The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Next Stop Sobriety!

[Mouseface]

Hello, welcome to thread number six!!

I'm Mouse and, thanks to these threads, I quit the booze on August 2nd 2010.

This truly is a fantastic source of support for anyone who wants it! Full of real, honest, everyday people who are all at different stages of quitting the booze, cutting down or being long term sober.

There are no judgmental 'know-it-alls' here, whatever your circumstances, you will be supported all the way.

Come and meet the rest of The Brave Babes........

And, as before, here are the previous five threads for those who would like to see how this all began.

JWN's original thread (the reason we are all here)

Thread two

Thread three

Thread four

Thread five

Hello JWN, my legs are stinging after the slap! (Well deserved too!)

btw, that voice is evil, through and through!!

Yeah moomin, you tell it! And while you're at it, tell mine to piss off and die as well. They are just bullies, if you shout at them and kick them they run away. It is only, only in our heads that they pretend to have any power. Even better than shouting and getting angry, just laugh at it. Poor pathetic demon that really thinks it can run Moomin's life? Ha ha. What a lot of fucking nonsense.

"I am slowly killing myself with alcohol and I do not want to die (sorry for sounding so dramatic!)" - don't worry, Moomin, it doesn't sound dramatic at all - very reasonable fear, actually. You can do this, you know.

Feedayak. I have never met anyone who genuinely drank because they were bored and I don't think you are about to buck that trend. What is it that is so fascinating about drinking? When I look back to my own drinking I was always doing something else at the same time - reading a book, listening to a record, watching TV - so I know that drinking did nothing for boredom.

I have, however, met a lot of people who say that they drank because they were bored when what they mean is that they needed a drink.

Hi everyone, thank you for all the words of support - as always! Thanks for validating my fear MIFLAW. And thank you for the pixie idea wasindie! I like that a lot. And I love the image of her drink-demon-hunting! I am going to call her Diana (after the Roman goddess of hunting) and I am just about to let her loose! Goooo Diana!

morning miflaw!!! (thats my low sultry voice im using! )

Wasindie, so agree with you about the word 'sober'. When I don't drink I feel intoxicated with life and that doesn't sound very sober.

Almost lunch time for me - thank goodness. Need to eat a lot of comfort food! Carbs here I come!

Goooo Diana!

Perhaps we need a more positive word than sober? It doesn't really do us justice!

Hi everyone.

Sorry struggling to keep up with all the posts.

MILFAW is right (think that's always the case reading other threads!) For me it seems quite natural to pick up a drink when I'm in the house and we have alcohol in. I saw my dad doing the same and that is what frightens me.

But I didn't drink yesterday and I won't today.

JWN is right I won't miss the horrible blotches you get on your cheeks the day after.

Red, also to add to your list (reading in the wrong order here), you are very supportive. You have been kind, warm and welcoming to me and took interest in poo-gate last week! You also come across as intelligent, self aware ( ) and funny.

"Morning," he said masterfully.

Moomin - the fear IS rational but in another respect you are probably still overdoing it - drunk fears tend to oscillate wildly between the apocalypse and "oh, I could get hit by a 'bus tomorrow."

Think of the things you fear as cricket balls or rounders balls. They may be very hard, very dangerous, and maybe even moving towards you very fast indeed - but your best chance of hitting them is to look at them, know exactly where they are, and know exactly where the bat is.

Simply ducking at random is a much more dangerous - and scary - way to proceed.

Moomin I agree I used to work in a large city hospital and I have seen a variety of deaths and nasty injuries as a result of alcohol and it was all grim, grim, grim.

Hello everyone. Am still here! DD2 been ill, I've had NO sleep, insomnia as well as being up with her. Eyes are hurting. Trying now to prep for interview on THursday. Still no news about first job.

Hope everyone is well and welcome to newbies and hopefully will have time to post fully on Thursday eve.

Thanks everyone. You are right MIFLAW (again!) I need to keep things in perspective! (Tricky for this alky but I will try!)

Thank you for the lovely words MsGee - felt smiley when I read them.

Hello feed! How are you doing today?

Right I am off to stuff my face. Catch you all when I get back!

hi mouse!!, nice to see you!!

Hi Mouse, of course you didn't mean to type "white wind" .

Did you find it easy to stop at 2?

Hi Mouse! What made you start? and stop?

Moomin

Yes, you do need to keep things in perspective - but my point was is that that is almost impossible to do while you are drinking.

One of the reasons that "one day at a time" works, i.e. it gets easier rather than being a procession of grim struggles with the bottle, is that sobriety begets sobriety. The more sober you are, the less of a nightmare everything else seems, and so the fewer threats there are to your sobriety.

at white wind!!!!! Doh!!! Sorry, been up with DS again. Sleep deprived as per!

Did I find it easy to stop? Yes. I had them with dinner and they were small pub glasses. Not huge at home ones!! So, once I'd finished dinner, I just went back to soft drinks and water.

I felt in control. For the first time in a long time. I really enjoyed it. BUT, that doesn't mean that I'm planning the same again.

I'm not stupid and know how this works. 2 glasses become 3, then 4 and I'll feel fine. Then 4 to 5 and hey, that's a bottle gone. So, let's open another and have just one more from it...... one more glass or one more bottle.

Hmm........I think not.

MsGee - I fancied a some wine. I fancied desert so I had that too which I will pay for! More calories.

Nothing more than that.

Now that everyone is around, I have a few Q's from my (over?) thinking on the weekend. MIFLAW, you have mentioned this before so apologies if you are repeating past posts.

Have other people had a point where they have stopped drinking for a while and they think, hmmn, everything isn't automatically wonderful?

And then, when do you start to sort out or even identify the other things that are crappy in your life? At what point do you do that?

I'm only on day 12 but starting to realise that not drinking does not mean that everything else falls into place. Is this normal?