I drank six bottles of wine every weekend, followed by several beers and gin. Now I can stop at just one… and it’s all thanks to this tiny, cheap little-known pill

I pop the little tablet into my mouth and note the time.

I’ll pour myself a Friday night martini in an hour, but thanks to the drug’s effect, I’ll happily stop and drink just one before heading in for an early night.

Just six months ago my evening would have looked very different.

I would polish off two bottles of wine and a couple of beers before moving on to gin, testing my husband’s patience by talking nonsense to him over and over again until I passed out.

To make matters worse, I would wake up the next day terrified of what I might have done… then go right back to drinking.

I have never drank in moderation until now. I would look at people who could stop after a drink and wonder, how do they do it?

It was always all or nothing for me; I would drink during the working week, then binge drink at home in Nottingham at the weekends.

Was I an alcoholic or just a serial binge drinker? It’s hard to say.

I knew my alcohol-related behavior wasn’t ‘normal,’ but people around me insisted I couldn’t be an alcoholic because I had a nice house, a good job in financial services, and a happy marriage. Also, as a judge, I was sober most of the week.

Whatever label you want to give it, I was this high-functioning but heavy drinker for decades because my habit never had any catastrophic consequences.

That doesn’t mean my drinking has been completely uneventful.

I once tripped and broke my foot walking up the stairs to go to bed, but I wrote it off as an ‘accident’ and didn’t see it as a reason to quit drinking.

And all the times I called or texted my friends while drunk? I told myself that these people knew what I was like and they didn’t care.

However, everything changed when I started taking nalmefene, a drug similar to naltrexone, nicknamed the ‘Ozempic of Alcohol’. Both drugs are thought to be effective, but since I have an auto-immune condition that affects my liver, nalmefene is considered safer.

At 63, it has changed not only my drinking habits, but also my health, relationships, and finances.

Since it was specifically prescribed to me last December, I have transformed into a version of myself I barely recognize.

Someone who can put his hand on a glass and say ‘thank you, I’ve had enough’, or even refuse a drink completely because he doesn’t feel like it.

I had my first drink when I was 14. Since I grew up with a family that worked as bar managers, I would be served martinis and lemonade on Saturday nights.

In my 20s and 30s I too worked as a manager in the pub trade. Having a few drinks during a shift was not only acceptable, but positively encouraged. And after a long night of work, when I came home to rest, I turned to more alcohol.

Then, after a painful divorce in my 30s, I made a career change to customer service in the financial industry… which led to my alcohol consumption increasing even further.

I was a hardworking employee, so I wouldn’t touch a drop from Monday to Thursday. But the weekend was for drinking and once I started I couldn’t stop.

On Fridays, it wasn’t uncommon for me to put down four pints of wine and spirits and pop into Sainsbury’s for more wine on my way home, alone.

Surprisingly, I was consuming up to 80 units in three days; this was five to six times the NHS recommended weekly limit of 14 units for women. And I did this every week.

I didn’t really get a hangover—my body had been conditioned from years of binge drinking—but I gained weight from the extra calories and my face was swollen.

Shortly before I met my husband, Charlie, in 2011, I attended several AA meetings. I didn’t fit the typical image of the tragic alcoholic, but my family and some close friends had expressed concern about my drinking, and it worried me, too.

However, I didn’t get any results from the meetings and I didn’t feel like I fit in. I had no tragedy to share, and unlike the other participants, alcohol did not ruin my life.

So I continued as I was, even though my ability to both study well and abuse alcohol did me no good.

On my first date with Charlie he had one drink and I had four, then I shamelessly asked him to give me a lift to a off-licence so I could buy wine for an evening at home.

He told me later that he knew I had a drinking problem from that evening, but he didn’t want it to stop us from being a couple.

We got married in 2012 and he had the patience of a saint. Of course, I knew he got angry sometimes, telling me it was time for bed, and climbing in next to me, unconscious and with the strong smell of booze, couldn’t be much fun. Money also became a problem.

At this point, although I was mostly drinking at home, I was still spending around £400 a month on alcohol.

I began to suffer from low mood and anxiety. But was alcohol causing this, or was I drinking to calm these feelings?

