• Support
• Pastimes
• Activity
• Nutrition
• Individuality
• Abstinence
• Rest
• Drug Therapies

IMPORTANT !!

For each of these eight letters there are actually several other important elements that make up my total B4a Programme when undertaken face-to-face. Your own personalised written B4a Programme will address all of these additional elements as well as the core ones.

Think of them as forming the walls between the eight pillars; forming a solid structure that you need to build around you to provide a long-term solution to your own alcohol problems.

However, these eight pillar elements do form the core of the B4a Programme, and give you a good initial understanding of what it is all about and how it is tailor-made to help you as much as is humanly possible.

Support

There is no doubt whatsoever that the chances of long-term success for any alcoholism sufferer (whatever treatment they opt for) are much enhanced if they have loving, caring support. Often this will come from a spouse or partner. However, to be honest, it doesn't really matter where it comes from, so long as it is solid. Friends and family are equally useful. If this is the case, the important thing is that there isn't any significant negative input coming from elsewhere that might undermine your progress.

Whoever you choose, they will become your 'designated supporter'; who will also have as much open access to me as both you or they require. There might be more than one 'designated supporter'. That is entirely up to you. After all, my Programme is all about you - nothing nor anybody else are important. However, 'two many cooks can spoil the broth', and it is in your very best interest to have no more than two others intimately involved with your care. Of course, 'coming clean' to those around you about your drink problem can be very liberating and helpful, and you must take any love, care and support wherever you can get it. There's never enough of it, but don't get too bogged down taking well-meant advice from too many people. You, me and your designated supporter all need to be pulling in the same direction.

One of the cornerstones of my Programme is that I myself provide a great deal of this support on a day-to-day basis. This isn't just words of encouragement; it is far more than that. It involves a myriad of techniques and 'tricks of the trade' which I use to help smooth the path you are following.

In general, I prefer to take on 'couples' (e.g. spouses, partners, friends or family) rather than individuals. It is not a hard and fast rule, but it does help in the long run. Whilst many of our meetings and calls will be solely with the sufferer themselves, your designated supporter will also attend some consultations and have open access to me in order to voice any concerns or report results.

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Passtimes

When it comes to alcoholism - especially if it is anxiety-related - it is very clear that having undue time on your hands is a very bad thing. The Devil makes work for idle hands. How true!

People such as you and me are often highly intelligent, often very creative types. For any number of reasons, we might find ourselves at an unhappy time of our lives, with pressures, stresses and strains that we find hard to deal with. Further, such times might often be accompanied by prolonged periods where we seem to have relatively little of a productive nature with which to occupy ourselves.

Frustrations; job insecurity or other business problems; fear of failure; loss of self-esteem; money or other worries; family or marital problems; prolonged boredom and / or loneliness often make us drink heavily. We drown ourselves in alcohol in order to lessen the pain; help us forget our worries for a time; encourage some form of sleep; or merely to make the time pass quicker. This was certainly the case with me. In fact, almost all of them at some stage or other!

It is important that, during our initial meetings and thereafter, we discover areas in which you might be able to involve yourself. Things to take your mind off the boredom; the stresses; your recovery Programme; and alcohol itself. Do not underestimate this element of your speedy recovery. I don't!

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Activity

Many of the people I help do sporadically go to the gym (some have gym memberships or even personal trainers). Most generally fail to make use of them. Some swim, play golf or undertake other forms of occasional modest exercise. Depending upon your health at the time we start your treatment, exercise may not be appropriate. However, it is important for your overall health that you undertake some form of gentle activity. A daily gentle walk is enough to start with. Why is this important for your recovery?

In simple terms, your body has got an awful lot to do in order to reverse all the major damage that your years of alcohol abuse have ravaged upon it. The healthier you are, the more efficient this process is. Many of us who have abused alcohol for long periods often have weak limbs with muscle wastage. Many of us have either put on or lost considerable amounts of weight. Gentle regular exercise starts the process of rebuilding that muscle bulk. Further, at a time when you might not feel particularly hungry, even moderate exercise will encourage your appetite (see Nutrition). Lastly, exercise causes your brain to release endorphins. These are chemicals that make you feel good about exercise and want to keep doing it. In my experience, this helps with the effects of alcohol withdrawal.

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Nutrition

This is one of the most important of your 8 Pillars of Sobriety. Get this wrong, and your chances of long-term success are much reduced - if not non-existent. This is precisely the reason so many other programmes fail. Get it right, and the whole process is made so much easier and so much more effective.

My Programme places great emphasis on this, to such a degree that I am currently working on a book entitled Eat Yourself to Sobriety.

