Intermission

Circumstances, being the crafty creatures they are, have gone and dealt me an unexpected hand. Consequently, I shan't be able to update the blog for the moment. 

I know many of you sit with my blog open, desperately pressing F5 in the hope of being the first to see any new posts, so to give you something to look at while you wait, here's a kitten with two balls of wool. 

Isn't he cute?

4 Months On

A few months after finding indifference to booze, I decided I needed to go on a diet and I posted this on MWO: (an update follows below the post)

When we’re alkies and addicts as well as often neglecting our families and careers, we tend to neglect ourselves, both physically and mentally. I’ve allowed my body to deteriorate and my brain to atrophy and since becoming sober I’ve felt a need to reverse the decline. Undoing decades of self-destruction won’t be easy; in fact it probably won’t be possible to completely reverse the very real, slow suicide I’d been committing, particularly over the last 8 to 10 years. However, I have taken steps to do what I can, and part of that is health and fitness: eating well (and less of it) and exercise. It’s early days, but I’m starting to feel the benefits and I’ve noticed differences in my behaviour and attitudes.

On Thursday I was just leaving the house to take the hounds for their morning swim down at the lake, when I realised I hadn’t eaten anything and I grabbed a pear to take with me. Not a particularly strange or noteworthy thing to do, but so very different from my instinct till recently, of reaching for a Snickers or a Mars bar to shove in my pocket.

Walking round the lake it started to chuck it down. When I’d left the house the weather seemed fine so I was wearing shorts and a T shirt. We passed a man with his dog and I nodded a cheery hello and he replied “doesn’t look like it’s going to stop does it?”. I knew a German girl who was always annoyed at the way the British wasted time with smalltalk about the weather and she was absolutely appalled when people said things such as “hello, how are you?” or started an instruction with “would you mind…” or “I wonder if you would be so kind as to…”. She considered this sort of behaviour disingenuous and pretending you cared about someone or whether they minded doing something when you were actually giving an instruction, to be bordering on an outright lie. She was a funny girl, awfully small breasts but not a bad sort nevertheless.

I was surprised by a passage in Bill Bryson’s Notes From A Small Island, where he noted the British always smile and laugh when they meet each other outside. Surprised because I assumed everyone did this. When you meet someone, you quickly exchange pleasantries and one of you says something that amuses the other. It can be the tiniest and hardly even remotely funny thing, but just enough to allow you both to show amusement. So to the man in the rain I replied “I didn’t exactly dress for this weather”, and I pointed at my sodden clothing in a self-deprecating way. This was the quip that should have allowed us both to show amusement and the end of our conversation. However, while he did chuckle, he also replied “no you didn’t did you, you silly tw*t”. I was more than a little shocked by this but didn’t let it show. I smiled and walked on.

The word “tw*t” is of course highly offensive and really not widely used, especially in the company of strangers. It is nearly as offensive as the C word, which is reserved for only the most irate and emotional occasions, except in Caernarfon. Caernarfon is a town in Wales in which I spent some time a few years ago. The locals have the extraordinary habit of greeting each other with the phrase “iawn cont”. Iawn literally means ‘very’ but has many slightly different meanings depending on the circumstances in which it is used and in this case it means ‘right’, as in utmost. “Cont” is the Welsh version of the English word, just replace the O with a U and you’ll understand the greeting as “You’re a complete c*nt?”. This can also, in Caernarfon, be substituted with the greeting “s’mae cwd”, which translates as “hiya scrotum”.

The people of Caernarfon are unique in this regard, particularly in a country like Wales where Welsh speakers tend to hold their language in very high esteem and cherish it’s history as the language of poetry of the bards and druids of old. Many Welsh people will tell you there aren’t even any swear words in Welsh, such is its purity. That’s bollocks, but I digress.

So, for the inhabitants of a Welsh town to so utterly abandon the normal, expected, formal niceties, that people greet each other in such a way is quite shocking. When I say people greet each other this way, I mean men, obviously. I don’t know how the women greet each other, they probably ask about babies, or chat about crocheting or discuss pink and fluffy things, just as they do the world over.

I do hope “tw*t” won’t become a common greeting, surely only the most vulgar of people would use the word so lightly…or post it on a forum.

