I am wanting to get more involved in this forum. It is such a powerful thing and I have been lurking around for quite a while now. There are a lot of great folks here! I have lost the last 8 years to drinking. Alcoholism is a truly cunning and powerful and obnoxious disease.
I tried TSM for about 14 months and after New Year's decided to give up on it as my numbers hadn't really changed much. I was still really addicted and dinking daily 8-10(US) units with more on the weekends. Naltrexone did help me with what some have described as the "damage control" effect. I had very few blackouts and had some notable craving reduction while using it. Just not enough.
So after the new year I read Olivier Ameisen's book and thought I should give Baclofen a try. I'm glad I did! I am into week six and have had a few AF days and greatly reduced craving and reduced units of alcohol when I do drink.
I think Baclofen is going to work for me. I, like many others here and OA himself, have had a long, but un-diagnosed anxiety problem. I did get some therapy for social anxiety a few years back and that may have been another facet of the larger problem. It just seemed like those feelings were normal, as I have had them all of my life.
I'm currently at 125mg, but previously went up to 200mg with some terrible SE's a couple of weeks ago. That was just a really bad move on my part as I jumped up 50mg over a weekend. I had sweats, multiple sleepless nights and loss of feeling in my fingers. Baclofen is a VERY potent drug and I have a lot more respect for it now.
So I read somewhere (not MWO) that doing the HDB on your own is kind of a lonely thing and that is true. I didn't even tell my wife I was doing it until 4 weeks had passed. I think it is important to try to stay linked with others so that's what I'm trying to do in this post.
I also have a couple of qeustions for anyone that wants to weigh in:
1) Have you heard of developing a reaction to sunlight on Baclofen? Since I started taking it there ave been three or four days where I got a pretty bad sunburn and I can't understand it. I am not taking anything besides Baclofen and I have never had a sun sensitivity problem before.
2) Baclofen has done a great deal to aleviate my anxiety. I can see it in my face in pictures that I appear more calm and relaxed than usual. I certainly feel a lot better! The problem is that I also feel like I'm loosing my edge. I forget things sometimes now that I never would have before and sometime I just don't care about small tedious things that my old self would have had to tweak on. Have you experienced anythink like that?
Thanks for reading!
Juan
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