Baclofen -Help needed-Please

[bleep]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

Something to bear in mind, which I wish was made more obvious to more people, is that the "Senior Member" tag is purely a function of number of posts. When you get to 1 000 posts, you become a senior member. It has nothing to do with wisdom!

I completely understand your desire to go higher. I did it myself, just to see what it was like, and went to stupid levels. A plus of doing that, is that when you come back to your desired level, is that the SE's are non-existent.

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

bleep;1502517 wrote: Something to bear in mind, which I wish was made more obvious to more people, is that the "Senior Member" tag is purely a function of number of posts. When you get to 1 000 posts, you become a senior member. It has nothing to do with wisdom!

I completely understand your desire to go higher. I did it myself, just to see what it was like, and went to stupid levels. A plus of doing that, is that when you come back to your desired level, is that the SE's are non-existent.

Bleep -That is exactly what I was hoping to hear..go up, come back down, and the SEs would possibly be less. Thanks for posting.

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

I Will Be Sober In The Morning

I Have To Know That It Won?t Always Be Like This:


I don't like to feel down and blue and I certainly don't like complaining about my woes. Afterall, I say to myself, "I have received one of the greatest gifts I could ever have received; Baclofen and real shot at living a life free of the FIREWATER -AND I have my health, hope, immediate FAMILY and their support, etc." .

And Yes, I Have To Add a ?BUT..?:

And now, here comes the "but"...the one friend I had that could help me hide from my reality, ...the one friend that I had that could take me way up and then way down, ...the one friend that finally turned its back on me, and then laugh at me in during my deepest moments of pain.. and now, this friend is no longer a part of my life." ...Firewater, demon spirit guide to the mentally broken brains and souls.. May Firewater be damned forever (except for those days in my early youth when it may have saved my life)

Now, Just a Little More Moaning:

Now that I have rid that part from my system, I would like to express my deep sympathy for the greater majority in our society. You see, most people don't have a clue, much less an understanding, of the revolving door of pain they help keep us in. (us being those addicted to the damaging chemicals and brain malfunctioning-beyond the norm). Their so called help reminds me of the help given to society during the Salem Witch Trials, except alcoholism (and other addictions) and mental challenges are on a much grander scale.

How or even why, one may ask, do you dare come up with such a horrid comparison as such. Those same ones might even offer up the notion that our society is well more advanced than to fall for such non-sense. I challenge each and all, including myself, to think momentarily about the fact that we, the addicted, are looked upon as moral failings and dredges upon society. As such, our society spends 10 fold the money on repairing the physical shortcomings of the human physical-?being?. We fail to realize that the mental condition of the human is the driving force behind many of the physical ailments (obesity, some forms of cancer, diabetes, etc.,etc..) Our society, as a whole, convicts and crucifies the most obvious individuals and the most misunderstood groups ?the brain impaired (damaged) beings.

The Salem Witch trials were not so much about the mentally ill or physically ill ?the so called ?witches?. It was about a small society attacking a problem they feared and did not understand ?and did so using the only method they knew how and that was through death. The death bestowed on the addicted folks of today is more of a slow, more painful death; withhold science and medication from the afflicted. Furthermore, accuse them of creating this problem for themselves and put them in prisons or mental institutions (rehabs). Send them to 12 step type programs and ask them to find their part in their own miseries and then tell the 12 step newbies that will always have to be a ?member? lest they get eaten by alcohol demons. In summary I would just like to say this is all bullshit. Our societies have this bass-ackwards. Let us begin to treat the mind/brain with the same amount of dignity and money that we spend on the physical shortcomings. And of all matters, stop requiring the patients to seek and develop their own medications and treatments, or least help them. And, btw, all of us humans seek to console and/or improve our bodies and brains through the use of chemicals, and those improvements come in the forms of sugar, food, caffeine, nicotine, exercise, gambling, etc, etc.

