hi-jack, sorry Godwhacker (how could I even think of shortening, changing, adapting that phenomenal name?) and D&T:

Murph - the things you get by with!! and Pony - you've given me today's gut-wrenching laugh. Thank you.

Back a little bit to topic and for any newbies reading this: FWIW, baclofen has given me my life back to the extent that, since Oct. '09, when I found this forum and baclofen, I have had 20 months of being completely un-hindered by alcohol (other hindrances, of course) and am now in Thailand - a long way from my home in the middle of the U.S. - fully engaged in a 5 week course called "Cultivating Emotional Balance." This course is a collaboration between an American scientist and researcher of emotions, and the Dalai Lama.

Hard to even remember that 20 months ago I was so drunk, all day long, that I don't even remember finding MWO and/or creating a user name and logging in!

I got sober for 3 years a while ago and went fairly deeply into AA. I offended a lot of people when reading from the Big Book and replacing the pronoun Him with Her when referring to god, but I never found anything in the fundamental program that I found objectionable. My point of view is a little broader than AA's; but I agree thoroughly and completely that ANY block that arises in our lives is always an opportunity to deepen our spiritual growth. Just that in my own experience, it's not a straight and progressive path. Dang!

Godwhacker, Rudy, D&T, of course, you, Ne (relentless and awesome pursuer of truth and reality), Bleep, Greg and Murphyx, and all you other baclofentists out there busting down the paradigms of addiction, all I can say is onward!! And thank you.

[DrunkAndTiredInFLA]

My Baclofen experience so far

Thank you all for your advice. However, I don't have much time to start my own forum. Believe me it's not because I am shy. I am ANYTHING but shy. In fact, I need to learn to shut my mouth. lol It's more about time for me. I am engaged in too many other things at the moment to keep up with a thread or offer any advice to anyone seeking information about baclofen. I only know my 6 weeks on baclofen and Dr. Ameisen's book "The End of My Addiction," which I still need to bring back to the library. lol Anyway, the good news is that 20mg three times a day the bac has finally worked itself through my body and I am no longer having side effects. I will be going up to 30mg three times a day as of tomorrow. I don't plan to stop taking bac unless my side effects become too much to bare.

[Godwhacker]

My Baclofen experience so far

RedThread12;1140559 wrote: I agree with Rudy, D&T. It would be great if you started your own thread. If you need some support or suggestions or encouragement, that would be the best way for us help. (i, of course, have never followed my own suggestion :lalala

Minor hi-jack, sorry Godwhacker (how could I even think of shortening, changing, adapting that phenomenal name?) and D&T:

Murph - the things you get by with!! and Pony - you've given me today's gut-wrenching laugh. Thank you.

Back a little bit to topic and for any newbies reading this: FWIW, baclofen has given me my life back to the extent that, since Oct. '09, when I found this forum and baclofen, I have had 20 months of being completely un-hindered by alcohol (other hindrances, of course) and am now in Thailand - a long way from my home in the middle of the U.S. - fully engaged in a 5 week course called "Cultivating Emotional Balance." This course is a collaboration between an American scientist and researcher of emotions, and the Dalai Lama.

Hard to even remember that 20 months ago I was so drunk, all day long, that I don't even remember finding MWO and/or creating a user name and logging in!

I got sober for 3 years a while ago and went fairly deeply into AA. I offended a lot of people when reading from the Big Book and replacing the pronoun Him with Her when referring to god, but I never found anything in the fundamental program that I found objectionable. My point of view is a little broader than AA's; but I agree thoroughly and completely that ANY block that arises in our lives is always an opportunity to deepen our spiritual growth. Just that in my own experience, it's not a straight and progressive path. Dang!

Godwhacker, Rudy, D&T, of course, you, Ne (relentless and awesome pursuer of truth and reality), Bleep, Greg and Murphyx, and all you other baclofentists out there busting down the paradigms of addiction, all I can say is onward!! And thank you.

I actually took the handle Godwhacker from the only decent track on Steely Dan's utterly tepid jazz-funk album 'Everything Must Go': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQksCxSrDLY[/video]]YouTube - ‪Steely Dan live plays "Godwhacker"‬‏

Pretty much everything they did after 'Aja' was complete shit.

