The Braves Babes Battle Bus - NOT stopping at the pub!!

[Mouseface]

Hello

I'm Mouse. I've been sober for over a month now, thanks to the support of posters on this and previous threads.

No matter where you are up to with your sobriety, you'll find someone here who has been in your shoes!

Come and meet the other Brave Babes........

And here are the other threads for those who want to read them.

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

Thread two

Thread three

Thread four

Thread five

Thread six

Good morning munky! I relate a lot to what you said about people around you being confused by the drunkeness - not knowing that I had been topping up out of sight! Madness!

Morning All,

JWN - sorry to hear about your loss. Terrible that it happened as he was turning his life around. Hope you are taking care of yourself. Glad that you and DH had a good weekend.

Luci - hope that you got some sleep last night. I think that getting DH support is really important. Are you comfortable to tell him about your drinking and to come clean with it all? I have found that by being honest with DH it a) makes it more real and b) gives an extra incentive not to drink.

To everyone else, big hello! Sorry, still catching up on thread from the weekend. All good here, went to wedding, didn't touch a drop - much easier than expected. Luckily I was sat next to a non drinker (and DD!) so that helped. It was odd though, watching everyone else drink. One of the blokes on our table got very drunk and was telling DH about his sex life (having met him for the first time 3 hours earlier) and asking him about ours. All I could think was that that would have been me at one time and I wouldn't have realised that I was in fact the only one in that state. When you drink you sort of assume its a normal state and when you don't you realise that the rest of the world is not pissed and does in fact realise that you are. Quite an eye opener!!

Anyway, brave babes, hope you are all well. Sorry I haven't been around this weekend. xx

morning all, thanks!, i will miss the old sod, he was a true character - its his son i feel most sorry for, it was a very tangled family set up, his boy did everything he could to help his old man, including sending him to retreat in india every year - no one would have blamed him for giving up on him years ago! dealing with all his addictions was at times a total nightmare!

LUCI - time for another hug i think!, you sound terribly low and unhappy - i am at a loss as to how to help you, it feels very ineffectual sitting here tapping away! i want to hug you, look after you, give you a nice dinner and put you to bed for a good long sleep!, you bring bring out my mothering instincts!

all i can say is, tell your dh!, he cant help you if he dosent know whats going on!

btw, my dh knows im an 'alchohilc', he just dosent give me a label as such, he just wants me to be well, that involves me giving up drinking!

Luci, just to add in light of JWN comments - my DH does not think of me as an alcoholic, just someone who struggles with alcohol and is therefore better off not drinking at all. He just accepts that I need support in doing that. Am lucky in that he doesn't overthink things!

msgee - i cringe when i think of all teh bloody drivel i have spouted over the years!, you are right as well, when you are drunk you assume everyone is in the same state/frame of mind - oh

btw msgee, bloody well done on the wedding, that is a hell of test!

thanks JWN, I couldn't have imagined doing it a few weeks ago. Think its an important lesson about not projecting ... no point worrying about events in the future because after a few days / weeks of not drinking you are so much stronger and in a very different place.

We also left at 7pm before the serious drinking started!!

And ... in case I get told off HI RED!!

Hello MsGee

Well done for getting through the wedding! Once I stopped drinking what really struck me was how boring people become when they have had too much to drink. Totally hypocritical, I know!

Morning.

luci - I hope that you can not drink today but please don't put pressure on yourself. Take it an hour at a time, less if need be.

Jeep busy and keep posting if you wobble. We have ALL been where you are, some more than once, twice or more. We ALL know how you feel.

WRT DP/DHs not believing that we have a drink problem, don't understand what all the fuss is about, wonder why we are making a big deal about it etc........

The reason for a reaction like that is usually because they don't want their own drinking habits brought into the spot light.

If they added up their units too, counted the empties in the recycling box, you can bet your life that they would be higher than they should be and if they looked at their own drinking habits, for what they are, you can be sure that they too would been seen to 'have a drink problem'

So, like I have, you just have to get on with it yourself. No point in trying to educate your DP/DH for the time being. Focus on your drinking and your habits.

And who knows, in time, you not drinking or reduced drinking may just be the gentle kick up the backside that DP/DH needs to address their own drinking habits.

That is what happened here. I was all 'do you know how many units you had this week?' to DH and 'I think you need to cut down'.....

Mostly because I needed my partner in crime not to drink too. It wasn't fair! Why could he drink and me not?!!

However, you have to be selfish. You have to ignore what those around you are doing and concentrate on yourself. Focus on you. Focus on your goals and who knows, over time, they might see how much nicer it is to be sober of an evening.

My DH has. He no longer drinks in the week and is very controlled at weekends. Funny, once I stopped banging on about it, he did it all on his own!

Sorry for the long post!

Hope everyone else is ok this morning.

getting - thank you for your kind words

Hello mouse! It's so hard keeping in the loop when I am not here at weekends Will be even further out of the loop after this week - am only in the office today and tomorrow and then that's it until 21st Sept! How will I cope without the babes?!

Hi Mouse

Red are you on holiday or just not in the office

I am on holiday - which is great! Not doing a great deal, just spending time with DH. But I will definitely miss here!

"when i said those nights were about drinking to excess i meant they include it - the ambience/dancing/fun/conversation etc is all there but people go out to have a few drinks and let their hair down."

