Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Phoenix! Wow! (She was one of my inspirations, waaaaaay back when!)
Hope you're well!

[cookinghappy]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Am now on bac at 80 mg per day in 4 doses and am coping a lot better on it than before. Feel a bit concerned by blurred vision and headaches if i have too much screen time. However, so far am still on one bottle of wine a day (evenings), waiting for the switch to happen to me. Recently home life has been a little stressful and i ended up having a row with my husband during which he said 'Jesus! you are on a medication that's so strong you've been having all these side effects, and you are still drinking a bottle a day. It's prob doing you more damage than just drinking, and you are slowly commiting suicide with all this wine'. He asked how i could make judgements about the kids welfare if i was so neglectful of my own. He was furious: doen't make a habit of talking to me like that. And it's true that it's not good that the kids see their mother knocking a bottle a night back.

But i realise that i don't want to stop. I am not yet able to call myself an alcoholic, and deep down i don't think i really expect to die because of the booze. As you know, i am also bulemic, so a certain proportion of what i drink leave my system every day. I read that many of you stopped drinking whilst titrating up. Do i have to do that for this to work? Or can i just carry on drinking and trust that the switch will slap me round the face? Will i def. feel revulsion at wine or do i need to try harder not to drink? I know i'm being very passive, wanting the bac to do the work for me but life without wine feels hard, as much because of breaking the habit and routine as anything else, as some of the buzz has already gone for me.



Have been reading Soberwannabe posts. And all of your contributions. Very helpful.

[soberwannabe]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Hi Cooking.

I hear your pain and sadness. I'm such a newbie, I don't know if it's appropriate to give any advice. But I can say from my experience, starting slow was a good recommendation. After about 3 days, I started to increase my dose and when I felt stressed or something (like shaving off my eyebrow, which I still see EVERY morning!) I take 10 mg.

I know that when the kids get home from school (while I'm still at my home office working) and Dad and the kids start making demands on me, it's stressful. I take 10 mg in the morning, but I take 5 mg at 2pm and the 5 mg at 3pm and then 10 mg at 6 pm. (just so I feel slightly 'detached' or less sensitive to it all.

I was thinking that it might be similar for you.. maybe less in the day, (if not too crazy) and then more in the evening.. maybe you won't feel the need to refill the glass as often!

I also find that 10 mg at 9 pm works good for me as a sleeping pill. Perhaps you can find that dose and take it after the kids get to bed and it could help you call it an 'early night' too.

Only suggestions, I hope it works for you. My best for you! Hugs

[soberwannabe]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

One thing, don't use my dosage rates, please,for some strange reason, I take much less.. not sure why.. but regardless, find a workable dose, if you're taking 80 mg per day..

[joanna_d]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

cooking: what you are doing right now is the best you could do for yourself, your kids, and also your marriage.

maybe it would be a good idea to have your husband read some (or all) of the sweet success thread, so he can have more understanding (and support) about what you're going through?
if you don't want him to know about this forum, you could print the stuff out for him. i think support and understanding is so important for you now, and always!
it's not your choice to put away a bottle a day, it's something you grew into, because you thought you needed it to stay on your feet (and suppress your negative beliefs about yourself. unfortunately, in a way that just increases that exact negative beliefs). and your husband is not helping by criticizing you for trying to get out of this, though it's hard to understand for people who aren't in this situation.
or give him the book of dr. Ameisen to read. that man is evidently not some careless loser. just a person who's inner beliefs and unease or fear made him a slave to something that caused so much more of the fear he started out with. this, being an alcoholic, is not something anyone would choose to be!

and about the drinking while baccing: it sure makes se's much worse, but there are LOTS of people over here (like Ne, and Stuck after a sober start) who drank all the way up to the switch. i'm doing that myself too, i can't get myself to stop drinking until i really feel it's done with. it's way harder like this, but from what i read (sweet success thread) and what i'm noticing over the last week, it'll work.

it's jut so important to have a patient and supporting environment for you now. i hope when he knows more about the process you're going through, he'll be praising you for doing this. he should. and you should be praising yourself for it too.

and by the way Ne: you're an awesome person :h
and one of the persons who are pulling me through all this.

hang on in there girl!

[joanna_d]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

you know: we might need an "awesome possum" t shirt!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5Z_ZducwbQ[/video]]Louis CK - awesome possum

[Xadrian]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

cookinghappy;1421073 wrote: As you know, i am also bulemic, so a certain proportion of what i drink leave my system every day. Have been reading Soberwannabe posts. And all of your contributions. Very helpful.

Could it be that also a cetain proportion of the baclofen you take leaves your system everyday?

Do you take the baclofen right after or maybe just before you force the calories to leave your body in an unnatural way?

In other words, is your body given the chance to absorb the baclofen completely?

[TexasAg]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Cooking, how's it going?

Just sending some prayers your way. It gets better.

Cheers!

