Tip if you're feeling "stuck"
Hi, just wanted to share my experience with Sinclair Method, maybe it will help somebody else.
I'd been a heavy drinker for a few decades, roughly 60 drinks a week. With naltrexone and staying away from shots of liquor, my consumption was cut in half pretty quickly. I just didn't want to keep going when I drank. That lasted about 6 weeks.
Then my consumption ramped up to around 45 drinks a week, with many nights at previous levels, despite the fact I was not enjoying it as much. I recall getting really pissed off that the euphoria would just not come. That went on for another month or so.
I was fortunate enough to be working with an addiction councilor, who encouraged me to try a week off from alcohol, just to see how it felt. Just a week right, how hard could that be? I didn't think I could do it.
But by the end of the week, to my utter astonishment, I didn't really want to start drinking again. The pull just wasn't that strong. Every other time in the past I'd tried a week alcohol free, all I could think about was drinking when it was over. (alcohol deprivation effect)
Well, it's been nearly two years now since I had a drink, and for the most part I have not had strong cravings for alcohol. There have been many times I've thought about alcohol, but it's not been overwhelming, and passed fairly quickly instead of that constant nagging thought. There of course has been a routine adjustment, as my evening schedule was organized around drunk time, but after several months the new routine just felt normal.
The point of this story is that naltrexone may be doing far more for you subconsciously than you realize, and you may have to meet it half-way by experimenting with extended alcohol free periods. I'm pretty sure that had I not had that conversation with my counselor and tried a stretch of alcohol free time, I would have continued drinking for many more months, and maybe even come to a point where I wondered if it was going to work for me at all.