Well the diet continued and 4 months down the line I've lost over 50 pounds with about 20 still to go. The rate of my weight loss has had a significantly detrimental effect on my wallet. It seems as soon as I buy clothes, they become too big for me. Just this morning I've been forced to buy yet more trousers to replace the ones I bought just 3 weeks ago because I've dropped another waist size (down from 46” to a 38”) and no doubt these will become redundant in another 3 weeks. I've had to replace all my shirts because I've dropped from a 5xl (yep that's XXXXXL!!!!!!) to an xl and now that winter's here, I see that my winter clothes are all going to need replacing as well. Seriously, I look ludicrous in those big coats.

How on earth did I become so fat? Simple, I was on a booze and food suicide mission. Thank the gods I found baclofen before I completed it.

Fortunately “tw*t” doesn't appear to have become a common greeting in Bedford … not yet anyway.

BacLOVEn Revisited

Disaster has struck. My mirror and I have decided to split up. I realised my mirror-love was unnatural and ultimately unsustainable, due to the obvious differences between our two situations. And the mirror decided it was fed up with having to be wiped down with Kleenex all the time.

Actually, my mirror-love was as a consequence of a sudden, large, increase of baclofen. I shot straight up from 175 to 250mg/day in the hope of thrashing down some really crappy anxiety/panic attack type stuff I suddenly had going on.

When titrating up on baclofen, we see changes to our emotional reactions. Often people notice they're more relaxed in the company of others, or more attracted to people they wouldn't otherwise be. Our emotions are often amplified so we feel love or even hate and disgust, when before we may have overlooked or ignored the feelings. Often these changes occur incrementally with just 10mg increases in dose. So a leap of 75mg can produce a more immediately noticeable effect. This can be a useful tool when we find ourselves in an unwelcome state of mind. But then again, those who have difficulty with a 10mg increase will most likely suffer horribly with a 75mg jump.

Baclofen is supposed to reduce anxiety. Many believe it works as a cure for alcoholism by reducing the anxiety that caused us to become alcoholics. I think that's far too simplistic. Yes, lots of people report a reduction in their level of anxiety, often quite soon after starting baclofen, and their need for alcohol is also reduced. But I don't see a certain causal link. Being an alcoholic can itself cause anxiety (as well as a beer-gut, a reduced bank balance and occasionally, mysteriously broken knuckles) and many people have absolutely no change in their anxiety levels after taking baclofen. Saying anxiety creates the alcoholic is as simplistic and inaccurate as saying everyone drinks alcoholically because of childhood trauma, or the love of partying, or the thrill of waking up in police cells and being touched up by a huge, ginger- bearded, Glaswegian who insists on being your boyfriend for the evening. In my opinion, there is more than one path to this particular hell.

The bac increase worked ... kinda. I lost the panic attacks but had three days of completely freaking out with a strange adrenalin crash type feeling. Not fun. But what was fun was the period of euphoria that followed. I was at ease. I was at one with the world. I felt the sun on my skin and the wind in my (phantom) hair like I'd never felt them before. I even felt the earth beneath my feet, as if it were alive and breathing, which of course it is. I was connected to, and felt a warmth towards, everything in a way lost to me for many years. Not since the old days, when I would consume huge amounts of hash, had I felt so … just ... right. And I fell in love with everyone and everything, including my mirror.

So, the mirror-love was chemically induced after all. Bye bye mirror.

Love and Baclofen

I've known many people on baclofen who have fallen in love unexpectedly, usually with another baclofenista. For one person it was a reciprocated affair lasting many months, for another it quickly waned and was over in less than a day. For many it lingers on, often unspoken. In my case, I am hugely, deeply, madly in love and I don't care who knows it. The other party not only knows, but feels exactly the same way. We share our love in every way, its physical manifestation is a thing of pure beauty. But that's enough about me and my bedroom mirror.

Is it really love or a consequence of HDB (High Dose Baclofen)? The scientists will probably tell you it's all to do with chemical rebalancing and the amygdala or some such bollocks, but who gives a crap what those pointy-headed, pencil-knecked, nerds say? You can't listen to them, they've probably only ever been in love the once, and only consummated it in their 30s, and even then it really didn't count because the other party was asleep/rat-arsed drunk/a galia melon.

And it's not just love; many people report other heightened emotions, particularly after the baclofen switch: fear, restlessness, indignation, disgust, sorrow and hatred. All strongly felt. Much more so than previously and often with little in the way of obvious justification. And then there's the self-obsession that envelopes those emotions: “Why am I the only one who feels this strongly about … ?”. Do we become so self-obsessed because HDB alters our brain or upsets our chemical balance, or simply because we suddenly realise we've neglected (or even actively, deliberately, been destroying) ourselves for so long and we start to make up for it, for the lost time.

