just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

well, i had a great evening! drank too much, but nowhere near blacking out or doing crazy stuff. we talked about what had happened and my feelings towards him, and that was good.
and the rest of the evening pictures (he's a photographer) and interesting conversation. i felt very cheerful.

i started having trouble sleeping last friday, and feel more tired every day. that's a pity.
good thing is: the stoned feeling as a side effect has lessened.

[StuckinLA]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Glad you had a nice evening, and managed to sort things out. I always have a dickens of a time with those conversations. The sleeping thing sucks, but try to manage it like normal people manage it. Go to bed at a set time, stay there, no TV or cigarettes, etc. (I know, I definitely do not do these things...) And try not to drink too much. Being tired during the day is, well, because you're having trouble sleeping and that's it.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

the strange thing is, that suddenly every night i fall asleep on the couch, then wake up after a few hours, then it takes me a lot of time to realize i'd fallen asleep and it's now the middle of the night. then i go to bed and wake up earlier every morning. which is not bad. just jave to go to bed before i fall asleep on the couch

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

i have to drink less than the last two days (before that i had a few days where i managed to diminish), cause i have to go to an opening (exhibition of a good friend, actually the man who was here last night). i'm on the invitation, he used a picture he'd taken of me, and i want to go because it's nice for him.

but i don't want to go there looking like a train wreck

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Morning (for me) Jo!

I'm glad you got things sorted. I don't doubt that as time goes on you'll be able to sort even more things out that seem...difficult or insurmountable. And the exhibition sounds fun! A pic of you? That's fantastic, too.

I should have known Garbo was Swedish. Fits in with the stereotypical image I have of the Swedes. (I met a Swedish woman, once. That's enough to categorize a nation, right? )

Guard your sleep! (Have you read that one yet?) I'm in the process of doing that again, too. It's hard, because I wake up with bells on, bright-eyed and ready to start the day! Even if it's 2:30am and I've only had 4 hours of sleep. And that is a ticket on the way to train-wreck. Or at least to not feeling very good, and having everything seem much harder than it really is. I know this for myself because I've been managing bac-sleep issues for a couple of years now. It's still hard to make myself go back to bed, and then back to sleep. I feel SO much better when I do, though.

I read, I think, that you are taking a couple of other meds (an SSRI and a benzo) too. I hope that you're just continuing to be consistent about those as well. I am not sure I can give advice or my thoughts related to that, but I wanted to touch base with you about it. Abruptly stopping, or even tapering down on them has not gone well for any person I've seen around here. So be thoughtful about that! There is PLENTY of time for all the things you want to do!

My hurricane reprieve is over and now all of the stuff that I put off for tomorrow is overdue, or about to be overdue. Such a bummer. This day and maybe even this weekend is going to be full of stuff I don't want to focus on. But the paint in the dining room looks really good, I think! I'll post pics sometime soon and see what you all think. (But if you don't like it, please lie. I don't have time to repaint and I will be swayed by the opinions of my anonymous friends on the web. :H)

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

hi Ne, jee i was thinking this week, does Ne live in New York?? what a horror...

for some reason i always though Greta Garbo was german.

ah yes, the waking up with bells on, i can relate to that! when i fall asleep on the coach and wake up a few hours later, it takes me a while to realize i'd been sleeping, 'cause i feel so awake right away.
but when i'm in bed, if i can get myself to relax a bit (sometimes thoughts are swarming through my head. taking up meditation again is a good idea at this point) in the end i fall asleep again.
it'll be fine when it's not coupled with drinking anymore. now both things are tiring me down some.

i do use an ssri (efexor/venlafaxine), no benzo's. i'm sticking to my dose of that at least until i've gone through the complete baclofen experience, hopefully with good results. i'm not gonna compromise the baclofen upbuild by messing with other stuff. better to find as much balance as i can.

i have a week off, have some things i have to do, administration stuff, some reports to write, but besides that i have my time for myself.
this of course could go two ways: me hanging round the house and on the couch, waiting for drinking hour to arrive,
or taking this time to refind some balance, get a daily routine up that involves daily meditation, at least a small drawing every day, taking time for walks with my dog and getting the things done that need to be done. and getting my household in order, doing some stuff at my studio to make it a place less burdened with negativity and anxiety.
i'm gonna go for that second one. i've been on 115mg a few days now. the stoned feeling is less on this dose, and i have more energy.

i'm sure i'll be loving your dining room!

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

by the way, i just came across "Strindberg and Helium" again. do you know them?
strindberg and helium NEW EPISODE!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

I wish I'd responded this morning when I was woooohoooooooing! But now I'm neck-deep in exam-prep and NOT woohoooing about any thing at all. pfffffft.