My doctor prescribed an antidepressant in 2024 but said it wouldn’t work very well when mixed with alcohol.

In early 2025, I agreed to try Acamprosate, a medication used to maintain complete abstinence from alcohol and stop relapse in drinkers.

Now Julie only drinks one alcoholic drink on a Friday night instead of four.

But I was determined that I didn’t want to quit drinking completely, I just learned to have a few drinks and then quit.

Then in April of last year I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease.

This wasn’t caused by my drinking, but I was told I needed to drastically cut down on alcohol because the condition affects the liver.

After doing some research, I learned about the Sinclair Method UK, a medically supervised treatment program to reduce alcohol consumption.

It combines coaching with a medication called nalmefene or another medication called naltrexone; Both work by reducing the rewarding effects of alcohol by blocking the release of dopamine in the brain, thus reducing the urge to drink.

Opioid antagonists such as nalmefene and naltrexone were compared to the GLP-1 drug Ozempic, which had a similar effect in reducing food cravings.

The private GP thought I was a better candidate for nalmefene because naltrexone can have an effect on liver function, which was not compatible with my autoimmune condition – I was also told that it was prescribed in situations where an ‘as needed’ approach was best, as in my case.

This means that instead of taking it every day, I only take it on ‘drinking days’, shortly before I have my first drink.

After the initial consultation, I paid £500 for 12 weeks of coaching, £99 for the private prescription of nalmefene and £190 for 28 tablets; That would last me nine weeks, because I would only take it from Friday to Sunday.

I took my first tablet on Boxing Day 2025 and within two weeks the effects were transformative.

Even the thought of my favorite drinks, wine and beer, disgusted me, and even if they didn’t upset my stomach, I couldn’t enjoy their taste at all. Strangely, I didn’t feel the same aversion to alcoholic beverages; Still, after a shot or two of gin or martini with the mixer, I was happy to stop.

For around £6.70 per tablet (about the price of a large glass of wine) I couldn’t believe the results. It was so surreal to finally gain control after decades of feeling like you couldn’t say no to drinking.

Now, I can have three or four drinks over the course of a weekend, some evenings I don’t drink at all, and while I still enjoy the feeling of socializing and relaxing, I don’t end up drunk.

Health-wise, my auto-immune status is well managed and I have lost my bloated ‘drinker face’.

My alcohol bill has dropped from £400 a month to £40 and Charlie and I now spend time going for walks and good meals without alcohol, which is the third wheel in our relationship.

We went to a music festival recently and Charlie said it was our first time traveling and I didn’t insist on finding the nearest unlicensed place ‘for supplies’.

I plan to stay in nalmefen indefinitely. I’m even open to drinking in the future, I never thought I’d say this but the less I drink, the more I realize how much better life is now.

It’s an ‘off switch’ I’ve never had before and I feel happy and relieved to have found it.

As told to Eimear O’Hagan

How does Nalmefene work?

An NHS practitioner with experience in substance misuse, Dr. Deepali Misra-Sharp explains.

Nalmefene works by targeting the brain’s opioid reward system. When we drink alcohol, endorphins are released that stimulate opioid receptors and potentiate pleasurable effects; This encourages us to continue drinking. Nalmefene reduces the reward response by modulating these receptors. Simply put, patients often say it ‘takes the buzz away’ or reduces the urge to continue drinking.

Dr Deepali Misra-Sharp is an NHS practitioner with experience in substance misuse.

It is licensed for adults with alcohol dependence who drink at high-risk levels but do not require immediate detoxification.

Naltrexone is a similar, cheaper drug, but the risk of affecting liver function is low but real, so patients may be prescribed nalmefene instead, depending on their baseline liver function.

Both drugs are available on the NHS, but nalmefene is usually only prescribed through specialist alcohol services (cost is a key factor) and patients need to be referred to these services.

Anecdotally, there are reports of people using both drugs as ‘party drugs’ to reduce the amount of alcohol they consume on a night out. I understand the logic – people are trying to reduce harm – but these are prescription medications for a medical condition, not nights out ‘quick fix’ lifestyle tools.

Like all treatments in this area, both medications work best in conjunction with some form of psychosocial and psychological support.