Then I completely agree that they are absolutely normal and part of our culture.

However, that isn't what you said, and certainly not what you described initially - I don't think many people past their mid-twenties black out.

also, I work with men who are 10 years younger than me. They have exactly the sort of nights you are now describing - they are single, it is a fun and macho thing to do, etc.

They would be MORTIFIED if they had to go home early because they had mistimed it - in other words, the evening you initially described. They pace themselves. And, as I say, these are young, responsibility-free men (mostly Northerners, incidentally, if you want to add that particular cultural stereotype to the mix.)

Glad the misunderstanding is now cleared up.

Hi to Mouse and Moomin and msgee

Aw, I will miss you Moomin, but have a lovely break. We will all still be here when you get back.

Morning Red, MsGee (nice jumping! Very energetic!!) and venus.

Red - I will miss you!!!! Hope you have a wonderful time off work. The break will do you good!

Hello MIFLAW

Hi venus and MIFLAW,

Mouse, am feeling energetic this morning, although it might be the caffeine!

Red, I will miss you but very jealous of your break, am sure being away from work will be great for you.

MIFLAW, following your discussion with SAF with interest. I spent many years beyond my early thirties drinking to excess with colleagues and thinking it was part of London life and that getting plastered for fun (and with intent) was something we all did it together. However, without my beer goggles on I can see that really it wasn't something everyone did. There was me and one other person who did it regularly and we prided ourselves on being the final hardcore at any party / event / drink after work. Looking back I see two unhappy people who had problems with alcohol.

meant to say up until my early thirties.

am not so far beyond that now (well, not quite)
(perhaps)

"MIFLAW, following your discussion with SAF with interest. I spent many years beyond my early thirties drinking to excess with colleagues and thinking it was part of London life and that getting plastered for fun (and with intent) was something we all did it together."

Apart from changing the words "thirties" to "twenties" the same is true of me.

Look at me now, ma!

Just in case that seems odd to anyone - I mean that, as early as my early twenties, my behaviour, which at the time seemed "being one of the lads" and "being the life and soul", was, I now see, that of a drunk.

I was staying at a friend's house once to go to a party at a nightclub on the Embankment.

I left early (because i was already drunk), found my way all the way to London Bridge on foot, found his house (where I had never been before that evening) - and then couldn't remember the door number and passed out on the outside landing. When my friends came home they initially stepped over me because they thought I was a tramp ...

MsGee: 'MIFLAW, following your discussion with SAF with interest. I spent many years beyond my early thirties drinking to excess with colleagues and thinking it was part of London life and that getting plastered for fun (and with intent) was something we all did it together. However, without my beer goggles on I can see that really it wasn't something everyone did. There was me and one other person who did it regularly and we prided ourselves on being the final hardcore at any party / event / drink after work. Looking back I see two unhappy people who had problems with alcohol.'

Could have written that, word for word. Except my hardcore group was a bit bigger - they are all in AA now ... Everyone else went back to 'normal' drinking once the pressure from us was off.

morning moomin! have a nice holiday, you lucky thing!

hello mouse, my squeaky little friend!

im off to aa in a minute - i have a real 'need' to go today, dont want to drink, just need to listen, i think. - yesterday our street did a yard sale, i really enjoyed my day, made a bit of cash, sat in the sun and chatted to the neighbours, then the wine came out, que all the 'oh, i really shoud'nt, i sure we are all alkies in our house', ha fucking ha! - i didnt have one (obviously!), just sat and listened to the conversation, what a bunch of twats!, i think i was a bit fragile due to losing my freind, but really, they were a bunch of bores! 'oh, you simply must try twatrose chardonnay, remarkably good for a supermarket wine' - i wanted to shout, 'listen to yourselves, all you really want to do is get pissed' - i have no idea where this ramble is going, just needed to get it off my chest!

off to aa, promise to cheer myself up and stop grizzel-knickering!

laters babes!!!

Hello everyone, nice to see you all about. It's especially nice to have you posting CJ! JWN - your post really made me laugh! Get it off your chest pet!! (Love the image of grizzle-knickering!!)

mouse, MsGee, venus, MIFLAW - hello!

Yes, I thought I was a 'work hard / play hard' type of person. I choose not to look at the reality that no-one else played quite as hard as me. And probably worked harder.

My friend sobered up quite a few years ago. I took umbrage to her newfound healthy living focus. I remember once being disgusted that she offered me 'something naughty' on a sunday afternoon - meaning non decaff coffee. It really angered me at the time - I was expecting a bottle of wine!! I then fell out with her a few months later (perhaps looking for an excuse) when she was 'gossiping about me'. With hindsight, she was probably just a good friend wondering what kind of hellish choices I was making with my life and talked to a mutual friend about it. I immediately cut her out of my life and refused to speak to her, leaving a cowardly phone message asking for her copy of my house keys - until then she had been my best friend for about 6 years. That was 4-5 years ago. For years I was angry and righteous and I am just beginning to see a different side to things.

I guess this is the problem when two people with alcohol problems form strong friendships. It saddens me that she has never met DD but I think some things are best left in the past.

umbrage? that doesn't look right.

"what a bunch of twats!"

Superb.

Don't they just make you want to shout, "I've spilt more than you've drunk! The only reason I've stopped is for you fuckers to catch up!"