I drank seven 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
Popping the small tablet in my mouth, I make a note of the time.
In an hour, I’ll pour myself a Friday night martini, but thanks to the effects of the medication, I’ll only drink one before happily stopping and having an early night.
Just six months ago, my evening would’ve looked very different.
I’d have polished off two bottles of wine and several beers before moving on to gin, testing my husband’s patience by rambling repetitive nonsense at him until I passed out.
Worse still, I’d wake up the next day with a sense of dread at what I might have done... then get straight back on the booze.
Until now, I’ve never been able to drink in moderation. I’d look at people who could stop after one drink and wonder, how on earth do they do that?
It was always all or nothing with me – teetotal during the working week, then boozing to excess at the weekends at my home in Nottingham.
Was I an alcoholic or just a serial binge drinker? It’s hard to say.
It was always all or nothing with me – teetotal during the working week, then boozing to excess at the weekends at my home in Nottingham, says Julie Shaw
I knew my behaviour around alcohol wasn’t ‘normal’ but then people around me would insist I couldn’t be an alcoholic because I had a lovely home, held down a good job in financial services and was happily married. Plus, the majority of the week I was sober as a judge.
Whatever label you want to give it, I was a high-functioning but heavy drinker like this for decades, because there were never any catastrophic consequences to my habit.
That’s not to say my drinking was completely uneventful.
Once, I stumbled going up the stairs to bed and broke my foot, but I wrote that off as an ‘accident’ and didn’t see it as a reason to stop drinking.
And all the times I drunk-dialled or texted my friends? I told myself those people knew what I was like, and didn’t mind.
But everything changed when I began taking a drug called nalmefene – similar to naltrexone, nicknamed the ‘Ozempic of alcohol’. Both drugs are considered effective, but because I have an auto-immune condition which affects my liver, nalmefene is considered safer.
It has transformed not only my drinking habits, but my health, relationship and finances at the age of 63.
Since I was privately prescribed it last December, I’ve become a version of myself I barely recognise.
Someone able to put her hand over a glass and say ‘thanks, I’ve had enough’ or even refuse a drink entirely because I don’t feel like it.
I had my first drink when I was 14. Growing up with parents who worked as pub managers, I was allowed a martini and lemonade on a Saturday night as a treat.
In my 20s and 30s, I too worked in the pub trade as a manager. It wasn’t just acceptable to have a few drinks during a shift, it was positively encouraged. And, after a long night working, I turned to more alcohol when I got home to unwind.
Then, after a painful divorce in my 30s, I made a career change to customer services in the financial industry... which saw my alcohol intake even spiral further.
I was a diligent employee so wouldn’t touch a drop Monday to Thursday. The weekend, though, was for drinking and, once I started, I simply couldn’t stop.
On Fridays, it wasn’t unusual for me to put away four pints, wine and spirits, and then stop at Sainsbury’s on the way home for more wine to drink alone.
Shockingly, I was consuming up to 80 units in three days – between five and six times the NHS’s recommended weekly limit of 14 units for women. And I was doing it week in, week out.
I didn’t really experience hangovers – my body was conditioned from years of over-drinking – but I gained weight from the extra calories and my face became puffy.
Not long before meeting my husband Charlie in 2011, I attended a few AA meetings. I didn’t fit the typical tragic image of an alcoholic, but my parents and some close friends had expressed concern about my drinking, and that made me worry too.
But I got nothing out of the meetings and didn’t feel like I fitted in. I didn’t have any tragedy to share and, unlike other attendees, alcohol hadn’t destroyed my life.
So, I carried on as I was, with my ability to both function well and abuse alcohol doing me no favours.
On my first date with Charlie, he had one drink and I had four, before unashamedly asking him to drop me off at an off-licence so I could buy wine for my evening at home.
He later told me he’d known from that evening I had a problem with alcohol, but didn’t want that to stop us becoming a couple.
We married in 2012 and he had the patience of a saint. Of course, I knew there were times he was exasperated, telling me it was time for bed, and it can’t have been much fun climbing in next to me, passed out and smelling strongly of booze. Money became an issue too.
By this point, even though I mainly drank at home, I would still spend around £400 a month on alcohol.
