Giving up on Baclofen

[davelet]

Hi

Is there anyone who posts or reads this forum who tried Baclofen, found it didn't work, and gave up on it?

I got up to 240 mg and everything was far far worse - I was still drinking - in fact, I think my drinking went up as the Baclofen gave me the most awful crippling anxiety all the time. I felt so lethargic all the time that at weekends I wouldn't get out of bed until 1 pm, and became so depressed I didn't want to do anything, see friends, or even go out. I did manage not to drink many days, indeed up to a week at a time, but mainly because (I think) I just couldn't be bothered to go out and buy any booze.

I started tapering down very slowly over the last 12 weeks or so and am now on 30 mg/day with the intention to be free of it completely before Christmas. I am now so much happier - no anxiety and drinking less per day, according to what I call my "spreadsheet of shame" in which I track daily units and try to keep a weekly running average below a certain number. I am going out and doing things. But still drinking.

I wonder if there is anyone who reads this, what they tried to do to reign in drinking post-Baclofen?

I check in here every day and enjoy reading everyone's posts but tend not to post much and wonder if there are any other lurkers in a similar position to me?

David.

[YouKayBee]

Hi David

Sorry you've had such a bad time.

I don't know if you are aware, I tried baclofen and also found the side effects absolutely crippling.

What I did next was move onto The Sinclair Method, which worked beautifully for me. It's not successful for everyone but please do be aware that there are other options available, and it's all about finding what works for you.

youkaybee

[summerglow]

Hi David

Sorry you've had such a bad time.

I don't know if you are aware, I tried baclofen and also found the side effects absolutely crippling.

What I did next was move onto The Sinclair Method, which worked beautifully for me. It's not successful for everyone but please do be aware that there are other options available, and it's all about finding what works for you.

youkaybee

I second what UKB said. I hate Baclofen. It affected my sight. I've since had subsequent sight tests, and can only put this down to the side effects of Baclofen.

I'm now on 10mg's per day,stopping very soon. Insomnia, I cannot handle and drank more to counteract that!! So what was the point?

Making an appointment to go back On TSM. (The Sinclair Method) Naltrexone. I tried it before but had to stop due to medication for pain.

I have a PDF copy of the book by Dr Roy Eskapa, on The Sinclair Method if you would like me to send it to you for you to make the best decision as to the best way forward for you.

If you want a copy , please sent me your email in a private message and I will happily forward it to you. I have his authority to do this.

I too am looking for the answer, and truly believe TSM is for me.

Summer

[davelet]

Hi Everyone. Thanks for the replies. I am now onto 10 mg of Baclofen with the intention to stop completely on Christmas day. I feel SO much better, even though I am still drinking. I plan to get through Christmas first and then apply TSM from Saturday onwards. I was trying TSM before I started the Baclofen journey and was having some success with it but only tried it for a couple of weeks before moving onto the Baclofen approach.

I think I have to write off most of 2014 to my Baclofen journey. Oh well.

Will keep you posted.

David.

[neophyte]

David, I was at 240 and was still drinking or forcing abstienence with cravings. I didn't get indifference untill 300mg, some go even higher. Also my drinking went up when I started taking baclofen. This is common, I suspect that it's baclofen reducing the euphoria from drinking that alcoholics initially try to fight it by drinking more. As to side effects, they went away with time for me, but it took at least 2 months for them to abate completely.

[Spiritfree]

Hi Dave -Did you ever try gabapentin?

Hi Everyone. Thanks for the replies. I am now onto 10 mg of Baclofen with the intention to stop completely on Christmas day. I feel SO much better, even though I am still drinking. I plan to get through Christmas first and then apply TSM from Saturday onwards. I was trying TSM before I started the Baclofen journey and was having some success with it but only tried it for a couple of weeks before moving onto the Baclofen approach.

I think I have to write off most of 2014 to my Baclofen journey. Oh well.

Will keep you posted.

David.

[davelet]

Hello Spirit.

Didn't try gabapentin but did try pregabalin on top of the baclofen and it had no noticeable effect on craving. I'm off both now. I can't imagine gabapentin being different but maybe I'm wrong. It's amazing now that I am off the baclofen that I have ZERO anxiety (well, apart from when my mother wound me up over Christmas) and so much energy compared to the anxious and permanently tired person I was when I was on 240 mg.

David.

[Otter]

This is a duplicate. The post is down the page. My delete button doesn't seem to work and when I edit it duplicates the post. Hmmm.... how annoying.

