This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi, this is Annie Grace and I am answering Reader's questions. Over the last few years, I've had just tons and tons of feedback and questions about both the medication naltrexone and the Sinclair method.

I've had it from both sides. I've had Reader's reporting to me that they've read my book and got a lot out of it, but then they went on to talk to their doctor and their doctor's prescribed naltrexone and they used that.

The combination of my book and naltrexone was what really did it for them and it was amazing and they had amazing results. I've probably had close to a dozen letters like this from people who between the book and the naltrexone have really, really found success in what their goals are for alcohol and alcohol use in their life, which is really exciting.

I've gotten to know a woman named Claudia Christensen and she's developed a documentary called One Little Pill, which is an amazing movie if you haven't seen it already. It's very well informed and Claudia and I have spoken at length now about naltrexone and then I've also gotten to know another behavioral neuroscientist Dr. Adi Jaffy who has spoken at length about it.

All the questions are coming in and I wanted to kind of do a video on what my understanding of naltrexone and the Sinclair method are and clarify things a little bit and talk about how I think it works with my work at this naked mind.

Naltrexone is a medication and it's a medication to help you stop or reduce drinking and the interesting thing about the naltrexone is naltrexone is often to be taken especially with the Sinclair method. The Sinclair method is a way to take naltrexone and the Sinclair method dictates that you take naltrexone an hour before you drink alcohol.

The Sinclair method is not about not drinking, it's actually interesting, they call it on their website, drink yourself sober.

And so what it is is you take the pill an hour before you drink and what naltrexone does is naltrexone and I want to get this right so I'm looking at my notes.

Naltrexone is an opiate, it blocks an opiate antagonist so it blocks the effects of opiates in the brain and Dr. Sinclair, he developed this theory that and he was heavily influenced by Pavlov, the Nobel scientist, where if you ring a bell dog salivate, I think we're all pretty familiar with that experiment.

But basically he said alcohol produces a similar level of reinforcement that often you drink and when you drink you have such high levels of reinforcement that it was good, that it was pleasurable, that you do it again and you develop hugely high uncontrollable cravings that you just can't get out of.

And so he said well what if and he he theorized that this reinforcement was because when alcohol released in Dorfins those in Dorfins actually attached to and bind it with opioid receptors in the brain so you're actually having a very similar experience to sort of you know taking opiate frankly.

And so he said what if we interrupted that pattern with an opiate antagonist like Naltrexone and so what you do with his method is you take it an hour before you drink and here's what it does it makes the drinking not so pleasurable and here's what the people who have used it tell me is that they couldn't get past day one no matter what or maybe they could get two or three days under their belt they knew they didn't want to be drinking alcohol anymore but their cravings were so intense that they cave in every single time.

And so they went to their doctor their doctor prescribed Naltrexone and they would drink it or they would take it an hour before they went out and have a drink and I mean literally I have a selfie from somebody in Canada and she's sitting there with a half a glass of wine and she's walking out of the restaurant leaving the wine on the table she said this has not happened to her in 30 years she cannot believe that she didn't even want to finish her glass of wine she went on to not have anything else.

So I think what's so powerful about this idea of doing it is my work if you're familiar with it it's all about reconditioning the unconscious mind so reconditioning and one of the biggest things that we have conditioning about sure we have a lot of conditioning from society because society is super alcohol saturated from our parents from our families from our friends but the biggest influencer of your unconscious mind is your own experiences.

And so no matter how much you understand everything on paper you read the entire book you understand everything but if you're having a huge craving you're going out to dinner all night you're trying so hard not to have that drink but all night you're thinking about that glass of wine there's no way that you're going to enjoy that dinner because that craving is so so so intense so by taking Naltrexone an hour before how I understand it I've never actually taken it myself I'm certainly not a doctor but.

Taking an hour before it blocks that craving so that when you do drink you don't feel it as intensely and from my perspective and seeing the success some of my readers have had this this is interesting because it allows you to experience then an evening without alcohol but it's very different experiencing an evening without alcohol where you don't feel the sense of deprivation where you don't entertain the belief that oh if only I was drinking this evening would be so much better so much more fun.

When you're existing in that space I remember for me whenever I had to be the designated driver I would go into these evenings being like oh well I know I'm not going to have fun what's the point everybody else is having fun this sucks and so I wouldn't have fun and sure enough it would be absolutely miserable for me but if you were able to go into an evening saying okay I'm going to take this I'm going to order myself a glass of wine I'm going to see where it goes then you actually experience the evening that woman drank half a glass of wine through her whole evening.

She had an amazing evening half a glass of wine which is basically sober and she went on to establish this amazing file of information and her brain saying wow I went out to dinner with some of my closest friends had a great time and I wasn't drunk and that experience is so powerful in undoing your unconscious conditioning it's so powerful because it's your own experience.

And so what they say on the website of you drink yourself sober is you take this an hour before you drink it all sorts of things from New Year's Eve parties to weddings and all of a sudden because alcohol is no longer providing any of the stimulation it used to in your brain you are able to experience these things without getting drunk and you're developing this huge database of your personal experiences which can really overcome the conditioning that you have in your life.

Because there's only so much you can do so far you can go without your personal experiences and what I did it took a year but after I stopped drinking every single new experience I had I was certainly nervous to go into it okay it's the first wedding how is this going to be but I knew I wasn't going to drink I made that decision for myself full stop I was going to just see it was an experiment I was going to see how it went and because drinking wasn't an option in my mind I

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