Is the love felt by one on HDB any less real, any less pure? Is it necessarily destined to be be short-lived, simply because of the involvement of the chemical? I really need to know; I'd hate to break up with my mirror. Oh, that could get messy. 

Huzzah! For Drunk Women.

Drunk women perform a crucial public service: they shag men who would otherwise remain virgins. These men are generally either those with offensive personalities, a complete lack of social graces, are sickeningly ugly, have a cavalier attitude to personal hygiene, or possess some other trait or character flaw that renders them repulsive to women...unless the woman is drunk. If women failed to drunkenly service these hideous creatures, the men would otherwise be forever sexually frustrated, which in time could result in the most dreadful of consequences for society and the world in general. Imagine if you will, the horror of a George W. Bush not only power mad and intellectually retarded, but also with the kind of absolute, all-encompassing, devastating, anger that only permanent sexual frustration can cause. It's a dreadful thought. Thank the gods he had money and was able to get laid.

Some women choose to ignore this danger and, for entirely selfish reasons, become sober. While I do my utmost to dissuade them from such folly, on the whole, my female friends tend to ignore my advice. Women always think they know best. Pah!

So how do newly sober women find male companions, now they no longer wear beer goggles?They may not wish to blur the lines of professionalism by dating someone from their work and going to bars is a bit of a no-no, so where else could they meet men? Well, two of my friends have started to use on-line dating sites. It seems an eminently sensible idea; you get to read potential candidates' profiles and see their pictures, so you can weed out those who live in their mother's basements and have moobs. But the whole dating thing that follows is fraught with difficulties.

I used to hate dating, with all those unwritten, unspoken rules so easily broken. Should I stand up when she does and open doors for her, or is that regarded as sexist and demeaning? Should I pay the whole bill at the restaurant or offer to split it? In the cab back from the restaurant should I let her know I'd be interested in coming in for a coffee by pointing out how large my chubby is? (the answer to that one is NO ...apparently). If I am invited up, should I instantly accept, play it cool by suggesting we make it next time, or say “Really? Is this a joke? Are you trying to wind me up or something? Because if you're serious I'll have to nip to the all night chemist and get some rubbers 'cos I think the one in my wallet passed its use-by date a couple of years ago.”? The third option is likely to result in frustration...trust me. Oh yes and while I'm at it, although women claim to enjoy romantic gestures, shaving your pubes into the shape of a love-heart isn't one...I'm told. We just can't win! Well, that's not true, we can be awfully successful just so long as woman stay drunk.

Think on ladies! Don't let humankind down by causing inadequate males to be sexually frustrated.

I'd like to point out that I'm not one of those men, because apart from being devilishly handsome, suave, sophisticated a most magnificent conversationalist and exceedingly pleasurable company for any woman, I also have a huge knob. I just thought you ought to know.

TTFN

Murph

Titrating and Tit Rating

When you start taking baclofen, in order to avoid the side effects, you should use a very slow method of titration. If you've been prescribed it by a doctor, she should give you a titration schedule starting off at just 5 or 10 mg per day. If you can't find a doctor to prescribe and you're going it alone, then pop onto the MWO Meds Forum and someone there should help you out. If you titrate slowly, it will take longer to reach indifference, perhaps 1 to 3 months, but you won't become a vegetable as I (temporarily) did, because I titrated up crazy fast.

By the way, 'titrate' is a medical term, which means to gradually increase the dosage until optimal results are achieved. It has nothing to do with evaluating breasts and assigning a score, which would be a dreadful thing to do and I certainly never would. Well, I wouldn't do it now, not openly, unlike when I was at school. I would stand in the corridor and give marks out of 10 as the other students passed by “0”,”0”, “0”, “0”...well, it was Infants School. I had to wait a few years before anything really registered on the boobometer: “0”, “1”, “0”, “8”. The '8', unfortunately, belonged to a fat boy named Mark D***s (I've redacted the name to spare Mark Davis' blushes).

Mark was a proper porker, with a mighty fine pair of boobs. We used to play in the same rugby team. He was a very handy prop forward who loved to get stuck into tackles and would ruck and maul with the best of them. He once told me, that sometimes when he was at the bottom of a ruck, the opposing players would feel him up, such was the allure of his mammoth rack.

That rather put me off boobs for a while and I became much more of a bum man. I don't mean I became a homosexual, I just mean I shifted my attention from boobs to butts. OK, that sounds gay too, but that's not it at all. I don't want you to think I'm gay OK? I'm not. There's nothing wrong with being a gay, alright? I'm just not one. I don't know why I feel the need to explain this to you?

