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    #1

    Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

    After a brief (and largely unsuccessful) dalliance with Antabuse, and after reading some incredibly brave and hopeful sounding testimonies for the benefits of Baclofen, I have decided to give it a go

    I'm so desperate for it to work it hurts, and yet I have concerns.

    I am the sort of person who is driven by structure and habits. I have some great habits (running for 30 minutes every morning, making sure I wash the dishes before going to bed etc) and some dreadful ones (open the wine at 7.15, dont stop til it's all gone etc)

    So now I'm wondering if Baclofen could work for my situation. Even though it might dull my cravings for alcohol, will / could it be effective in altering my hardwired habitual consumption?

    Do I need to conquer the cravings, or break a habit - or both?
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    #2
    Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

    Hi mycall, I think in order to break the habit you have to conquer the cravings. Bac has worked for a lot of people on here. There are also others who decided not to use it because of the side effects. You're not going to know how it affects you until you try it, so I say go for it.
    In the middle of my life's journey, I found myself in a dark wood, as I had lost the straight path. It is a difficult thing to speak about, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood is. Just thinking about it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death, but in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there. --Dante, paraphrased

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      #3
      Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

      Hi Mycall -I would venture to guess that most true alcoholics are hard wired for flat-out or dead stop. OCD, to some degree, is part of my make up for sure. Baclofen allowed me to rid the obsessive alcohol thought cycle and then, as time passed (and passes), the thoughts become less and less. Hopefully, I will always think about alcohol and how it almost killed me. The huge difference in my recovered state now (versus other recovery attempts without baclofen) Is that I AM NO LONGER FEARFUL of alcohol should I choose to drink. Baclofen appears to have taken away the positive euphoric effect. Keep posting on your progress.

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        #4
        Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

        MyCall,
        I am new here and just started on Baclofen 7 days ago, so I don't have any epiphanies yet to share. You sound a lot like me, except for doing the dishes before I go to bed :-) I fully function at my job during the day, but like you when the evening hits I open a bottle of wine, in my case Chardonnay. I think you should defintely go for it because you won't know until you try how you will respond to it. If Baclofen works as it has for so many you will have the obvioius big step of not thinking about alcohol the way you do now with the cravings abated. I know there is also the habit component and I am not sure how that all works. Getting the craving out of the way though I would think will go a long way in helping us tackle the habit part of the equation. It seems to me if you are pretty much indifferent to drinking that working on the habit will be a lot easier. I did try Topamax several years ago, and I had to stop because of the side effects, but I was on it long enough that I had a taste for what it was like to not have that evening craving, and that was wonderful. I didn't stop drinking completely but my consumption was way down and I didn't have the compulsion to drink every night. My hope is that Baclofen will work for me and I will not have the side effects, or that they will at least be tolerable for me and I can then move forward with the rest of it. Would love to do more with my time in the evenings than waste them away drinking. Keep posting and let us know how you do.
        Kim

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          #5
          Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

          Only one way to find out...

          Habits are difficult to break, but they are a piece of piss compared to cravings.

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            #6
            Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

            Thank you so much for the responses.

            I totally hear the basic message - with the cravings under control, breaking the habit side of things would be much, much easier.

            My reluctance comes mainly from the fact that, as I'm in the UK, I am going to have to order bac from t'internet. The prescription I got from my docs was only given as I pleaded that it was the only thing that worked for me 'restless legs'! I got a pack of 84 x 10mg - so that's not going to last too long!

            I never drink before 7 ish - not even at weddings, Christmas etc or when EVERYONE around me is quaffing away to their heart's content. That's 'not what I do'. I believe I'm borderline obsessive compulsive in that sense.

            I'm going to go for it - proper, full on style. I have already (on 3 x 5mg per day) felt fleeting moments of indifference (placebo? who cares!) and would be over the moon if I could conquer this.

            Kim, we sound very similar. I have taught 9 - 11 year olds for the last 12 years (main reason I can't come clean to my doctor - I teach his kids !!). Never missed a day's work due to drinking - never missed a day's drinking due to work! And like you, Chardonnay is my downfall. Lets be 'bac buddies' - it's a long journey we have ahead of us, but the support on this site seems incredible!

            I think I may have to get a different evening routine going - maybe join the gym or something sensible like that

            Anyway - thanks again, wishing you all an awesome Saturday!