[Otter]

duplicate

[Otter]

My wife started on baclofen back in 2009 just after Ameisen's book came out. It was murder getting a prescription at a useful level and it took a year to get up to 100 mg from Dr. Chick. We had no idea how to take it so we relied on Dr. Ameisen's method of taking three divided doses a day. It worked to a point but the problem is that baclofen mimics a missing brain chemical so it is virtually impossible to "guess" how to take it. Taking it in bunches of pills is not how the body produces brain chemicals. That is the big problem with bacofen treatment, that it takes a lot of experimenting.

If, for instance, you are only taking a low dose, ie., a dose which is not working to stop craving, then you will still be drinking on top of the baclofen so when the drug and the alcohol wear off, you will get a huge craving. Plus, the addiction makes some people "cheat" and just not take the drug at all or in sensible doses.

I often wonder, when I am reading posts from people who are saying it doesn't work, whether I am just reading the posts of an alcoholic brain which wants to keep drinking, cuz, frankly, that is what addictions does. I know, I have been "talked at" for years by alcoholics who just plain lied to me from morning to night about their drinking and how they were in control etc etc...

TSM is great for that. It actually encourages you, requires you to continue drinking to get "extinction sessions". These are drinking sessions where you get no "buzz" from alcohol because the Naltrexone has taken the edge off already so you sit there in the pub wondering why you are paying for a drink and not getting a kick from it. That's great if you are an early stage alcoholic. I did the same years ago by limiting my drinking to half a pint of lager a night and it took two years to sort of stop, leaving me with crippling anxiety. Which, by the way, baclofen got rid of.

My wife, after a 20 year habit which nearly killed her (and me) has no anxiety craving and doesn't drink. She still suffers from anxiety and has had a couple of one night sessions but they didn't go beyond that, thanks to her treatment.

I suppose, though, that if you are able to come to this forum and submit lengthy posts and have insight into your condition, you probably aren't actually as bad as others so you may find you can stop some other way.

I still take baclofen for stress in small doses from time to time and it has no side effects at all. I take 10 or 20 mg every few months just like you might take a valium but it doesn't have the strange effects of valium nor is there any risk of addiction.

My advice to people contemplating taking baclofen is to go to my site and look up the prescribing guidelines and to go very slowly with the dosage so you get no side effects and if you do, just go down again. For me it is a no brainer. If you can take a drug which will stop you drinking because it corrects the underlying condition of alcoholism and you can do that by taking low doses without side effects, why would you consider taking high doses of a less effective drug which only works a bit for some abstainers or reduces heavy drinking or a drug which requires that you continue to drink and do damage to your brain, all so you can say that you beat the illness by exercising your own will power during "extinction" sessions.

Remember, with baclofen the goal is not abstinence, it is corrected brain chemistry. People who are not alcoholics drink but it doesn't get the better of them. Take baclofen and you eventually get back to "normal" so you can drink if you want. But, it is a rough road to ride and it is just a matter of battling away at it. No one says it is easy but why would it be?

Best wishes in your struggle with the monster.

[Spiritfree]

HI Dave - It really is great to hear that you have ZERO anxiety -now that you are off Baclofen. The primary reason that I drank to the point of near death was to defeat my hourly/daily anxiety. I can only guess, but I would imagine that my only reason to then drink, outside of anxiety issues, would have been/be to increase my current level (or lack) of euphoria. So, who knows? Not me. The calming, euphoric feeling while taking alcohol is hard to beat -until the next day when all seems like hell. Good travels to you Dave. I hope you keep posting.

Hello Spirit.

Didn't try gabapentin but did try pregabalin on top of the baclofen and it had no noticeable effect on craving. I'm off both now. I can't imagine gabapentin being different but maybe I'm wrong. It's amazing now that I am off the baclofen that I have ZERO anxiety (well, apart from when my mother wound me up over Christmas) and so much energy compared to the anxious and permanently tired person I was when I was on 240 mg.

David.

[davelet]

Hi Otter.

Thanks for taking the time to respond so lengthily - it is very much appreciated. I'm off Baclofen now completely from a peak of 240 mg and feel SO much better. But I am still drinking, no less and no more than when I was on the Baclofen. I would call myself a functioning alcoholic - I can still go to work and do my technical management job without any problems (in fact, I have never been pulled up for being drunk at work which is one blessing because sometimes I have been). The plan now is to try the Sinclair method after a few days of being off the Baclofen. I guess that 1 January is a good date to start. As I said before, I was having quite some success with it last February with drinking halved after only one week but I became "seduced" by Baclofen after reading this forum and went to see Dr Chick and Baclofen for me was a failure.

