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

Morning all! Some lovely posts on here this morning. Very, very busy at work though so can't give it my proper attention

Good luck christi!

Hello to everyone else!

Feeling very low today. Not in a 'Right, I'm off for a drink' kind of way. Just really blue and low. Bloody 'alcohol comedown' as I call it. Hitting me hard today. Don't worry will not be running off to get pissed or anything... Just want to go to sleep and wake up in a couple of weeks when everything feels better again. Stupid, stupid RedMoomin!

OK, enough of the self-pity! How's everyone else doing?

Reading that back it sounds like I was drinking last night - I wasn't! I am just feeling the knock-on effects of a few days ago. Sigh.

Thanks wasindie! I am off to a meeting tonight so that's good. But I am also going to go and buy something really wonderful for lunch and not care about calories, cost etc etc!

Wasindie

Tiredness tip. Saw my therapist yesterday. She said - SO, you're very tired. Acknowledge that. when you THINK about your tiredness how do you feel? More tired? Well, stop thinking about it. Acknowledge it and put it aside. Now, think about something else, what you've got to get on with or whatever. It seems to be working. I've put my tiredness in a box because it makes me feel worse to think about it.

Moomin

Maybe that would work for self flagellation, too. Stop thinking about it - it will make you feel worse. You've acknowledged it. Now put it in a box, leave it alone, and think about something else.

Think that the 'strikes' have to be individually applied to each word and not just at the end of a phrase? (Hope that makes sense!)

wasindie - I adore stationery too! (We can be freaks together!)

I think I need to join you ladies if that's ok? (though feel very scared to be actually posting)

I've been following this thread right from the very beginning and have begun to identify more and more with what I've read.

I'm having a hard time admitting my problems to myself so I'm hoping this thread might help me along the way.

P.s. I love stationery too.

Hi JAB, welcome, of course you can join us. You will find everyone very welcoming on the thread and people have lots of great advice. I only joined a couple of weeks back and remember feeling very scared of posting.

Quick post here as I am being super efficient today (no idle slacking for me wasindie!!).

I had to jump in with the stationery thing though. I love it. My favourite thing is one of those to do list pads. Heaven!

Wasindie - our shopping should arrive soon but I am going to have leftover chinese takeway instead... mmmn.

Thanks for replying so quickly MsGee! Much appreciated!

The main reason I've been so captivated by this thread for so long is the honesty from everyone as well as the non-judgemental tone. I think it's what I need to help me face up to my problems with alcohol and do something about them.

Hello to everyone on the thread, I'm looking forward to getting to know you all a bit more.

Hello JAB, lovely to 'meet' you.

What stage are you at? Are you close to stopping/ stopped for today?

Hello Christi and Wasindie,

I've been trying to stop for a while now but without much success.

My intention is not to drink today.

Wasindie I have an 8 wk old DD so I'm sure I can empathise with some of the things you're going through - though of course you have double the trouble!!

Sorry for long delay in getting back on, I have PILs staying and then my M&D came over for coffee too, so I've spent most of the morning being dutiful daughter and daughter-in-law. This is when I think dp has the easy job going out of the house to work!

PILs don't drink much but do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner so yesterday I arranged to pick dd2 up from her restaurant job late in the evening - very acceptable reason not to have a drink with the others. I think tonight I will have a 'slight headache', or I may offer a round of G&Ts, and have my nothing&tonic standing by. I find this low-level socail drinking the most difficult. With big drinking occasions it seems like an easier decision to either not go at all, or to go and drink nothing - maybe it's because it takes very little imagination to play it through to the end. With these drink-lite family occasions I feel somehow more obvious as the non-drinker, and it is more painful to admit that my normal behaviour would be to down several before they came, always have some 'cooking wine' on the go, encourage the opening of another bottle, offer a nightcap...

Anyway, tonight I will not be drinking.

That's exactly the same for me Wasindie. I've always drunk too much (from the age of about 19 to now - Im nearly 31) but completely stopped while I was pregnant and BF.

However, over the last 2 weeks I've begun to get back into bad habits. Going from rewarding myself to a glass of wine to slowly finishing the whole bottle and sometimes opening a 2nd.

For the last 4 evenings I've drunk wine but it needs to stop now.

I really want to improve things for myself but most importantly now for my DD.

Welcome to you Jab! Lovely to see another newbie. If you have been following the threads from the start you will know the struggles that we have all been through to some degree or another. I am on Day 2. (Haven't drunk since Monday but something about 1st Sept strikes me as a 'nice' date - probably the inner stationery nutter!) Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I am 33 and have been problem drinking (on and off) since I was about 25. So very similar to you - although I have no children! (Sorry for the long intro there!)

Good luck christi for later this afternoon. Hi venus, wasindie, MsGee and the rest of the Babes x

Hi JAB, and welcome. You will find on here (hopefully) lots of support and encouragement every day that you decide not to have a drink, and lots of understanding too from people who are in the same place, or have been in the same place, and who know that every time we are tempted to pick up a drink we face being back in the same place again.

If you come on here and state that you want to not drink then you may also find some tought responses during those times when you feel like making excuses for just the one, or just today.

It's all good though, and it is helping to keep me sober.