I began to suffer from low moods and anxiety. But was alcohol causing it, or was I drinking to soothe those feelings?
My GP prescribed an antidepressant in 2024 but said it wouldn’t work as well when mixed with alcohol.
In early 2025, I agreed to try Acamprosate, a drug used to maintain complete abstinence and stop relapse in drinkers.
Now Julie, pictured after cutting back, only has one alcoholic drink on a Friday night instead of four
But I was adamant that I didn’t want to stop drinking entirely, just learn how to have a few, then stop.
Then, in April last year, I was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune condition.
My drinking hadn’t caused it but I was advised that because the condition affects the liver, it was imperative I drastically cut back on alcohol.
After doing some research, I learned about the Sinclair Method UK – a medically supervised treatment programme for cutting down on alcohol consumption.
It combines coaching and either a medication called nalmefene or another called naltrexone, both of which work by reducing the rewarding effects of alcohol by blocking the release of dopamine in the brain, thus lowering the urge to drink.
Opiod antagonists like nalmefene and naltrexone have been compared to the GLP-1 medication Ozempic, which has a similar effect with lessening cravings for food.
The private GP felt I was a better candidate for nalmefene because naltrexone can have an impact on liver function, which wasn’t compatible with my auto-immune condition – plus I was told it’s prescribed when an ‘as needed’ approach is best, as in my case.
That means that instead of taking it every day, I only take it on ‘drinking days’, shortly before having my first drink.
After an initial consultation, I paid £500 for 12 weeks of coaching, £99 for a private prescription of nalmefene and £190 for 28 tablets – which would last me nine weeks, as I’d only be taking it Friday to Sunday.
I took my first tablet on Boxing Day 2025 and within a fortnight the effects were transformative.
Even the thought of wine and beer, my favourite tipples, repulsed me and I’d get no enjoyment from their taste, although they wouldn’t make me feel sick, as such. Strangely, I didn’t feel the same aversion to spirits – yet still, after just one or two measures of gin or martini with a mixer, I was happy to stop.
I simply couldn’t believe the results for around £6.70 a tablet – around the cost of a large glass of wine. It was so surreal to finally have control after decades of feeling unable to say no to booze.
Now, I may have three or four drinks over the course of a weekend, some evenings none at all, and while I still enjoy the feeling of being sociable and unwinding, I don’t end up drunk.
Health-wise, my auto-immune condition is being well-managed and I’ve lost my puffy ‘drinker’s face’.
My alcohol bill has been cut from £400 to £40 a month, and Charlie and I now spend time going for walks and nice meals, without the third wheel in our relationship, alcohol.
We recently went to a music festival and Charlie commented it was the first time we’d taken a trip and I hadn’t insisted on locating the nearest off-licence ‘for supplies’.
I plan to stay on nalmefene indefinitely. I’m even open to becoming teetotal in the future, something I never thought I’d say, but the less I drink the more I realise how much better life is now.
It’s the ‘off switch’ I’ve never had before and I feel happy and relieved to have found it.
As told to Eimear O’Hagan
Additional reporting: Matthew Barbour
Dr Deepali Misra-Sharp, an NHS GP with experience in substance misuse, explains.
Nalmefene works by targeting the brain’s opioid reward system. When we drink alcohol, endorphins are released which stimulate opioid receptors and reinforce the pleasurable effects — essentially encouraging us to keep drinking. Nalmefene modulates these receptors, dampening that reward response. In simple terms, patients often say it ‘takes the buzz away’ or reduces the urge to continue drinking.
Dr Deepali Misra-Sharp is an NHS GP with experience in substance misuse
It’s licensed for adults with alcohol dependence who are drinking at a high-risk level but who do not require immediate detoxification.
Naltrexone is a similar, cheaper, medication, yet there is a low but real risk it can affect liver function, so patients may be prescribed nalmefene instead, depending on their baseline liver function.
Both drugs are available on the NHS, but nalmefene is often only prescribed through specialist alcohol services – cost being a key factor – which patients have to be referred to.
Anecdotally, there have been reports of people using both drugs as ‘party drugs’ to reduce how much 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 ‘quick fix’ lifestyle tools for nights out.
Like all treatments in this area, both drugs work best alongside some form of psychosocial and psychological support.