Anyway, if AA works for someone then great- I don't want to take anyone's sobriety away from them, and if you can do it through AA and willpower alone, then brilliant. I think my main concern is that people usually only start living the steps after they've hit rock bottom- they've lost their job, their house, their friends, their family- and are willing to try anything. I hear that time and again in the stories of the old AAers. Some people turn it round sooner, but most don't.

Trouble is, if you have hit rock bottom, there's no guarantee that AA will still help. I went to a meeting a couple of months ago where a woman who had just come to a couple of meetings had died from alcohol poisoning. The woman telling us this then said "That should remind us all of how cunning this disease is, and how lucky we are that we found AA when we did"

I just walked out. I was fucking livid.

[RudyB]

My Baclofen experience so far

wow, quite an aa story, god! yep, i would've been gritting my teeth. i mean, a-duhh!

glad you explained your handle. i was curious.

redthread, i love your post. and that you changed 'hiim' to 'her'. kudos! your seminar in thailand sounds great ~ right up my alley. share some highlights, if you would. i'm always ready for deep insights, or shallow ones.

i often think about how just a few words can change one's life. like when (i've told this somewhere before) my dr said 'quality of life has something to do w having enough money'. because of that one sentence, i had the incentive to switch to a public school job and now have enough money to send my son to the private school where i used to teach (indeed, my salary doubled by making that switch). i never could send him to his precious school if i hadn't left it. ironic.

love y'all!
ruby dee

[bleep]

My Baclofen experience so far

Godwhacker, I'm enjoying your posts on AA. I've nothing useful to add, unfortunately, but please keep them coming.

D&T, it's not a forum! It's just a thread, doing exactly what you're doing now, but in a place of your own. It makes it easier to follow your story, and you're less likely to get lost in among all the other stuff going on. Not too serious either way though. Something else to consider is to break your 90mg's up into more than 3 doses. The smaller, more frequent doses can make the SE's more tolerable.

[SlipperyPete]

My Baclofen experience so far

God, I feel you on that AA nonsense. At age 19, when I hadn't even heard of AA, I was sent to a year long AA only rehab, and was cut off from all outside contact. I could not come to terms with what they were trying to shove down my throat, and was finally sent home after 18 months for banging some chick a couple times.

I think Bill had some things right (like our obsession with self), but having to believe in an HP is BS. If I had lived in an earlier time, I surely would've died, cuz there's no way I'm believing in an HP, and it seems like you're on the same page. Anywho, keep on with the bac mang

[Ne/Neva Eva]

My Baclofen experience so far

The injustices related to addiction and treatment are not limited to AA. Neither is alcohol-related death, or trite, self-absorbed responses to death.

At the same time, being self-absorbed or narcissistic is not the sole purview of the alcoholic and I sorely resent the implication, for all that I perceive myself as both self-absorbed and narcissistic. If that makes an alcoholic drink, I know some normal drinkers who should be flat out drunk, or dead from the drink.

One of the greatest injustices that I perceive is the self-inflicted harm that goes on in the process of finding some measure of spiritual connection and serenity.
The idea that one part of us is evil and must be sublimated, in order to not drink again. That if we relapse, we must be too bad, too immoral or unethical. please. Lack of morality does not make me an alcoholic. In some circles it makes me a sinner, but I don't run in those circles. Plus, I think I'm pretty moral. And nice. When I'm not making a wrong decision, or being a bitch. I'm not Ghandi, and don't want to be.

So. To AA or not to AA. I did have the epiphany at the last meeting that I might not have really and truly wanted to quit drinking all those many times I tried in a 12-step program. It took a couple of days for me to see how ludicrous that is. I have repented and kowtowed and prayed more times than I care to count in order to enslave the beast.

Turns out I just needed a medicine to take care of a chemical imbalance. No beast. No morality involved. Now I can make better decisions. And when I fuck up, well, like every other normal-ish person, there are consequences to that. Right?

Thanks for the thoughts, GW and others. I've committed to the meeting for a month, and have two more to go. But I don't think it's good for me, in my search for spiritual growth and truth. I think it sucks for that for me.
(You nailed it, GW, I think, with the thought about rock-bottom...)
Peace!