Plan 2 sounds good to me too.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

good luck with your exam Ne.

i'm feeling like shit today nausea, horribly tired and numb, tingling feet & hands, face flushes, i can barely stand up.
forced myself to at least do a few things (walked for an hour, did groceries and went to the vet to get a report on the biting accident) and afterwards (rather: before and that) felt so bad that i've been laying on the couch since then.

i'll keep on taking the goddamn pills, but am becoming worried about what to do with myself till i hit my limit, getting up to even higher doses. i know se's are dose dependent, and different every day. the irony is that yesterday i was on less alcohol than the days before.
i'm drinking now, and am actually starting to feel better after 6 cans of beer. this is not the right way to do this, i know! but i feel too sick, and alcohol makes it better. catch 22. am i increasing my baclofen the wrong way? i'm still upping with 5 mg today, to 120mg. i hope it'll be better on that dose. i don't really feel se's lessening as the days go by, so i might as well increase my dose.
i KNOW i shouldn't be drinking, and if i wouldn't, the se's would be less. but i feel i'm just trying to survive, and start to drink cause maybe then i'm capable of doing something (which i'm not todaye, cause after 6, 8, 10 beers i am fucking drunk right now and all that without any euphoric effect from alcohol).

i felt too sick to meditate or do anything much. and tomorrow is my nephew's birthday, i want to go there. and on sunday the exhibition opening. i just feel so horribly weak!
driving a car seems dangerous on days like this. i see my eyes are red and small.
i'll try and do a drawing anyway tonight. i can do that in any vertical or horizontal position i guess.

you'll probably think "jesus Jo, (wo)man up and get a grip!!". i can tell you, i'm not a person that gives up that easily. i just feel i'm below zero, in the energy department right now.

*sigh*

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

i feel me, baclofen, and alcohol, are a sickening triangle i don't know how to get out of.

is this the right path i'm taking? maybe i should diiminish my baclofen, get me some librium, stop alcohol and then immediately up the baclofen?
fuck, it's friday now, doctor visits not until yuesday

[Xadrian]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Sorry to hear you're feeling so bad.
Could it be you have the flu or something, instead of se's from baclofen?
Or maybe you are too busy acting like Superwoman, instead of giving yourself a break?
Since when it went this bad?

I can't give you an advice on this. I have no experience feelin that bad when on baclofen. Maybe some extra vitamins? Seems alcohol gives you a deficiency of Vitamin(s) B.

Hope you're feeling better tomorrow.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

Morning, Jo!

Oy. I'm sorry, too, to hear you're feeling so lousy. (That's likely an understatement, I figure.)

I used to think that the way to take baclofen was just to plow through the whole experience. That's what most of the people before me did, and that's what I did. I'm pretty sure that's just about as backward as it gets, though. I've seen many more people achieve success when they just took the damn pills day in and day out, slowly and without pushing it. Some people reached a switch (and hopefully long lasting indifference) without ever getting into the crazy-high numbers. Some reached a comfortable place with their drinking, stayed there for a while, (a year in one case!) and then went up to find indifference.

That said, baclofen can be uncomfortable or discombobulating even at the lower doses. (For me, the low doses were really hell. Then it evened out, then it became really uncomfortable. ) And as I mentioned, you've got to get up there at some point.

Some days it felt like chemo. (What I imagine chemo to feel like.) I treated myself as though I was sick. Because I was! And I ate chicken noodle soup and slept a lot (during the day) when I could...One old timer (tiptronic_ct) said that he wished that he could have had a couple of weeks in a room with some support just to get it done! Me, too. On the other hand, what's the rush? Because let me tell you, there is no other way I would choose to accomplish sobriety. And here's why:

Ed (my husband) is a chef. He brought home some Pernod from work in order to use it for a television cooking demonstration. I saw it when he was unpacking it and putting everything away yesterday morning. Pernod is nasty stuff and I made a joke about having some for breakfast. Then I had a flashback to a couple of years ago when I had to pick him up from work at 6am because he was drunk.
He was so hungover that when he got to work that morning at 4am, he started drinking the cooking wine. I hope you don't know what the cooking wine in professional kitchens tastes like. It tastes like...(I can only think of really disgusting things and it's too early in the morning to write them!) It's gross. Disgusting.

That was a horrific and shame-filled morning, as you can imagine. Ed's a pretty renowned chef in the area, and if he'd been fired it would have been pretty big gossip in our circles. Fortunately, everyone knew he was a drunk, and most of the chefs in that world are the same. He kept his job but we lived with the shame.

Fast forward to now. I mentioned that memory to him. Rather than fill us with shame or guilt or humiliation, we both just got really sad about it, about how sick we were, about the fact that there are so many people who are still that sick.

