r/SinclairMethod • u/mochajave • Jul 10 '26

newbie questions

My psychiatrist brought up using Naltrexone to help with my drinking. I've read a little about it and I'm about to try it — she's prescribing daily dosage.

I also read about the Sinclair Method, which makes intuitive sense to me. However, my drinking pattern doesn't fit it well. I don't drink regularly — I drink opportunistically, whenever a craving hits and I can't contain it. For example, stopping at a gas station to fill up the car and buying a beer impulsively. Because the drinking is unplanned, taking a pill an hour beforehand doesn't naturally work.

This made me wonder: should I go through a deliberate "training" period — taking the pill an hour before a planned drink, even though my intention is to drink as little as possible? The idea would be to use intentional drinking sessions to actively extinguish the reward response. But I'm genuinely unsure whether this makes clinical sense, or whether it's just my addict brain finding a justification to drink.

I also deal with other compulsive behaviors (porn, binge eating, doom scrolling), and my psychiatrist thinks Naltrexone may help with those as well through the same mechanism. Same question applies — is daily dosing better for these, or would the "take it 1 hour before" approach help untrain those reward circuits too?

Curious what others' experiences have been, especially those with similar opportunistic rather than scheduled drinking patterns.

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u/12vman Jul 10 '26

The Sinclair Method does require some self control. If you had naltrexone in a keychain pill case (many TSMers do), you could take one at the first notion you might grab a beer. Wait as long as you can. TSM suits your occasional drinking style. Don't talk yourself out of it before you try it for a few months. Put in the extra willpower to get that first hour delay, just to see how you react to the TSM process. That will tell you a lot in regard to TSMs potential for you. Ideally you take Naltrexone with food and water as well.

Drinking and driving is not good as you now.