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              #7
              Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

              hi mycall,

              i was in a very similar situation to you. My drinking during the week would only start at about 6:30 on the way home when i stopped at the off license (here's a idea, on your way home, count how many off licenses you drive past, it'll probably be loads). i'd stop in the park, have a quick 1 or two and then that would be it for the night. this was a serious habit of mine.

              if you can't tell your doctor about it, and you should be able to because of client confidentiality, then consider moving surgery (though not many regular gp's will prescribe for this). if he ever divulged anything to anyone you could sue him. I had 2 private appointments with Dr Johnathon Chick, 1hr = ?250 (+train fair to edinburgh), 30 mins = ?100 (at his day clinic on harley street) and he will prescribe up to 100mg per day (you can find his contact details on this site). I went on holiday far afield and was able to buy some over the counter which means i can top up to my current level of 210mg per day and go up higher if need be (you can also find details of places you can buy online on this site). the side effects for me were a bit of a creeper. i vividly remember my first half a pill but they never got really really noticeable until I hit about 150mg per day. you can expect less sleep but feeling ok about it, night sweats, itching, restless legs and shallow breathing. all of which are manageable and (which has been confirmed to me on this site) entirely normal and safe. I should of course also mention somnelence/drowsiness/sleepiness. this can be a pain, especially during the day and especially in your line of work but what I do (and i work on my own so can take a nap sometimes) is just get up and move about and it will pass.

              i have a thread a few down below this which others have contributed to which has been an eye opener, some of the posts cover confidence, spare time after drinking and filling it amongst other things, have a read. so up until two weeks ago I was on about 190mg per day and still drinking my 7-8 cans of 5.2% 500ml kronenburg per night. Events in my life meant I had to just knock it on the head and let baclofen do it's work. since then, and maybe I was fortunate that i could just stop completely, my cravings have all but vanished and I realised that for the last month at least, maybe two before I stopped, I was really just drinking out of habit. still going past the same off licenses (they recognised me even when I had my motorbike helmet on, sad i know) getting beer, hitting the park and then carrying on. now, i don't give the off licenses a second glance so I'm smashing the shit out of my habits as well. there have been times when I've thought that I'd like a drink, but these thoughts pass almost as quickly as they appear. though last night was a strong thought. my wife had a bottle of beer and I thought "i'd love one of those" which brought back the feeling of guilt about what I'd done to myself to get me where i am and all the problems it has caused (these thoughts i still have to battle with and conquer). I did actually have a sniff of it (it was a desperado, beer+tequilla) and it didn't smell nice at all to be honest.

              so now,almost two weeks in, I can't for sure say that I've reached complete indifference to it but my cravings feel like they have all but vanished, my habits are changing. my skin is cleaner, i'm regaining my jaw line, my, ahem, bodily functions are vastly improved, I'm taking more pride in my appearance. basically, EVERYTHING is improving so in summary, baclofen is your new best friend (or could be) so keep going, buy some online, change doctor, see doctor chick, do whatever you must and you'll be glad you did. have a nice weekend!!! :goodjob:

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                #8
                Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

                If you must, you can see Dr Chick in Edinburgh, he can and probably will prescribe, but it is an expensive route to go. There's nothing wrong with ordering online. If I had to guess, I would say 75% of the people here have been forced into that route by a system that has failed them.

                Best of luck.

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                  #9
                  Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

                  mycall,

                  After taking bac for a few weeks I realized that I was anxious and compulsive. The bac helped with both. And, as others have said, it does come down to changing habits. bleep said it the best.

                  I also drank wine at night, never missed work. Basically I was living but with very little pleasure and I certainly wasn't being myself. I didn't have a clue who I was. Life's a lot better for me now.

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                    #10
                    Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

                    I'm not too worried about buying online - using the pharmacies mentioned as legit on here.
                    I ordered the Antabuse from River - no idea if it was the real deal, but wasn't about to test it out!!

                    Thanks for all that info Chelsea - not sure I could afford the outlay with Dr Chick (I know it would be cost effective in the long run - but haven't got that sort of cash to hand right now)

                    I have read, on here, about people who would previously drink habitually - and once reaching the switch, were able to do the same sort of things - eat dinner, watch tv etc, but with no compulsion to drink. What a wonderful thought.

                    I have had sober days - seven days at the begining of last month - and generally liked my life a whole lot better. If only it wasn't for that nagging thought of missing something desirable. This is what I'm hoping Baclofen will sort out for me.

                    Thank you for all your comments - I really appreciate it so much

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                      #11
                      Wondering if Baclofen could work for me?

                      Kronkcarr, I really like the idea of bac helping with anxiety and compulsive behaviour - I'm one of those sort of people who gets quite anxious if I can't do things in a certain way.

                      Always been the same - My mum made the mistake of buying me socks with the days of the week on when I was little. All hell broke loose if she tried to make me wear Mondays socks on Wednesday or whatever. Strangely enough, those socks rapidly disappeared

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