As I mentioned in my first blog post, I did not gain control over my drinking through The Sinclair Method or even the medication it uses, Naltrexone, which was approved by FDA for alcohol abuse disorder (AUD) in 1994.1994! Why do so few people, including doctors, still not know about this medication, which is non-addictive and generally well-tolerated, here in 2023? There is very solid research that it can be quite helpful for some people. It’s baffling. It could have changed my life and avoided the many negative outcomes of my drinking right about the time I started understanding that I was in serious trouble.
Ah, well. We can’t plan our miracles.
No, my miracle occurred in 2016 when I was under incredible stress from a serious family issue that caused me to have to live with my mother for a time. I was able to return home, an hour and a half away, only occasionally and briefly. I was still a smoker then, and my miracle came in the form of stopping at a quick stop on the way back to her house one morning for a desperately desired pack of cigarettes. People, and I cannot stress this enough, do NOT emulate me in what happened next. As I was walking out of the shop, I saw a sign that said, “Due to the FDA assigning kratom as a Schedule I substance at the beginning of next month, we will no longer be selling any products that contain it. All of the kratom products we stock are half-off until the end of the month.” Kratom? I’d never heard of it. But if the FDA was assigning it Schedule I status, it must be pretty amazing. And, I thought, it just so happens that I need something amazing. I wasn’t able to drink at my mom’s, only on trips back home, because I certainly didn’t want to be blackout drunk if she needed me. If there was something that might help distract me from the monster in my brain chanting “Drink! Drink! Drink!” nonstop and my anxiety, hand it over. This is not the thinking of a grown adult or even a smart kid. This is the thinking of someone with Alcohol Use Disorder in a deeply stressful situation.
So, I turned on my heel and headed back in. “I don’t know what this ‘kratom’ is that the sign on your door is talking about, but give me two of them, please.” 2 little bottles were put in a bag, money was exchanged, and I got into the car and swigged one down. As I tried to recover from what tasted like dirt and patchouli, only far worse than you’re imagining, I idly read the bottle and I discovered that a dose was half of what I had just taken of a substance I knew nothing about. Oops. Luckily, instead of what could easily have been a terrible outcome, I immediately felt calm descend on me. I could get used to this, I thought. This began several months of an expensive habit of taking what I later learned was the the most addictive way of taking kratom-- extract, a concentrated form of the substance.
Eventually, I came to my senses and decided that I should do some research on kratom, both to see what I might be doing to myself and to find a cheaper option if I weren’t just poisoning myself. What I learned was enlightening. Kratom is a plant from Indonesia and surrounding areas, and has been used by the folks that live in those areas for thousands of years, generally by chewing the fresh leaves, for energy and pain relief. It is definitely psychoactive, with an unusual opioid-like profile, and like other psychoactive plants, there are many alkaloids involved. One of the reasons that the FDA did not schedule it then, and as of this writing, still has not, is that these alkaloids have fascinating properties and many seem to be well worth scientific study. Just as with most psychoactive substances out there, including alcohol, not everyone has the same experiences or issues with kratom, and it is neither the “medically useless” demon that many believe it to be, nor is it harmless and helpful for everything from gout to ingrown toenails as others will insist. The debate about kratom will probably rage on for quite awhile, especially as other plant-based psychoactives have become more accepted as useful and a normal part of people’s lives and healthcare.
In my research, found little what I considered to be credible evidence that kratom alone is terribly detrimental to most people, despite various agencies and organizations claiming that it is causing horrible outcomes, including death, for many. I am going to have a FAQ all of this as soon as I am able, but for my purposes today, let us say that I realized that there were certainly risks and side effects, but that these were not, for me, severe enough to halt my use. I also discovered that the little pachouli-dirt liquid concoctions were not only very pricy, but react very quickly in the brain, are strong, and not the safest way to use it. I found that you could buy powder made of the leaves with no additives if you use a reputable seller who tests for heavy metals and so forth, and so I bought some and used that for the rest of my time living with my mother.* After about a year, I was able to move my mom close to my home and I returned to my regular life, where alcohol had played such a large and increasingly more negative role. I was finally back to my little hard-drinking town, back to my friend-group, back to my old schedule and habits. Except one huge difference, which suddenly struck me one hangover-free weekend morning. I turned to my husband and said, “Hey, does it seem to you like I’m drinking a lot less lately?” He gave it a moment’s thought and said, “Yep.” Well, what the actual hell?! I thought. This was mind-blowing and exciting and above all, confounding. What on earth had happened to my brain? What had changed to make this happen? Only one thing I could think of: this leaf had profoundly affected me in some way, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.
In the final installment of my confessionals, I am going to tell you what I found out, including the why behind much of Alcohol Use Disorder, what this leaf had done to interrupt that for me, and that there were already medical options besides the one I was aware of, Antabuse, available to people who have an inability to control their drinking. Although they are scientifically shown to be very useful to many, these doctor-prescribed medications continue to be greatly underutilized, to the detriment of millions of people, as well as society in general. I hope you join me for the surprising conclusion in my next post. If you would like notifications when a new post is published, please use the form below. *I want to remind everyone that this website does not offer medical advice, that this is my personal experience, and that kratom has risks, some of which can be severe, and absolutely include addiction. I strongly suggest that you research--I'll have studies and other materials to which you can refer posted about kratom soon--before you consider using it for any reason. If you think that you need help controlling your alcohol intake, I do not recommend kratom to aid you with this. There are several safer alternatives available, with more being researched to bring to market all the time. Currently, the best of these, in my layperson’s opinion, is targeted naltrexone, also called The Sinclair Method. My aim with this website and TSM coaching is to help people with harm reduction, and though taking kratom was definitely better for me than drinking, had I known of the options already available, I would not have gone that route, and I cannot suggest that others do. One of my interests is to help people who have found that kratom helped their drinking issues, but who are interested in stepping off that problematic substance to something that is safer and better regulated. That switch needs to be made with care, which I'll cover in the next post, the last that will focus on my own journey with alcohol use disorder and how I ended up coaching The Sinclair Method.
