Sammi Starts Bac

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hiya, Sammi!

Congrats, truly, on all the good news!

I can't speak to that SE, it's one I've not had or really heard of. I definitely had some numbness in my jaw and mouth, including my lips. Is it maybe related to that?

If your tongue is swollen, it's certainly something to be careful about. I think if you were allergic, you would've been allergic all along. Then again, I dunno. A question for a redheaded nurse, methinks. I'll see if I can get her attention.

xo

[Murphyx]

Sammi Starts Bac

That's a strange one Sammi and more than a little disconcerting I would have thought. I would imagine that if you were having an allergic reaction, the tongue would just swell and not increase with a higher dose, but then again I ain't no medico so probably best to ignore me.

BTW, great news about not having a fighty Friday, they were the norm for me, along with fighty Saturdays, fighty Sundays, fighty Mondays.........

[Sammi33]

Sammi Starts Bac

Thanks guys, was hoping everyone would jump in and say yep we've all had that it will go away!

Anyway, i've relaxed about the allergic reaction, and i think you are right murphy, if that's what it is it wouldn't increase with dose. I have thought about it through the day when it's been annoying me and decided i was wrong, my tongue isn't actually growing...what a relief...although i made some pretty weird faces in the mirror trying to figure it out!! I think it is more like my jaw is clenched tight and my tongue has gone all tense and hard, like i am clenching it, and it's pressed up against my teeth and throat so it feels too big and like it is cutting off my air a bit. So that is my new side effect, tongue clenching!! God knows what I will get at a decent dose!!

Sorry to go into such detail about my weird tongue, but it was actually a bit concerning til i worked out what was going on so i thought best i share.

AF today hooray!

Sammi x

[Murphyx]

Sammi Starts Bac

No need to apologise; it's important to get these things written down, both so you can understand it better yourself and for other people that come along who may have a similar issue.

I can't remember hearing about the clenched tongue before, but I'm pretty certain I've heard about people clenching their jaws and teeth together. In fact I think there was one woman to whom it used to happen without warning, hopefully not during oral sex.

Huzzahh on the AF day! Woohoo!

[RudyB]

Sammi Starts Bac

great progress, sammi!

i've had weird stuff with my tongue (starting maybe around 140 mg or so, and continuing somewhat till now, at 200 mg). you are not alone in that! mine has been a stingy thing, maybe some swelling, but definitely weirdness in a new way. for a while i thought it was from smoking, but i only (ha ha) smoke ten cigs a day or so, so i've put it down to the bac.

please don't ever feel weird about the sharing of strangeness in great detail. that's what this place is for. i'm sure you've read around a bit; you must sense by now that just about anything goes!

welcome to the good ride, sister!

xo rudy b

[Sammi33]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hi all,

Just need to get this off my chest...all was going well but last 2 nights have been disastrous. I did something really bad last night....too bad to share! I have been going up really slowly on the bac and thought things were going well, i have been having around 4 AF days a week which i am so pleased about because i went for years without ever having even 1. I guess i might have to go up a bit quicker.

I hate being like this, i am so disgusted and ashamed of myself. It's worse i think because i thought things were going so well and this is such a let down. I hate being trapped i. This alcoholic body and mind.

Sorry to be a downer, i just needed to share.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hiya, Sammi.

I almost lost you in the threads there for a minute!

I've been meaning to follow up with you about my own errors recently. Sorry about that and will return to them... In the meantime, how are you today? I seriously can't imagine anything being so bad that it hasn't been shared and moved on from. Then again, I've employed the delete button a time or two, and should've much more than I have (except erasing the whole damn thread...that was silly. anyhoo.)

I think of my former self as enslaved. Really. I was a slave to booze. That used to disgust me. Now it just saddens me. Now I know what it was I can see that I did what I could to get out from under it, for years, and without ever really giving up. I think many of us are like that, right? Even if not actively pursuing a solution, the simple morning prayer/pledge of "Not today! please?!"

4AF days is not chump change! Setbacks happen for sure. Is it time to change course, and go up more quickly? Or simply time to evaluate where you are and what you do have control over that can change things? It's not rhetorical. I'm curious about what your feeling about it all now.

Hang in there, Sam I Am. Things look up again. Really.

[Sammi33]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hi Ne,

Thanks for your words, i think you are amazing you can always be relied upon to share your wisdom and kindness to those of us still living as "slaves".

I just can't see a way out at the moment, it seems too far away, and i dont think i can survive the meantime. I am pleased with the AF days i have had but i guess i know now that the real damage is done in the binges. I do thinks that i hate myself for and i have really crossed the line this time. I am fighting with my partner because of my drinking.w He tries hard to be understanding and although i screwed up so monumentally the other night i said i was sorry and would keep trying (again) and he said it was OK. Then last night i did something really tiny that annoyed him and he really lost it with me. He is normally very patient and doesn't shout but he was scrraming and swearing at me like never before. Anyway, i know its not the little thing that made him so mad but what i did before and he just got tipped over the edge.

So today i am in bed i can get up (1pm here). He is at work, and i am here popping xanax like there is no tomorrow trying to numb my thoughts. For the first time in a long time i feel suicidal. Not in a way that i am about to do something irrational right now, but just that i can't live with myself amynore. I can't live with the pain, the shame, embarrassment, self loathing, guilt, and disgust with myself. I can't live inside this mind anymore and now i have lost hope that it is ever going to change while i am alive. I am not going to do anything to harm myself but to just close my eyes and not wake up would be such a relief.

When i first started bac i was so hopeful, but hope can turn to despair so quickly. And when i first started naltrexone i felt hopeful, when i first started campral i felt hopeful, but it always seems to end up here for me.

Ugh life sucks some days.