Tonight, I am just tired, overwhelmed, frustrated, lonely (in my thoughts), fearful, anxious, lonely, and confused. But I do hold gifts much greater than these problems; I am Sober, Hopeful, Baclofen Inspired, and excited that I get to wake up sober again in the morning (marking 38 FIREWATER FREE days ?in a row-lol.).

I can know tonight that I won?t have to live in the hell-hole of anxiety, hangover, shame, and guilt tomorrow and that I can know that Iwill be able to find something positive to get excited about, as I have every day since baclofen, with the help of my new found friend, BACLOFEN.

And now, I will get my three hours of sleep and give it another go tomorrow.

Peace to Us All

[Cassander]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote:

... The death bestowed on the addicted folks of today is more of a slow, more painful death; withhold science and medication from the afflicted. Furthermore, accuse them of creating this problem for themselves and put them in prisons or mental institutions (rehabs). Send them to 12 step type programs and ask them to find their part in their own miseries and then tell the 12 step newbies that will always have to be a “member” lest they get eaten by alcohol demons.

In summary I would just like to say this is all bullshit.

Yes.

PS You remind me of me back in 2011. https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ops-51277.html. Many others have come to the somewhat same conclusion.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

Your post really moved me, Spirit.

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote: I Have To Know That It Won?t Always Be Like This:

It won't. Really it won't. New sobriety is a whole new world, it's an adjustment, and it takes time. It is (as I'm sure you know) a really lovely place to live. Being tired makes it hard to see that. Even now, when I'm over-tired, there's a fog over the whole loveliness aspect of it. I am so thankful for sleep and a new dawn.
What's more, baclofen won't always be like this either. It'll become an ally. Again, time is the main factor. Slog through the days and suddenly the fog of baclofen lifts too.

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote: You see, most people don't have a clue, much less an understanding,
The thing that makes me the most sad is that we (those of us who suffer from this disease) don't understand, and can't believe, that it's a disease and a medication can fix it. Even my family members that suffer from the disease and have seen the transformation don't believe or understand. It's heartbreaking. That said, I believe it's changing. I know it's changing.

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote:

I can know tonight that I won?t have to live in the hell-hole of anxiety, hangover, shame, and guilt tomorrow and that I can know that Iwill be able to find something positive to get excited about, as I have every day since baclofen, with the help of my new found friend, BACLOFEN.

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote:

And now, I will get my three hours of sleep and give it another go tomorrow.

:H

Congratulations on the 38 days. Baclofen or not, that's a wonderful accomplishment. Hang in there. It gets better and better and better.

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote: Peace to Us All

And to you.

[Cassander]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote: ... I challenge each and all, including myself, to think momentarily about the fact that we, the addicted, are looked upon as moral failings and dredges upon society. ...

Spirit, I do want to take friendly issue with this conclusion. I'm not sure this is necessarily the case. I do believe it is in the nature of alcoholics to blame themselves and to feel as if they are looked down upon as moral failings and dredges upon society. I am not sure that is how society looks at the alcoholic.

I fear the truth is, in a way, worse. I don't think the average guy in the street looks down on the alcoholic as a "moral" failure. I think the average guy doesn't look at all. In general, doesn't give a shit about your problem or my problem. If questioned, the average guy might have an opinion about alcoholics or she might not. If pressed, many might well agree that its probably a disease and not a moral failing.

But most simply don't know or care. "Its not my problem. Its yours...solve it yourself." I think a lot of human behavior can be explained by selfishness...by preoccupation with oneself. For millennia and maybe even up through and including today, humans have had to be selfish to survive. Its imprinted in our DNA. Imagine the hunter gatherer who said to a weaker fellow hunter, "I understand you are hungry. You take this deer I just killed."

Or imagine the co-worker who says of his alcoholic colleague, "I understand you are drunk and fucked up and hung over. Let me write your report and deal with your boss." I don't think the average guy even gets to the moral judgment.

And I don't think the average guy has given a minute's thought to the possibility that there is a treatment for alcoholism that is tantamount to a cure and that if the cure were made widely available perhaps hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars could be saved across the board, and countless lives, jobs and marriages saved and families kept intact.

