Balcofen

[polaropposite]

I am back after an obviously unsucessful few weeks. I have spent the last 2 hours reading posts here about baclofen. My question. Can all of you who have tried Baclofen let me know if you were sucessful, please, those who where not, reply too, and how long do you have to take this med? Thanks All

[tiptronic_ct]

Balcofen

Hi again, Polar :welcome:

I see you found us!

I posted this link on your other thread too, but here goes: https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...fen-47958.html

[tiptronic_ct]

Balcofen

And if you haven't looked at this thread yet, you will need to: https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ead-50513.html

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Balcofen

Hi, Polar and welcome.
Glad you've got your own space and made it back over here.
As I said on the other thread(s), it's worked for me, too.
As to the online pharmacies, I have little or no experience, so I'll let someone come along and fill you in!
Happy info-gathering to you!
Feel free to ask questions as they come up.
Ne

[redhead77]

Balcofen

Hi Polar,

I'll give you a honest answer at least from my perspective. In my case it would be how one would define successful. I took bac, reached indifference or hit the switch, and then had to come down due to SEs. I admit, I came down very fast, and by doing so, I stopped being indifferent. Even so, I have been able to reduce my drinking by a vast amount. It has changed my life profoundly. And it's not just the drinking. I'm just changing all around. Maybe, in some ways I'm becoming the real me. It might be the antianxiety effect of baclofen, that is most helpful in my case. Do you suffer from anxiety?

It took took me two months to hit the switch. It is different for everyone. For some people it takes much longer, and a few (I don't know if we should consider them normal :H:H), do it in like a weeks time.

EDIT: I'm still at a hefty dose Polar, 140mg a day. And I'm going back up, to get as close to indifferent as I can. I'm a believer.

[bleep]

Balcofen

I, too, am a believer in baclofen. It saved my life.

At this point, it looks like I'll be taking baclofen for the rest of my life, which I'm quite happy with.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Balcofen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts[/video]]YouTube - ‪The Monkees - I'm a Believer [official music video]‬‏

couldn't resist. I loved Mickey soooo much. Just wiki'd him. omg. Not so pretty anymore. phew. Glad I didn't follow up on that.

And yes, I know, I'm old as Methuselah. Whatev. pffft gawldang whippersnappers allupinhere thinking theyknowsumthin. sheeeeit.

[Murphyx]

Balcofen

Polar, RedH asks a very pertinent question: do you suffer from anxiety? If you do, you'll almost certainly find 100% indifference to alcohol. If you don't, you should still get a lot of help with baclofen. IMO.

[RedThread12]

Balcofen

:H:H:H

I :h u, Ne. The Monkees!!!!!

Polaropposite - I"M a BELIEVER, too.

Actually, though, there's nothing to believe about baclofen. It's kind of like, ummm . . . believing in a language. Doesn't make much sense, does it, to say, "I believe in English?" It's a useful tool for communication. Likewise, baclofen is a useful tool for getting un-hindered by alcohol.

I haven't been a drunk from the FIRST day I took baclofen. Call me lucky, a fluke . . . whatever . . . I had been drinking all day every day until I took my first 10 mg pill sitting in the parking lot of the post office where I received my first order of bac in Oct. '09. I have titrated up (with a memorable overdose) and down. I've never found total "indifference," but I'm currently in a 5 week intensive course and not drinking at all, and not missing it a bit.

I may take baclofen for the rest of my life. I prefer it to the Zoloft I was taking pre-bac. I also :h baclofen and Dr. Ameisen and this board for showing me what is possible.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Balcofen

RedThread12;1144368 wrote: :H:H:H

I :h u, Ne. The Monkees!!!!!

I know! I rock, don't I?
BTW, you're not on the Sweet Success thread. What's up with that???

Poor Polar. First you thought we were a bunch of antagonistic ninnies (which we can be) and now you know that we hardly take anything too seriously. Except bac. And booze. Well, maybe not the booze, but I definitely take bac seriously. Too seriously. Others just take it. Fortunately it works either way.

[Guest]

Balcofen

Baclofen didn't help me at all, I didn't experience any of the positive side effects and although I thought it reduced my drinking at one point the truth was I daren't drink because the unbearable side effects were just 10 times worse.

Life wasn't liveable, nor manageable for me on Baclofen - it was worse than drinking all the time. So I tried Naltrexone and luckily that worked for me instead.

[polaropposite]

Balcofen

Polar, RedH asks a very pertinent question: do you suffer from anxiety? If you do, you'll almost certainly find 100% indifference to alcohol. If you don't, you should still get a lot of help with baclofen. IMO.

I started to respond that I never used to be anxious BUT thinking back....that is why I started drinking...made going out with my friends in college easier...so I hope this works. Alot of people talk about side effects....can anyone share what those might be?

And...thank you all for your imput!

[Cassander]

Balcofen

bleep;1144303 wrote: I, too, am a believer in baclofen. It saved my life. At this point, it looks like I'll be taking baclofen for the rest of my life, which I'm quite happy with.

Hello Bleep (formal introduction).

I have been here a week or two, writing about our discovery of baclofen as a treatment for anxiety and our son's journey. Along the way I've read just about everything I can find about anxiety, alcohol abuse and dependence, baclofen and recovery. I have read about your journey and am very happy for you.

In particular, I have read a lot of you guys say that you might be taking bac for the rest of your life and you're ok with that. Based on what I've read, I don't disagree, but I would like to add two observations.

One is that sooner or later there is bound to be time-release baclofen, or patch baclofen or a pump, and this should reduce the complication...

Second, it seems intuitively correct to me that regular exercise over time should reduce the size of the maintenance dose. I am not a physician, just a layman observer, but I think I have read that regular exercise affects GABA production just like bac. If this is the case it may well be that over time the maintenance dose can be reduced as the naturally-generated GABA goes up. Why is this important? Perhaps a combination of exercise and bac will result in even fewer SEs on the maintenance dose. Just thinkin'. As Ne said to me, we're all just sussing and musing our way to some answers.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Balcofen

Hiya, Cass! I can't seem to stay away today (not that I ever do) so I'll jump right in. Bleep is asleep, I hope. (He's in Zimbabwe, it's 1 or 2am there. Can never remember.) Anyway, you need to meet Lo0p.

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...nds-42543.html

There's more on this thread:

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ise-39134.html

He still takes an awful lot of baclofen. :H

Love the fact that you're joining in the sussing and the musing.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Balcofen

Polar, there are whole threads devoted to the Side Effects. They're not always for the faint of heart.

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...t=side+effects

Add to that the fact that you will find on any individual thread A LOT of posts related to SEs. What are they? How to deal with them? Is this really a SE or do I just have a cold/sore muscle/headache/big toe fungus? Come to think of it, the information around here about side effects could fill up one of those encyclopedia thingys that used to be in every den. All 26 and a half volumes.