As you withdraw from your dependence on alcohol, and start your new life, your body (and especially your brain and liver) have to recover and start to function normally again. Depending upon the degree of damage that you have done, this recovery can take many months; but it is well worth it.

There are several problems here. The first is that many of us have not been eating properly for years. For some of us, our appetites are almost non-existent. In addition, what we eat is frequently not as nourishing in the right way as it might be; certainly protein and vitamin deficient. The amount of alcohol that we consume daily is also a source of a massive amount of speedily absorbed 'bad' calories. We also often drink far too much coffee and other highly caffeinated drinks.

In simple terms, if you are drinking lots of alcohol and eat lots of 'bad fast carbohydrates' (sugary foods etc), your blood sugar shoots up very quickly. Your body then reacts and overcompensates by producing lots of insulin. This rebound effect then reduces your blood sugar too much, and you become hypoglycaemic. And what is one of the major effects of this hypoglycaemia for people like you and me? - a craving for alcohol. This behaviour pattern has to be stopped in its tracks if we are to succeed in your recovery.

Consequently, my Programme adopts a very intensive proactive approach to this, utilising my own 3-Stage Nutritional Regime. After taking a thorough nutritional and eating history from you, we work out a regime that will help turn things around as quickly as possible. This does not mean a fancy awkward diet!

In addition, I utilise a range of specially selected vitamin and herbal supplements that will help in your overall nutritional status, but importantly will also help in the recovery of your liver and reduce your cravings even more. They are proven to do this, but very few medical practitioners know anything about them.

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Individuality

It is this Pillar that separates my Programme from all the others that I am aware of.

One of the major complaints that people who come to see me have is that all the other treatments they have tried fail to meet their own specific requirements. And they are completely right. Almost every other alcoholism 'treatment' out there adopts a 'one size fits all' position. And that is disastrous if you are wanting long-term success for those you are trying to help. I understand this all too well. After all, I am one of us!

As I said earlier, you must think of these 8 Pillars as being a sophisticated skeleton. I hope that this is beginning to make sense now. The purpose of the B4a Programme proper is to put meat on those bones, and find your own best way out of your relationship with alcohol. That way, we find a path to your new alcohol-free life that is acceptable to you and hence much more likely to succeed. To become better or even cured, you need to change your behaviour, your lifestyle, your relationship with alcohol - forever. The Individuality of the B4a Programme does much of this for you.

Consequently, whilst still based around the same 8 Pillar skeleton, your own personal Programme and road to success might be considerably different from the next one.

And that is why it works so well.

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Abstinence

As we all know, abstinence means not taking something. Generally, this is understood to mean not taking something at all. Indeed, the vast majority of other treatments (including Alcoholics Anonymous etc) rely upon enforced abstinence as the cornerstone of their regimes. This is extremely laudible and understandable. However, it has a major problem; especially for individuals suffering from anxiety-associated alcoholism.

Those of you who have tried it will, I have no doubt, relate to the following perfectly. Trying to get through day after day without alcohol is without any shadow of a doubt one of the most terrifying, harrowing, tormenting things that a human being can put themselves through bot phyically and psychologically. Many of you tell me that being drunk is far better than the horrors of enforced abstinence. I agree - it was for me too. Why is this?

It doesn't take a genius to work out why. You are doing three things at once; any one of which would be difficult. Firstly, you are withdrawing from alcohol, with all the physiological complications that brings. You are also having to deal with massive cravings; extremely tormenting overwhelming thoughts and desires for alcohol. Lastly, you have now removed the one thing that was soothing your chronic state of anxiety; allowing that to run rife. It's little wonder most of us go back to drink!

Consequently, I have designed this Pillar of my Programme to adopt a completely different tack. And Baclofen is integral to this, but not essential. In most other programmes, such as AA, the principle of immediate enforced abstinence is the cornerstone of their method. Conversely, I am aware that some Baclofen practitioners in parts of the world encourage their new patients to continue drinking at their old levels in order to find out when they hit their 'Baclofen switch' and their cravings are controlled.

My B4a Programme adopts a wholly different, but I think better, more sensible pragmatic approach. In the early stages, I tell you to just drink exactly what you feel like drinking. I do this for two reasons:

• Firstly, it takes the pressure off you with regard to your drinking; which is not going to cease immediately anyway. You've got enough to deal with without feeling guilt and failure too. That would be incredibly negative-feedback for you;
• Second, it allows you to recognise, at a much earlier stage (maybe weeks, very occasionally even days), the often significant positive difference that Baclofen is making to your mind and your drinking ; even if you are still drinking - which you will be. This is incredibly positive-feedback for you.