Perhaps I should have carried on titrating up beyond 240 mg but I became scared. At least alcohol is easy to withdraw from - for me at my levels of drinking (anywhere between 10 and 30 UK units per day depending on mood) I can go - and have done many times in the last year - cold turkey without much withdrawal apart from minor shakes and nausea. Coming off Baclofen took 2.5 months!

I'll keep you posted how TSM goes but I'm hoping for a similar response to what I had earlier this year.

Thanks again everyone for your supportive posts. It means a lot.

David.

[Spiritfree]

Hi Dave -Thanks for the reply. Dave, I am not trying to sell you a thing. I have nothing to sell (lol). But here is what I do have to say about your current situation: As you state, you are an above average -functioning alcoholic. You realize that you have a huge problem with alcohol, but that you will some day be ok because you will....?. Dave, it is my personal experience saying to you that you might just be misleading yourself. You might be doing well now -functioning, drinking, and not getting caught. But there will one day be a day that is not so hopeful and you will not have a choice -if you are still drinking.

Dave, it really does sound like you are at a stage where you can still choose to put it down. Put the plug in the jug and move on. If you are looking for an "easy" way to keep drinking and not feel bad, I have no suggestions.

Please let us know how you do in the months ahead -regardless. Your report can help us all.

Hi Otter.

Thanks for taking the time to respond so lengthily - it is very much appreciated. I'm off Baclofen now completely from a peak of 240 mg and feel SO much better. But I am still drinking, no less and no more than when I was on the Baclofen. I would call myself a functioning alcoholic - I can still go to work and do my technical management job without any problems (in fact, I have never been pulled up for being drunk at work which is one blessing because sometimes I have been). The plan now is to try the Sinclair method after a few days of being off the Baclofen. I guess that 1 January is a good date to start. As I said before, I was having quite some success with it last February with drinking halved after only one week but I became "seduced" by Baclofen after reading this forum and went to see Dr Chick and Baclofen for me was a failure.

Perhaps I should have carried on titrating up beyond 240 mg but I became scared. At least alcohol is easy to withdraw from - for me at my levels of drinking (anywhere between 10 and 30 UK units per day depending on mood) I can go - and have done many times in the last year - cold turkey without much withdrawal apart from minor shakes and nausea. Coming off Baclofen took 2.5 months!

I'll keep you posted how TSM goes but I'm hoping for a similar response to what I had earlier this year.

Thanks again everyone for your supportive posts. It means a lot.

David.

[Otter]

You're welcome.

My experience with baclofen is with someone who was bed-ridden with it for weeks at a time over a period of many years so I know it works.

I have had a number of messages from people who are still functioning and in professional jobs as was I so I know the problems with taking baclofen while working.

I had a moment many years ago when I couldn't figure out why I felt stressed on a Sunday night before I went to the pub. I was drinking every day and after a couple of pints on a Sunday night I felt ok. I figured it was actually the drinking which was making me stressed and anxious so set about trying to taper off and it took years to do so and it left me a nervous wreck.

Dr. Chick wrote to my GP advising that baclofen, in his experience, is a highly effective anti-anxiety drug which surpasses SSRI's. It may be you should just try to tackle your anxiety with low doses, or, as you say, try TSM, if you aren't concerned about continuing to drink. I know Dr. Chick has told others that baclofen was not for them so maybe it isn't going to work for you. I don't know what his reasoning was and I am not a doctor.

I suppose you could say I have been at the sharp edge of alcoholism both in my home life and in my career so you have to understand that I am talking about alcohol issues that not many people see, where it ends up killing people, both alcoholics and others, and destroys families and puts people in psych wards.

One doctor I have dealt with in this baclofen journey said that too many people treat baclofen as a candy and don't appreciate how powerful it is. Some people have to divide their pills into quarters and take one pill every 15 minutes because you are trying to mimic the release of a brain chemical. Doing this treatment while trying to hold down a job is something people are being forced to do, without proper medical supervision and while keeping it secret. The underlying condition is anxiety but we can't say that because the prevailing view is that it is just "alcoholism" and a matter of will power so it is an anxiety creating situation. Acceptance of the treatment is needed and that will lead to an understanding that this is no different from other illnesses which require good medical supervision and support from employers. We have a long way to go. In the meantime, you have to do what suits you best because it may be that baclofen isn't for you for some biological reason or it may be you aren't getting good advice and support. Dr. Chick, whom I respect, gave us no advice at all on dosage and he is the top man in the UK. It is still early days I am afraid.