Before you begin your journey with LifeBac, we want you to know why we do what we do. For decades, Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) has been treated with the same basic prescription: hit rock bottom, admit you have a problem, join a community, force yourself to stop drinking, and never touch the stuff again. But all of the suffering, the self-effacing, and the bootstrap pulling aren’t widely successful methods for long-term success. We started LifeBac because there’s an easier, more effective long-term strategy for controlling your alcohol consumption.
It all centers around the use of a drug called baclofen. You might know about baclofen if you’ve ever dealt with muscle spasticity, but in the early 2000’s, Dr. Olivier Ameisen personally experienced the efficacy of baclofen in reducing cravings for alcohol. He widely advocated for the use of baclofen by those seeking to control their drinking and laid the groundwork for future studies. Many of those studies have shown that baclofen not only can help people control their drinking, it also has minimal side effects and can be taken indefinitely.
Baclofen helps by breaking the positive feedback loop that leads to AUD in the first place. You don’t have to hit rock bottom, you don’t have to suffer while gritting your teeth, and you don’t have to quit drinking altogether—baclofen allows you to be indifferent about alcohol. Combine that with good habits, and you can decide how much you want to drink.
At LifeBac, we don’t blow AUD out of proportion—of course it needs to be taken seriously, but we don’t think those dealing with it should be ostracized. Struggling to control alcohol consumption is a shared experience with millions of people. You’re normal, and it’s time we let the stigmas die out and utilize these new, more effective strategies to take control of drinking. It’s time to set a goal, make a plan, then start the three phases of the LifeBac Journey.
Phase 1: The Titration Phase (1-3 months)
By now, you’ve had a video chat with a medical consultant who has created an individualized baclofen schedule based on your drinking patterns. It is crucial that you follow the customized plan that was created for you. In the week after your consultation, you’ll receive daily emails explaining the phone app and web portal features, and detailing the next steps of the process.
You also have the option to schedule an “activation call” with one of our success coordinators; they can have a deeper conversation about LifeBac and answer any questions you might have. Then—this is where the namesake comes in—you will titrate (slowly increase your dose) over time, until the medication is effective.
During this phase, you will begin taking your medication and keeping track of your alcohol consumption. You will do this in the “Results” tab on our app or on our online web portal. A member of the LifeBac team will reach out periodically to check in.
Be sure to follow your customized medication plan. Check off daily medication taken in the app and complete your LifeBac Progress Reports every 4 days (in the app, or web portal). These reports are crucial, as they allow our team to monitor for progress as well as check for side effects.
Note: The majority of our clients do not experience side effects; however, some people might. These side effects are often mild and can be addressed through adjusting dosage levels. If you experience side effects, speak to a success coordinator. DO NOT stop treatment on your own.
While you are titrating, you and the LifeBac team will be looking out for the 4 signs that the medication is working:
Your drinking should naturally decrease during this phase, but that’s only a nice perk—the real goal is to make it to the next phase by finding your Effective Dose. You’ve found the Effective Dose when you feel indifferent to alcohol—you can take it or leave it. When you get there, you can pause your plan in your app/web portal or call us, you’re ready for Phase 2, the Effective Dose Phase.
While you work toward that goal, it’s important to keep in mind that in the first phase, you are letting the medication do its work. All you have to do is stick to your medication plan, track your medication usage, track your drinking, and fill out your progress reports—let the medication do the heavy lifting, and remember that you’re in a marathon, not a sprint.
Phase 2: The Effective Dose Phase (At least 6 months)
After you reach the Effective Dose, our providers will create a plan to hold you at that dose. You want to maintain your Effective Dose for at least 6 months to ensure that the positive feedback loop (which at this point is broken by baclofen) doesn’t reconnect.
You’ll continue to track your drinks and medication daily, but this is also a “goals” stage. Now that the physical craving is gone, you can take an active role in setting goals and replacing unhealthy habits that contribute to drinking, with healthy habits that don’t.
Here are some things to keep in mind when setting goals:
Set goals that are reasonably attainable. It’s important to be realistic with goals—don’t be afraid to aim low; you can always aim higher as you go.
Record your goals in the app or online. Keeping a consistent record of your goals and of your progress toward meeting those goals will make you more likely to reach them. You can also take advantage of our online forum and talk anonymously with others about their experiences taking control of their drinking with LifeBac.
Be intentional with your implementation. If you were taking a road trip across the country, you wouldn’t choose a destination then hit the gas—you need to navigate, plan your stops, check your gas, check your oil, bring the proper tools, and make sure that old spare you’ve never looked at is actually round and made of rubber. Setting your drinking goals is no different. Reflect, be self-aware, and set boundaries. Plan for predictable situations and prepare healthy responses to them so that when they come, you won’t have to think twice.
e.g. I will drink no more than 3 beers between 6-9 PM in my house; When I’m at Bill’s house, and he offers me a drink like he always does, I will ask for water; etc.
Create a “self” map. There’s a reason you are taking this journey, and it’s important to be honest about what that reason is. Once you set your goals, write down (or at least imagine) what your life would be like if you met all of those goals. What would you be able to do? Then, write down what your life would be like if you didn’t meet any of your goals. What would you lose? Your actions aren’t neutral, so it’s important to understand both sides of the coin.
On the road to reaching your goals, you might face setbacks, so it’s important to know how to handle them. There are 5 main steps to overcoming setbacks:
Recognize the setback. Think about why it happened and use those reasons to create a new strategy that will prevent that setback in the future. Before you can implement that new strategy, you will have to forgive yourself. This is a vital, often overlooked step—moving forward without forgiving yourself opens you up to self-resentment, which may lead to self-sabotage. Take the time to work through any feelings of blame that you have for yourself, then you will be able to move on with your new strategy and be better for it.
Throughout this phase, work on improving your habits so that new, healthy neural pathways replace the old, drinking-related ones. Then, after at least 6 months (to ensure maintainable progress), you will be ready for the final phase.
Phase 3: The Taper Phase (Time Frame Varies)
During The Taper Phase, you will slowly reduce your baclofen dosage to find your minimum necessary dose. This is a very individualized process; some people maintain a lower dose indefinitely, and some people stop taking baclofen altogether. It all depends on how your body reacts to lowering the dosage.
When you begin reducing your dosage, you will watch closely for any return in alcohol cravings. If you notice those cravings, it is important to deal with them immediately—use the LifeBac app to pause the tapering on your own, or contact us so we can modify your plan to titrate you back up to the last effective dosage.
During this phase, continue to work on solidifying healthy habits and behaviors. Doing so will shore up the good neural pathways you’ve been building and help you keep firm control over any drinking urges that might come up.
If you taper completely off of baclofen, you will continue to monitor yourself and work on your healthy habits. If you find the minimum necessary dose in order to avoid cravings, you will maintain that dosage in perpetuity. Although you may be able to reduce further in the future, it’s important to know that there have been no reported side effects from long-term baclofen use.
In the end, the Taper Phase embodies what LifeBac is all about: Do what works for you so that you can have a healthy relationship with alcohol. We are here to help you through that process because we know our method is effective, and we don’t believe you should unduly suffer or abstain. With LifeBac, you can finally take control without giving the rest of your life over to the process.