As a society we can't even agree to make our government stop printing money we don't have, or limit the availability of handguns to make us safer, or limit the use of hydrocarbons to preserve our environment, or to allow women control over their bodies or etc etc. Its all really very sad, but if you want to look for the reasons, I would suggest selfishness is a big part of the answer.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

Cass and Spirit,

While I agree, I would also like to point out that alcoholics/addicts are a pain in the ass. To treat, to live with, to work with, to be friends with, to live next door to, to live in a city with. We are a notoriously (and understandably in some ways) difficult bunch.
just sayin'
Ne

[Cassander]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

spiritwolf333;1503155 wrote:
...I would like to express my deep sympathy for the greater majority in our society. You see, most people don't have a clue, much less an understanding, of the revolving door of pain they help keep us in. ... I challenge each and all, including myself, to think momentarily about the fact that we, the addicted, are looked upon as moral failings and dredges upon society. ... We fail to realize that the mental condition of the human is the driving force behind many of the physical ailments (obesity, some forms of cancer, diabetes, etc.,etc..) Our society, as a whole, convicts and crucifies the most obvious individuals and the most misunderstood groups ?the brain impaired (damaged) beings.
...


Cassander;1503325 wrote: ...I think the average guy doesn't look at all. In general, doesn't give a shit about your problem or my problem. ...

Hi Spirit

Now I'm responding to my own post. Like I'm talking to myself. Which I might as well be for all the good its doing (in getting the word out to the larger world about bac).

I really think its more about the rest of the world not caring about any one other than themself than having a "moral" point of view.

Here is a case in point.

The financial crisis is still hurting my financial services-related firm big time.

Last summer, "Joe", a 45 year old colleague, slipped into a major down turn. He stopped showing up, his numbers fell off badly and a few times when he did show up he was seen asleep in the office.

Senior management didn't accuse him of moral failings or being a dredge. Senior management said to itself, "We have to run this business at a profit and if we don't we'll look bad and get fired ourselves. So we better fire Joe."

I thought to myself, "But Joe is clearly depressed, or abusing drugs or alcohol, or all of the above. He is a capable person but he is obviously in trouble." I suggested to management that Joe was "sick" and needed help but nobody was interested in that explanation. Zero compassion. Joe was fucking up, he was making management look bad, so Joe had to go.

I approached Joe on my own. I asked him if he were having difficulties. He said, yeah, the ongoing financial crisis was getting him down. I told him that he had been seen asleep in the office a few times. He said, yeah, that's a harmless side effect of seroquel. But he didn't ask for help or state that he was seriously depressed or abusing drugs or alcohol. I reported to management that Joe had told me that the sleeping in the office issues were side-effects of an anti-depressant. Management didn't want to know and my information didn't affect anything. Management didn't approach Joe for a clear explanation. Head in the sand. I worried that if we terminated Joe he might spiral into a deeper depression or abuse condition. I worried that he might kill himself. I told management this. No change in their point of view. Soon thereafter they terminated Joe.

I think management simply acted in its own selfish self-interest as it saw the world. I don't think management viewed Joe's problem as a moral failing or any other kind of moral issue. It certainly didn't view Joe's problem (as they saw it) as an illness. It simply looked at Joe and his lack of productivity and its reflection on our profitability and wanted him out. If they thought about Joe's problem at all I guess they believed it was up to Joe himself to get help.

I suppose Joe might bear some of the blame for the outcome, as well. If he had understood that he had an illness, that he was in fact "disabled" by reason of the illness, he might have been able to go on disability leave with pay, seek treatment and come back when he was recovered. But he might also have worried about the stigma of disability. Would he have worried if he had had cancer or a heart attack? I wonder.

In any event I tell this story FWIW.

I love how things are unfolding for you Spirit. Imagine, getting your life back!