[RudyB]

My Baclofen experience so far

wow, yeah, that moralizing over our disease is a cryin shame! as if we problem drinkers don't feel bad enough! when will recovery approaches catch up with healing?!

[Godwhacker]

My Baclofen experience so far

Ne/Neva Eva;1141406 wrote: The injustices related to addiction and treatment are not limited to AA. Neither is alcohol-related death, or trite, self-absorbed responses to death.

At the same time, being self-absorbed or narcissistic is not the sole purview of the alcoholic and I sorely resent the implication, for all that I perceive myself as both self-absorbed and narcissistic. If that makes an alcoholic drink, I know some normal drinkers who should be flat out drunk, or dead from the drink.

One of the greatest injustices that I perceive is the self-inflicted harm that goes on in the process of finding some measure of spiritual connection and serenity.
The idea that one part of us is evil and must be sublimated, in order to not drink again. That if we relapse, we must be too bad, too immoral or unethical. please. Lack of morality does not make me an alcoholic. In some circles it makes me a sinner, but I don't run in those circles. Plus, I think I'm pretty moral. And nice. When I'm not making a wrong decision, or being a bitch. I'm not Ghandi, and don't want to be.

So. To AA or not to AA. I did have the epiphany at the last meeting that I might not have really and truly wanted to quit drinking all those many times I tried in a 12-step program. It took a couple of days for me to see how ludicrous that is. I have repented and kowtowed and prayed more times than I care to count in order to enslave the beast.

Turns out I just needed a medicine to take care of a chemical imbalance. No beast. No morality involved. Now I can make better decisions. And when I fuck up, well, like every other normal-ish person, there are consequences to that. Right?

Thanks for the thoughts, GW and others. I've committed to the meeting for a month, and have two more to go. But I don't think it's good for me, in my search for spiritual growth and truth. I think it sucks for that for me.
(You nailed it, GW, I think, with the thought about rock-bottom...)
Peace!

Pretty much nailed it there, Ne. I keep hearing people say 'It used to be that I was the centre of the whole world, that it was all me me me' or variations on that- the trouble is that pretty much everyone thinks that way, unless they've got kids. Addiction just brings that out.

There's also the perceived schizophrenia of the addiction having it's own voice. People talk about subconsciously planning a relapse, or forcing themselves not to 'listen to the addiction'. But that's not what your subconscious does- it can't plan anything, it can only desire things. If you're planning a relapse, it's *you* that is planning it. When I wanted a drink, it wasn't the addiction talking to me, it just me wanting a drink- no layers of psyche and intention required. Even before I was an addict I sometimes wanted a drink, it was just less of a constant desire.

Anyway, if nothing else AA does give you the chance to talk to other people with the same problem, which is a pretty good thing. And I've met some really sound people through AA, so I'll probably keep going for the time being.

[missyabby1]

My Baclofen experience so far

I think what you have both said in the last two posts are so relevant. I once talked to my youngest son about such. He started taking hard drugs when his dad was dying from a brain tumour and I was running around like a headless chook, not at all dealing with it. I told him that I thought using substances to deal with the pain of it all was very situational.

We both went on to dealing with it by using substances to dull the pain. He went to AA , I went to a very destructional relationship, which involved copious amounts of alcohol. I think he may be doing ok...he doesn't talk to me anymore....after giving me a black eye one night seeking money for drugs. I think the idea of taking mind altering drugs is the result , one, of them being very available, and two, the easy way out of relieving painful lives. I did not use alcohol for 40 years of my life, as a way to deaden unhappiness, but I guess I still am now. I have always had problems with medication relieving alcoholism, and just as much with AA. My experience is ,when I have been comfortable in my life, and living with a caring human being (and my husband was) then mind altering drugs had no place. I had a lovely time bringing up my two sons, full of purpose and love. They say the same, but now in a very hurtful relaionship, and so full of hurt and alcohol, they say I am not the mum they knew.

I guess I look at you, with your relationship with Ed, and maybe your parents , as perhaps not ideal. Just sayin, Ne, Just sayin...

[Ne/Neva Eva]

My Baclofen experience so far

If you want to have a conversation with me, Missy, you'll have to make some space in your pm box. Last time I respond on this forum, this thread or any other.