Anyhoo, it didn't put me off rugby, which isn't even slightly gay, despite what happened to Mark. So what if a few people regard the game as homoerotic? I can assure you there is nothing even slightly erotic about having several 300 pound neanderthals jumping on you and squashing your wedding tackle...unless you're gay, which I'm NOT!!!

OK, I'm not getting anywhere here. If you want to know how to titrate correctly on baclofen, then either follow the link above or send me an email and I'll answer it after I've listened to my Judy Garland records in my bubble bath.

Murph

Baclofun

This morning, as I was walking my dogs on the water meadows, they decided they wanted to take a break and frolic in the long grass. So I stopped and took in the view. It was a perfect morning, the sun was weak but still pleasantly warm and the air was crystal clear. I watched the swans as they glid idly by and a kingfisher raced past, almost colliding with a dragonfly which had kindly offered a piggyback to a friend. There was not a soul around to disturb the peaceful scene ... so I took the opportunity to drain the dragon. Hey, don't judge me, I was desperate. If you drank the volume of water I do, you'd have done the same. Don't blame me, blame the baclofen.

For those of you who don't yet know, baclofen is a drug officially used as a muscle relaxant but since Dr Olivier Ameisen published his book The End of My Addiction in 2008, thousands of alcoholics worldwide have been taking it to end their craving for booze.

Baclofen effectively cures addiction; it removes the craving, in my case for booze and cannabis. How does it do this? Look it up, I dunno, do I look like a scientist? OK, you can't see me, but no I don't, I look more like a Greek god ( I haven't put a photo of myself up on here yet have I? No, good.). As I was saying, I'm like a statue of a Greek god, but not one of those ones with tiny knobs. Just thought I ought to point that out.

Nine months ago my drinking was out of control. I would drink to excess every single day and had been doing so for more than 2 decades. In January I found out about baclofen and it led me to a forum for alkies who wanted to quit the booze My Way Out. Baclofen and the members of that forum saved my life. On 28 January, my baclofen story began and I kept a diary on the forum Murph's Baclofen (or should that be bacloFUN) diary: 

This was my first post:

I just know I’m going to regret that thread title if I’m 3 months down the road, taking 500 mg per day, suffering from hideous and scary side effects and still haven’t reached the ‘switch’. But for now Bac is proving to be quite nice. I’ve got a nice buzz on and I’m feeling really happy. I don’t know whether that really is the Bac or just the fact that I’ve finally made the decision to do something about my problem and the Bac is acting as a placebo. Either way, at the moment, I don’t care. I’m happy and it’s been a while since I was able to say that.

A little about me: I’m 45, been drinking heavily for the last 25 years (quarter of a century!!!!!) . I drink every day and my weekly consumption is around 150 to 220 units – that’s UK units, which I believe might be different to US units. I have only had 2 AF days in all that time and they were last November when I tried to knock the booze on the head, needless to say that wasn’t a success.

Anyway, I’ve got to stop the drinking before it all goes to bollocks and all this self-abuse finally catches up with me. When I was young I never expected to live this long, I assumed there was no point going past 40 and turning into a worn out old wrinkly, which just goes to prove what I’ve always thought – kids are idiots!

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a reference to Baclofen and its potential for anti-addiction therapy and immediately ordered a bottle of 100 x 10mg tabs. After further research I realised this was a woefully small amount and placed another order for a much larger number of 25mg tabs. The original order arrived a few days ago and I’ve been on 25mg/day since, split into 4 regularly spaced doses. As I’ve had no bad side effects I’ll be upping the dose to 50mg tomorrow and see what that brings, but so far so good.

I’m feeling really positive about all this, I know it hasn’t worked for everyone, but I’m prepared to go all the way with Baclofen, wherever it takes me.

Little did I know at the time, but it would take me only 8 days to reach what is known as "indifference". That is when you lose the craving for alcohol and you quite literally become indifferent to it. It's an extraordinary change, and one it took me a very long time to understand. There were the questions that needed answering, such as "why did I become an alcoholic?" and "OK, so what now?". But those questions will have to wait until another time because one of my dogs is scratching at the door to get out. He's been unwell since this morning's walk. When I thought he was frolicking in the grass, he was actually greedily hoovering up goose turds and I don't think they've agreed with him. Serves him right, the disgusting little mutt. But then again, he just loves eating poop; maybe you could call it his addiction.

Feel free to leave a comment below and if you're new to baclofen and looking for a way out of your alcoholism, please visit the forum here.

It might just save your life.

Murph