Best,

Cassander

[Cassander]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

Ne/Neva Eva;1503331 wrote: Cass and Spirit,

While I agree, I would also like to point out that alcoholics/addicts are a pain in the ass. To treat, to live with, to work with, to be friends with, to live next door to, to live in a city with. We are a notoriously (and understandably in some ways) difficult bunch.
just sayin'
Ne

Yep. In the example I just gave, about "Joe", he didn't help himself much. There wasn't much of a reservoir of good will. Nevertheless, he was "ill". Difficult stuff.

[kronkcarr]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

spiritwolf333,

I've thought about your post all day. I agree with what Cassander says. Society is much more concerned with looking good and hitting the bottom line. I'd go into details about civilization and families spreading out, but I'd bore myself. We often have to make our own communities now. IMO many people just don't take the time to care. Many don't know how to care and many just buy into what they're told.

I'm in a "complementary health" field as "they" call it. When I came out of school in 1995 I was going to light the world on fire. I was going to educate drs and insurance companies to the cost effective and health benefits of my modality. Eighteen years later very little, if anything, has changed. Except the scope of my practice has been cut down due to MDs who fear I may take $ out of their pockets. I can't/don't sweat it anymore because I'd go nuts.

There are some people like Dr Ameisen who are doing what they can to awaken others. Are you familiar with Dr Gabor Mate (There's a backwards accent over the e.)? He's an MD from Vancouver who worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood. He set up apartments and a clinic for severely addicted heroin addicts--not to change them but to give them a safe, accepting, sterile place to do what they do.

He's written a number of books that I've read. His In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction is a good read. He looks at addiction holistically: personal history, emotional aspects, brain chemistry, neurological development, etc. He travels extensively to spread the word. In write ups about him he's consistently called compassionate. His web site is drgabormate.com.

Then on the flip of this, I just checked out the new book Clean by David Sheff. It's about how today's addiction treatment doesn't work and why. There's 1 chapter titled Treating Addiction with Drugs. It's 9 pages long and deals mainly with opiate addiction. There's 1 paragraph about drug treatment and alcoholism. He lists Naltrexone, Antabuse and Campral. And almost as an afterthought he mentions Topimax, baclofen, ondanse and gabapentin. So...

I hear you (and I thought you posted something similar elsewhere here, but I had no time to look). It is sad that the "powers that be today" pick and choose what citizens get. That's why it's good we're here and seekers can find our information and experiences. You can feedback to your clinic which could help the next person. When I started taking bac after reading Dr A's book I hadn't found MWO (found it in my third month). I'd started detailed journaling because I'd been told by patients that Dr A's book was a difficult read for a layperson, and my aim was to write an easier read. I have a lending library of his book and that's one way I can get the word out without telling my experience right.

I'm heading into my son's last band concert and thinking of you.

kronk

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

Mayzay;1494085 wrote: This is such an interesting thread and stuff I need to read tomorrow-Thanks all Mx

Thanks MayZay -hope you get a chance to comment some time.

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

omahawagon;1494225 wrote: Thanks for sharing all of this, very insightful

Hi Omah -thanks for reading.. hope you get a chance to post.

[spiritwolf333]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

I am Grateful

I thank each of you that have responded. I really want to respond in depth tomorrow. Many of you gave such wonderful and insigtful responses...I am overwhelmed by your grace.
Thank you again.

[Cassander]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

kronkcarr;1503645 wrote: spiritwolf333,

...I'd go into details about civilization and families spreading out, but I'd bore myself. We often have to make our own communities now. IMO many people just don't take the time to care. Many don't know how to care and many just buy into what they're told.

Well, kronk, you wouldn't bore me! I think about this every day...all the time.

At the risk of (further) hijacking Spirit's thread, I'll respond (somewhat briefly, although I could go on and on):

I think the destructive forces bearing down on the nuclear and extended family, and on the "communities" that are formed by families, in our post-modern, post-industrial, diversity-enchanted, dual income, so-called meritocratic age are responsible for much of the almost existential crisis we find ourselves in today (I speak mostly of the situation here in the USA, and don't know how universal these problems are).

What do I mean?