From the outset, I set out to find out why you drink, and to help you deal with that. You might be surprised to know that the overwhelming majority of people who come to see me do, in fact, suffer from chronic anxiety, or have an obsessive-compulsive nature, or other emotional / psychological problems. Through the B4a Programme (including Baclofen) we are able to deal with those problems much more effectively, and hence make the transition to whatever degree of abstinence you achieve much more smooth and easy.

I have now been 'abstinent' for as long as I can remember, and it is completely easy and without any effort whatsoever. Alcohol just isn't on my agenda anymore. I never think about it; never want a drink; never think to buy any - even if I am extremely stressed. And I have Baclofen and my Programme to thank for that.

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The key to your new life is that, through Baclofen and the B4a Programme, we are aiming to make you alcohol-indifferent.

Baclofen is not about painful, tormenting, day-by-day enforced abstinence.

It is about eliminating cravings, rather than merely suppressing them, or even worse fighting against them.

To make you indifferent to alcohol. Like normal people.

If the indifference you find makes you alcohol-free, then that is great. That is clearly what is right for you, and probably safest overall.

If that indifference allows you to drink normally, then that seems to be OK too.

For some, Baclofen merely allows them to moderate their drinking considerably. This is a shame for them, but still they are usually delighted that can now exert some significant control over their alcohol intake.

* * * * * * *

Lastly, this brings us on neatly to an additional effect of Baclofen and my Programme. Depending upon your perspective, you might consider this to be a benefit or otherwise.

As I have said, my alcohol-indifference has led me to a place where I am, to all intents and purposes, completely alcohol-free. That is where Baclofen and my Programme took me. Further, I have found that, for me, Baclofen and alcohol just do not mix all that well. The odd pint of beer or a glass of wine are fine, but more than that and the effects are quite unpleasant.

However, this isn't the case for all of you. Some who come to see me (and it is a significant percentage) find that Baclofen and the Programme turn them into what might be termed 'normal drinkers'. They are no longer alcoholics or problem drinkers. Not remotely. They find themselves perfectly able to have (for example) a glass of wine or two with a meal without wanting to finish the bottle. Further, they do not wake up the next morning craving a drink.

Still others find that they are now able to go out on regular 'boys' or 'girls' nights out with their friends. On such occasions, they report that they are able to binge drink, even get drunk. They day after they have a regular hangover - perhaps even a worse one because of the effect of Baclofen. To a man and woman, they categorically say that they do not feel like they need a 'hair of the dog' the next morning and don't feel the desire to continue drinking the next day or thereafter. As they say 'getting drunk once in a while doesn't make you an alcoholic. Normal people do it all the time. And I feel normal in my head now'.

This is a most unexpected phenomenon, but one which has been described by other writers across the world. So it does appear to be genuine. However, I have to say that I remain more than a little uneasy with, and sceptical of this, but it has never caused anyone I deal with to fall off the wagon and start drinking heavily and regularly again. Consequently, my opinion of this is relaxing somewhat. But, we'll see.

In conclusion, it very definitely seems that Baclofen reinstates in the taker what might be termed a normal relationship with alcohol - just the same as anybody else who has never had an alcohol problem in their life. Fascinating.

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Rest & Recuperation

Sleep and rest have great recuperative powers.

Most people on my Programme find that, once things begin to settle down, they start to have the very best night's sleep they have had for years.

This is extremely important on so many levels. It is important that you pay great attention to this, and ensure that your sleep and rest patterns become a predictable, dependable part of your new lifestyle.

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Drug Therapies

Currently, there is a small range of medications utilised by doctors to help individuals with alcohol dependency. Should you wish to look them up on the internet, these include Topiramate (Topamax), Naltrexone (Revia, Depade), Acomprosate (Campral), Ondansetron (Zofran), and Disulfiram (Antabuse). To be honest, I wouldn't ever take any of them. Why?

Very simply, because all my investigations into them have disappointed me. Erratic, unpredictable results; very short lived benefits; too many common and potentially very serious side-effects; and important contraindications. And with all of them, there only seemed to be a significantly beneficial effect if the individual also attended regular support meetings / counselling etc. Some also only seemed to have particularly beneficial effects if they were taken in combination with the others.

However, my greatest criticism of them is that NONE are aimed at eliminating the predisposing state of chronic anxiety. Further, they are mostly craving suppressors.

Baclofen simultaneously reduces anxiety and appears to be a craving eliminator.

If the truth be told, they seem to very rarely work on their own - not in the long run anyway, and not without significant potential complications.

Therefore, the only medication I am prepared to work with, and take, is Baclofen:

• it is safe;
• it is non-addictive;
• it appears to eliminate, rather than supress, cravings;
• it is inexpensive;
• there's 70 years of experience in its medical use for other conditions;
• side-effects, whilst relatively common, are usually mild and short-lived;
• And most importantly, for many of us, it works .... Beautifully.