This is my story, it's like yours but I wanted to tell about my experiences with monitored antabuse.

About Antabuse..

I am like many of you, I realized about at age 30-31 that I cannot drink like a normal person.

The repercussions started adding up, lost jobs, relationships, trust, money etc..

Personally, I was adopted by loving parents when I was an infant.

I was provided all the opprotunites you could think of. I was never the subject of any kind of abuse or neglect, ect.

So Far my using has caused me:

4 Hospital Stays due to overdose and withdrawal. (leading to) Been in 28-day rehab 5 times, tried a couple long term outpatient rehabs, had some success. I see what they had to offer. I also saw the patterns of the other patients, and how simialar they are to me. This scared the pants off me. I'm really not too far from a panhandleing bum when it comes down to it!

After these treatment failures, I decided to take matters more into my own hand.

I decided to go onto a monitored antabuse regiment.

I take 15ml of liquid medication a day, which is equivalent to one 250mg tablet of antabuse. I take this in a monitored way, I have to drive down to the clinic, and be observed taking it daily. If I don't show up, my drug/alcohol counselor is informed and he informs my family that I have not been taking my medication. This was my "deadman switch" - it makes me have to be accountable.

The local mental health clinic provides the services, my county pays for the service, I (or my parents) pay for the medication.

This has taken most of my will to drink away.

Some backround: I've been on antabuse before, I used to date a Psychiatrist. She suggested that I request it from my psychiatrist. She would administer it to me, but I eventually slithered alternative pills into the bottle so I could drink.

I did drink on the medication once, it was horrible. I got through about one double whiskey/seven before my face was beat read and I suffered all the complications one would expect.

I've been on the program for about 90 days now, and have not had a drink at all.

During this 90 days, i've dropped 30 pounds, developed real interests in things that did not involve drinking (archery, hiking, computer games, movies etc) and the best part is that friends that were distancing themselves from me are seemingly suddenly coming back into my life regularly.

I force myself a weekly AA meeting, but I do not have a sponsor and only contribute when I feel I have something to say, I know I could be getting more out of it but the idea of the meetings makes me feel uncomfortable. I've always had a hard time with them.

Positive Life Changes Summary: -Not drinking (and accountable for it) -Simply Physical transformation -Mood improvement -Interests in things other than drinking -Renewed relationships with family and friends (it's like they can just tell) -Now employed full time in a casino, though I've finally landed two interviews to rejoin the IT industry in two fortune 500 companies.

Things I'm still working on: -Pot Smoking, not too heavy, but at least every couple days. -Some use of illegally obtained benzo's to ease my bad anxiety. (note: these are far from too often, only every 30 days.

Hope this helps someone. Any questions I will monitor and try to reply to the best of my ability.

-Sean