[cookinghappy]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Baclofen together with antabuse

Has anyone tried this? I still can't bring myself to call myself an alcoholic. I can call myself 'bulemic' or 'overweight' but with the alcohol I am still not sure. I know i drink far too much - a bottle of wine a night, but i think - as others have also written, that it's a bad habit (or psychological) rather than a physical addiction. I am not motivated to stop drinking, but know that i should. I was chatting to my sister tonight. She is a general practitioner in the uk. I hadn't mentioned the bac to her before as i prefer to keep my relationship with her as equals, rather than put myself in the position of dr/patient. We talked about the void that drinking fills. i am very worried how to fill that. She has never prescribed baclofen for drinking, but when i explained things to her, she asked me whether i could take Antabuse and bac together to really take the decisions out of my head. She said she'd research their compatibility, but i wondered whether any of you have experience of this or whether i should post on a new thread? Thank you.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Yes. Antabuse and baclofen have been used together by several people. Windycitylady is one. Photoman is another.

I have a confession. The reluctance to "call myself an alcoholic" has made me very reluctant to post here. It confuses me. Why anyone would try to take a medication that is prescribed (when it's even prescribed!) off label, with very little research to back it up, when they're unclear about whether or not the drinking is actually an issue is...confusing.

But I realize that I hate the label, though I also embrace it (in a way) because that's what the problem (for me) was. That's it. I was an alcoholic. Remove not just the booze, but the alcoholism, and now I'm just a relatively normal-ish woman. You know?

Then I realized it doesn't really matter. (Of course! I know it doesn't, in general.) But it is hard to offer advice, or suggestions, or even support, when it's so confusing. You know? I'm not being mean. Or stubborn! It's an interesting intellectual question.

All that said, I've been wanting to share with you that there are a couple of other people I know who found that baclofen really helped with their eating disorders. (Don't know what make and model they were. Just that they mentioned in several places/occasions that their food compulsions lessened.)

Which makes sense. I'm not equating all addictions/dysfunctions but there is real and scientific evidence that those two (food and booze) are very much related. Particularly when one looks at the active alcoholism rates of women who undergo gastric bypass. But also from the other direction...

But in all things, I think some sort of...acceptance (?) and desire to change (??) is at the base of all progress. I've seen a lot of people take a lot of baclofen and still return to drinking.

Good luck. Hang in there. And reach out to Windy and Photoman. You can also search by their names and find their posts. Photo's particularly address antabuse and bac.

[Xadrian]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

Am I an alcoholic?

cookinghappy;1423999 wrote: I still can't bring myself to call myself an alcoholic.

Here's a test and decide for yourself:

Alcohol Abuse Self Test

[Xadrian]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

By the way, I lost 15 kg in 6 months while on baclofen.
Sometimes I just forget to take breakfast and/or lunch (that's not healthy, I know, but apparently I'm just not hungry).

[joanna_d]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

i read that in several places too, that baclofen might also help with eating disorders. you could google "baclofen eating disorders", it gives results, also of trials done with it. (haven't read them yet myself)

i sometimes wish i'd gone af at the beginning of my baclofen experience, as i find drinking makes it so much worse. i'm experiencing this right now, cause i suddenly dropped half of my alcohol intake (baclofen is gaining influence up there!) and man, that's already such a huge difference!
for me that would have meant a week on librium (which i don't have any need for now, because i learned high dose baclofen erases or at least diminishes alcohol withdrawal symptoms) and antabuse, as without that i wouldn't be able to stay off booze right now.

but i have bad experiences with antabuse myself, feeling like a total zomie on it (again, this is different for everyone), so i don't want to go near the stuff again. but then again, considering would have been only for a few months until i reach the switch, why not...??
but now, as i feel i'm getting closer, i feel i don't need to consider these options anymore.

for me, when i started taking meds for alcoholism, it meant had to acknowledge i was an alcoholic. when not on meds, i was always fighting to acknowledge it, because i needed to keep believing i could fight this by changing my beliefs, my conduct, whatever.

[joanna_d]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

for instance:Baclofen for binge eating: An open-label trial - Broft - 2007 - International Journal of Eating Disorders - Wiley Online Library (low dose baclofen trial)

Keywords:
baclofen;binge eating;bulimia nervosa;eating disorder;addiction;clinical trial
Abstract
Objective:
Baclofen is a GABA-B agonist that may be useful in the treatment of substance use disorders, and also reduces ‘binge-like’ eating in rodents. We hypothesized that baclofen might be effective in reducing binge eating episodes in binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN).

Method:
Seven women with BED (n = 4) or BN (n = 3) took baclofen (60 mg/day) for 10 weeks.

Results:
Six out of seven patients completed the full 10-week trial. Five out of seven participants (3 BED; 2 BN) demonstrated 50% or greater reduction of frequency of binge eating from beginning to end of the study. Three out of seven participants (2 BED; 1 BN) were free of binge eating at study end. Four out of seven participants elected to continue baclofen at study end. Baclofen was well tolerated by the participants.

Conclusion:
In this open-label trial, baclofen was associated with decreased binge eating frequency in patients with BED and BN. ? 2007 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 2007

[joanna_d]

Baclofen -feel as if my hopes are dissappearing. Should i carry on?

hi Cooking, how 're you doing?
hope you're having fine holidays!