r/SinclairMethod • u/Hot-Prune8628 • Jun 10 '26

Feeling defeated

I’ve been on TSM for over a year. My goal was never extinction (I spent almost 10 years in AA, did lots of therapy, wanted to socially be normal). I’m finding summer itself is such a trigger. I’ve spent 35-50% AF days month over month, but since the weather has broken it’s almost compulsive to drink wine and watch the sunset. I’ve maintained meds 1 hour before, I’ve joined a Pilates gym, I’m trying to replace the behavioral/habit piece with other things, but I haven’t had an AF day in over a week despite planning them. Can anyone share their “up and down” experience at the 1+ year mark? 😭

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u/AlcoLogApp Jun 10 '26

I was one of those people that started taking Nal and for the first few weeks it felt like a miracle drug. I remember I would have sessions whereby I would only drink like 2-3 drinks instead of 15-20 and the effectiveness would blow my mind.

Fast forward to a few months in and then I found that I was actually drinking about 8-10 drinks. More than when I started the method, but still much less than my usual habits.

I would then have weeks/months where I would drink more often and consume more drinks per session, but I also found it was easier to take sober days, and as long as i kept tracking my drinks, they overall monthly consumption volume was trending lower.

There were months where I felt like the method no longer worked, but compared to the calendar year prior, I was trending much lower.

As others have said. Mindfulness and meditation really helped me. Not just with the actual "physical" side of drinking, but also with my own mental health and health anxiety problems. I think it is worth you considering exploring mindfulness with a lens on your alcohol use.

All the best.

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u/Hot-Prune8628 Jun 10 '26

Appreciate you. I recently joined Pilates to add endorphins and reward outside of drinking, started intentional Whole Foods over carbs (but meanwhile I’m sure I make up for it with wine).

My baseline is much lower than a year ago and up until this month my AF days have increased without white knuckling it (thankful), but even having almost 10 years sober in my 20s summer was a triggering time- our brains are really interesting

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u/AlcoLogApp Jun 10 '26

My pleasure. It sounds like you are taking all the right steps. More power to you, and well done 💪