[Murphyx]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hey Sammi, bac really will work for you, given time and a high enough dose. What is your dose at the moment btw?

Oh yeah and the thing you did the other night, trust me when I tell you it couldn't be anywhere near as bad as the things I used to do when I was drinking. You feel bad about it of course, that just proves how much you're determined to beat the beast and you will. Baclofen will do that for you and your partner will be overjoyed and immensely proud of you when you come out the other side.

:l

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Sammi Starts Bac

Reggie;1172786 wrote: Hey sammi first up one of these:l...I completely get were you are ...the important thing is that the fog does lift...it really does...so hang in there...i know you think baclofen is probably not the magic pill to wipe away years of alcohol abuse ....but its a great help ..lets face it Sammi addiction is a hard sucker to beat ..we are in battle with our own minds...... the hardest battle any human has to deal with since time immemorial..at is core is a slow cooker of self defeating thoughts and perpetual negative thinking patterns..be mindful of this.. ..BUT ..it is possible .."HOLD FAST" to your resolve to stop this horribleness ...you can do it... and keep repeating ...I'm over this I want to get better...oh and please go easy on the xanax its gonna make the job harder in the long run..and Time to rise and shine from under the blanket.... its a beautiful day out there...... a song for you.( think of alcohol as the subject of this tune... it is the greatest thief !!!).Above all else take care of ya self

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1SS-NyohKI[/video]]The Jam , The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) - YouTube

I didn't want to lose this one.

And it's great advice.

Hang in there, Sammi. It lifts. I promise. Getting out from the fog of a dreadful hangover (which last days on HDB) and waking up to a brand new day are very illuminating. Give it another day, my friend.
:l

[windycitylady]

Sammi Starts Bac

Hey sammi! That depression can be devastating, and it's happened to enough people here that I think it has to be something biochemical, not just growing pains from getting sober. I'm sorry you did something terrible the other night, and shame is an awful emotion. But, the way I see it, you can use it as an excuse to not get better, or you can use it as a reason to continue trying to get better. Yeah, where are your dosages at? Any more side effects? Thinking of you, and wishing you the best!

[Sammi33]

Sammi Starts Bac

Thanks everyone, your advice is amazing as usual.

I am only on 30mg of bac, going up to 40 today. Initially i was precribed 30 as a starting dose and the effect was dramatic and horrible, so i Immediatecly cit back to 10 and have spent the last few weeks slowly getting back up to 30. I think i have gone too slowly, but the combination of reacting so strongly at the start and reading about others SE's have made me a bit scared, but desperation has kicked in and i am going to push it a bit. I was falsely please with a few alcohol free days a week but i was rewarding myslef for those days with disastrous results.

I have been in bed crying since Friday, i just can't shake the shame. I can't believe how low i have gone. I feel paralyzed i dont even know how to explain it. Things are VERY tense at home. I love my partner dearly and don't know what i would do without him, but now i am having thoughts that if i was on my own i would only let myself down not him as well, and no one would witness it if i was to do something again like i did the other night. I also can't help it and i know this is wrong but i fell resntful at him for being angry with me. He says he is not but makes it clear that he is, and he will be like this until he feels that i have been suitably punished. In my mind i think why can't he see that living like this is punishment enough? I just think if he had been unable to get out of bed with no will to live i would be doing whatever i could to make him feel loved and supported. I know these are selfish alcoholic thoughts, i know i am not easy to live with and that he has every right to his reaction, but it's just the way I am feeling today.

I hate living like this, it is like hell on Earth. Hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

[windycitylady]

Sammi Starts Bac

That's the best attitude to have at the moment. When I had my darkest of dark days recently, I really felt like I couldn't go on. I spent most of the day in bed, the rest on the couch. Then, from the moment I woke up the next day, I felt like a different person. My mood had lifted, even my bac side effects didn't feel so bad. Hang in there. That's really all you can do.
I don't know enough about your realationship or the horrible thing you did to comment on that. But it does sound like you love your partner very much, and maybe he needs to forgive you in his own time, in his own way. I know you feel that he should be comforting you more, but maybe in his mind just still being around should be enough. Like I said, I just don't know enough to say.
I wouldn't push it too hard with the bac. The AF days you had were awesome, and should not be written off. Go up, but listen to your body and your mind. (Like I've got this shit figured out!)
Anyhow, don't know if I've been of any help whatsoever, but I'm wishing you the best!

[Murphyx]

Sammi Starts Bac

You know what? I actually think the opposite way about being AF when titrating up. I think we put too much emphasis on being AF when it has nothing to do with the bac. We pressure ourselves to not drink because we've found this wonder drug and that's how bac works isn't it? It makes us not drink. But it doesn't do it straight away, well not for most people. So those early days when you go AF are nothing to do with bac and everything to do with willpower i.e. forcing yourself to not drink. That pressure builds up, and just as you experienced, there's often a blowout, which can manifest itself in depression, concentrating on and exaggerating SEs or, as in your case, a big drinking session with dreadful results.

I wish people would not concentrate on building up AF days when early on in the titration. It's unnecessary, counter-productive and often results in people dropping baclofen altogether. You just need to put your faith in baclofen and know that IT will do the job for you. That's the whole point of bac; IT will change you.

Sammi, yes, time to go up. Once you've been on 40/day, after 5 to 7 days go up another 20. That's a sensible speed of increase. It should give you time to deal with and get used to any SEs that pop up and get you to the finish line in a sensible time frame.

Hang in there Sammi, you're on the right track.

[SlipperyPete]

Sammi Starts Bac

I agree with Murphy. I was told to just let bac do its thing and relax, and it did. I've never been a fan of white-knuckling sobriety, it's very uncomfortable for me.
Sorry to hear about the problems with your partner. It's hard for people to understand why we do the things we do, but hopefully it'll get better in time :l