Its like a kind of social entropy. The forces of modern life are (as you suggest) pushing us further apart, not together.

In a post-modern, post-industrial world, more and more of us work as employees in service businesses in an "information" economy. We aren't tied to a farm or a factory or a village or town. We go to work for the "highest" bidder in some city, in any city, where there is "work". But these cities (esp the mega cities like NY, DC and LA) can be highly alienating. Sure the pay is nominally better, but where is the support system (family, friends, community) that nourishes us? Where is my family in my studio apartment in Brooklyn? (As in my story of "Joe" above, nobody in power cared that Joe had a problem. Power cares more than anything else about profits and its own power. Power is not family.)

What do I mean by "diversity-enchanted"? In our elite institutions (for example, national government, major corporations, mainstream media and research universities), it is a given that diversity is a higher value than sameness. So instead of populating our institutions with "related" people, we intentionally diversify. From the point of view of eliminating illegal discrimination, this is an excellent thing. From the point of view of strengthening the family, this is not so good. Not only is it more difficult to establish a "community" in a diverse environment, the community one leaves behind (the nuclear family and the community of related families) to join a diverse community is inevitably weakened. Diversity initiatives necessarily result in further forcing the family apart.

What do I mean by knocking "dual income". Well, its not that I am opposed in any way to equality of the sexes or equal opportunity. I am not. But when the forces of the new economy dictate that father and mother must work outside the home, and the new community doesn't compensate for this reality by supporting the dual income family (with appropriate work hours and child care and leave policies) than I think the "family" is inevitably weakened.

And what do I mean by "so-called meritocratic"? Again, our elite institutions have bought the concept that this nation should be an absolute meritocracy and educational opportunity, jobs, and compensation should be parceled out first to the smartest and most accomplished, and then to the next smartest and most accomplished, and so on down the line. Like in a mathematical formula.

Take aptitude tests and college admissions. In the infinite wisdom of the test preparers and administrators and the admissions departments who consume their products, an 800 test score makes you a more "valuable" admit, a more valuable potential worker in the knowledge economy than someone with a 500 test score. The better college admission, the better job, the higher pay goes to the applicant with the higher "scores". I have a major problem with what desirable qualities the tests are actually testing, but let's put that aside. More importantly, what happens to the family and the community when opportunity is parceled out by test results? It means that the family is inevitably destabilized when its members take new places in the larger meritocracy.

What does this mean to us?

As I say, I think about this all the time. My observation is that while some members of this new meritocracy do very well indeed (hedge fund operators, CEOs, ex-congressman consulting and lobbying with giant corporations), many of us don't fare so well. The stress levels of working in the so-called "meritocracy" without the safety net of a rock solid nuclear and extended family that cares about its own health and well-being are higher and higher. Of course, they are exacerbated in a prolonged economic downturn, especially because the benefits of the meritocratic system are largely economic.

Which brings me back home, back to here, back to this thread. If anxiety is a major reason why some people drink, and often drink too much, and if people who drink too much are at risk of becoming dependent upon and addicted to alcohol, then conditions which exacerbate anxiety are not good. I believe we have created and are creating a society which is increasingly anxious, increasingly estranged from its natural family and community, and increasingly at risk for the consequences of this anxiety.

I am not saying we should tear down our diverse, meritocratic, urban information economy and go back to the horse and buggy. I am saying that if we build a diverse, meritocratic, urban information economy and in the process undermine or destroy the family, and the community of which families are a part, we will not have succeeded.

That's what I think...(and sorry, Spirit, for the ranting hijack...)

Cass

[john doe]

Baclofen -Help needed-Please

From the little I now about the US it seems that families breaking up is sort of the norm? It seems like once kids go off to university they're pretty much gone for good especially it being such a large country.

Here in Ireland its the norm for family's to live within walking distance and not so out of the ordinary for grandparents to live in the same street as their kids. I know families who live next door to each other and maybe another living across the street.

There is a sense of community spirit. Probably comes from living in a housing estate most of my life. Its nice though that people look out for each other.