We are completely removed from that. It's just gone. The compulsion, the craving, the disease, and the guilt related to being that sick. We drink when we want, what we want and how we want now. We have a liquor cabinet for the first time in our lives. We don't care. We mostly don't drink when we go out, and we don't care. It's not worth the effort to drink bad booze anymore! So the functions that we go to (fundraisers and the like) where the wine is out of a box (or whatever) we tend to drink water.

There isn't another recovery program, there isn't any form of sobriety that I know of, that works like that. I have no judgement, and no jealousy, about the people who can drink "normally". I have no relationship with booze whatsoever. Other than the fact that a glass of good red wine makes chocolate and tomato sauce taste that much better. (There are other examples, too. I won't belabor the point.)

THAT is why I'm still here. Because I believe, with absolute evangelical certainty, that baclofen is the precursor to the cure for this disease. And this is the only place where people can come for support and information about it.

That was the very long version of this: Don't stop looking for the miracle. If you're getting your ass kicked by the pill(s), then you have a couple of options, but quitting taking it should be a last resort.

As IfYouLoveLife used to say, "softly, softly, catchy monkey." I'm not sure what the hell that means, I think it's a British thing, but I get the point. :H

All of that was probably overkill, way too dramatic for you...But I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed this morning and I'm not sure how regularly I can be here. (I say this frequently and then find myself here as much as ever...But really. I'm swamped!!!) My house if FINALLY becoming my home. Amazing what some paint and a full day of moving furniture around will do, isn't it? I'll try to post pix later. I am inordinately happy about it, and pleased as punch with myself and life in general. Time...I am so impatient that I forget that everything takes to time gel, and meld and then "suddenly" happens. Just like creation. And like creation, it's the preparation, the slogging through the steps (pardon the pun) that make it happen. (7 paint colors on the wall. Endless hours online looking at pix. Moving things around relentlessly. Thinking. Obsessing. Throwing away idea after idea. Mind you, not everyone has to go through that just to pick some paint for the wall. But I tend to overthink everything. I know you know how that goes! ) (And of course it's not enough to just do one area. I want the WHOLE thing done right NOW. That's true for almost everything. Hayzeus, I need to meditate more, don't I?)

Hope it's a good day so far for you. I can't wait to hear about the exhibit. (Tomorrow, right?) Even if I'm not posting, I'll be reading. I haven't been able to stop doing that yet!

Stay strong and focused. Oh. And manage your sleep!
:l

[Ne/Neva Eva]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

The exam went...okay. We'll see. If I didn't get an A I'm going to be pissed, but frankly, I didn't work very hard. Which is one of the reasons I gotta get a little bit more focused on 3D. Something's got to give!
I've got two papers to write today, one of which I was supposed to be working on all semester. I have not looked at the stuff. It is going to be a looooooooong day. again.

xxoo Jo.

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

well, i guess it's time for some humor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw8ctJTF1ZY[/video]]strindberg and helium

thanks Ne and Xadrian, it's a big help reading your replies... i do take vitamins, but maybe not enough. started drinking lemon water again to ease the nausea and help me hydrate (lemon water is really good, did you know that?)
it was so stupid, 'cause just the other day i was telling Cooking how my se's were much lesser since i got up to 115mg. and then bang! yesterday i felt so low. having time for myself, planning on getting myself back into some balance, and now this. like strindberg says (graveyard voice): we are already in hell.... yes i can laugh again (like a farmer with a toothache as we say over here)
i got up to 120mg like i said. i thought the se's are unpredictable anyway, so why not keep going steady on that. let's see.

another stupid thing: i fell asleep on the couch again, and when i woke up i realized i'd forgotten to take my last dose, so i took it. fell asleep again (on the couch) and when i woke up again i realized i'd taken 2 times 25mg instead of 2 times 10....!! argh! i just got the 25mg pills yesterday, so i'm not used to watching the difference yet.
well, we'll survive that also.

what i'm afraid of is that it won't work for me. i feel i'm in so deep right now, there's not much more i can do than just try to survive. i feel there's no real joy or life in my life at the moment, and it's hard to look beyond that and trust that good will come. how can i rely on that, when all these years i've tried and tried and never could divorce that damned booze.

and of course i drank loads yesterday. man i'm afraid about that exhibition tomorrow. i'll look like shit, puffy from the booze, and people will think jesus, is THAT the woman in that picture???!!! she looks (and talks) like a puffy zombie!
i know it's stupid to care about these things, but i do. i want to be my lively self again....

[joanna_d]

just started with baclofen, a bit desperate

ah good for you Ne, hope you do get an A!

oww, papers.... me too... please let me get some energy and spirit!!!! (to who am i saying this?)