The Brave Babes Carry On The Charabanc Trip - Leaving The Booze Behind!

[Mouseface]

Hello and welcome!

This is thread number eight!

The Brave Babes are all at different stages of quitting the booze. Some have stopped, some are thinking about it and some are just cutting down.

They are full of support and wisdom for those of you wishing to climb aboard the Bus or Charabanc!!

The Babes aren't an exclusive club, they never judge and they don't charge for advice either!

So, come meet them. I'm Mouse, by the way, and I've been sober since August 2nd 2010, something I would never have even considered without the support of these threads.

Here are the first seven threads, if you want a bit of history.

JWN's original thread

Thread two

Thread three

Thread four

Thread five

Thread six

Thread seven

morning all (fortheverylasttime , you know me so well already!)

Stayed off the wine last night , got up at 6 and went for a run at 7 ! This is NOT like me at all. I am now sitting up in bed , very tired. Nightshift tonight so drinking is not an issue.

Gettingeasier I have wondered about the very situation you describe. I have several friends I see only occasionally (because we are so busy with kids ) and the odd occasion we have a night in with childcare, alcohol is ALWAYS part of the fun. THis is only my fifth day off booze but I have gone out of my way to avoid get togethers.
what is your story? AM I right that you have on bottle at the weekend ? Does that work well for you?

JWN I know and it does me good to read that.

Ginger I am quite new on the thread just over a couple of weeks so I am not at the stage of having a system in place to work well or not !!

My story in a nutshell is that I have been drinking between one and two bottles every night for the last couple of decades. Over the years I have worried myself about it but taken no action at all apart from during my 2 preganacies when I drank very little.

My extremely heavy drinking husband left us on Boxing Day and I have been on the recovery journey from that. At the beginning of September I decided to try and drastically reduce my drinking as it was 6 weeks or so until the anniversary of when he told me he didnt love me etc and I want to be in the best mental and physical shape on that date (its actually our wedding anniversary too). I know to deal with my drinking would be a huge boost to my self esteem.

So the 1st of September,the date I told myself I would begin,came and went and I failed to do what I said.

For the first time ever my desire to succeed overcame my desire to carry on and I was aware of this thread as I am a regular on another one and I started to read. I also had a look at the AA website.

A combination of the 2 seems to be enabling me to start to deal with this.In the last 2 weeks I have drunk on 2 days both unplanned. For the most part I have avoided get togethers too.

My aim is to drink on one evening a week only and ultimatly to socialise at other times without alcohol but thats a way off I think.

I have read loads on here about how that wont work and that after my levels of drinking abstinence is the only answer and I accept that may be true. For now though in the spirit of having something to look forward to during this shit phase (ie sell my lovely home,get divorced and find a job)I am trying this to see if I can do it.

So whats your story ginger,why have you decided to take action ?

Is everyone out? Mouse are you there? I'm cleaning like a woman possessed - I did have bottle of wine last night - stupid stupid stupid. Relationship on the line and I flaunt it. He was pissed off but OK, I think because I drank it really slowly - I dunno. This staying sober lark is so hard for anyone who doesn't have a problem with drink, to understand. Or anyone who has never been addicted to anything - I say to DP "you give up cycling" - to try and help him see how hard it is - that's his addiction - and I do think he would find it very hard - but you can't fault his argument that it's healthy, safe, not hurting anyone etc etc - BUT IT IS STILL AN ADDICTION - I shout. Ah well - got 10 kids coming for Birthday tea for DD on Tuesday so better get on with cleaning - very satisfying actually!! Hope you are all good and busy....... x

Hi getting, I don't think that anyone has said that what you are trying to do definitely won't work for you. Only you will ever know the answer to that one. And who knows, your approach may even work for me, in time. I certainly know that I would like it to work for me.

But I also know that for me (and I can only speak for myself), at the moment, I am much better off not drinking at all. I feel that at the moment if I gave myself permission to drink one night, then I would also find it easy to give myself permission to drink another night (after all 2 nights out of 7 is not bad), and then I suspect I would find it easy to give myself permission to drink on another evening (still more nights not drinking than drinking) etc, etc. until I was back to my old ways. I also know that when I have tried to control my drinking in the past I have found myself quite fixated on it - counting the days until I could have a drink and finding any excuse on the other days that would justify them being an exception to the rule. But all that is because I think I am an alcoholic, and therefore drinking 'normally' does not seem to be an option for me.

Maybe your drinking is different to mine, and I sincerely hope that you are different and can do what you are planning. In the meantime, as you know, while you are changing your habits there are lots of us on here who are happy to provide encouragement and to share our strategies for not having an alcoholic drink (hopefully without becoming a hermit).

Oh and getting well done on how your last 2 weeks have played out for you. To go from drinking very heavily to a few nights is bloody good. Be proud of yourself.

Hello silver, so what are your plans for this evening? Do you have any really nice alternatives to necking a bottle of wine? You know that your dp would really appreciate it, but more importantly, read back to you post that you made the other evening and read your own determination.

Hey Venus - no plans to drink tonight - think that would really send DP mental and rightly so. DD out with my Mum getting her Birthday present today and both her and DP due home around fiveish. Might try to get to the gym, but having found it has just taken me 3 hours to clean one room I think there is more cleaning on the agenda! dd room is - unspeakably messy!! As long as I keep busy I'll be fine - and I'm knackered after one room so early night, got a good book on the go and I need to show DP that I meant everything I said to him - takeaway curry I think, Family Guy and zeds!!

Mouse - I think you might be feeling bad - talk to us - we need you babe xx

Excellent plan for this evening silver. Curry and early night sounds very good.

Sorry Silver - I'm here. Just be out into town and was catching up.

mouse - no need to apologise - was just concerned you are OK. DP home so I am going to drag myself to swimming (one length - haha) then jacuzzi and sauna and RELAX.

Post later - never realised cleaning house could be so tiring - mainly because I've never bothered before - well not that much.

I'm grand thanks. Not feeling bad about 1 glass of wine. Totally in control with no plans for any more anytime soon.

Just had PIL here and fancied a toast with them.

Thanks Venus your description of counting the days , planning your next drink etc totally apply to me as well . I thought today I will know when I have genuine success because I wont know to the last nano second when I last had a drink etc !!

Mouse I m glad you explained your one glass I was thinking but who drank the rest or what will she do with the rest and why one glass ! Hope your toast was for something happy.

Silver I wish my xh hadnt been such a drinker,I appreciate your frustration that he doesnt get your addiction but trust me when you have an xh like mine it gives you the idea that you are a moderate drinker . Seriously I hope you can work things out its a great motivation to deal with drinking.

Well I am gutted it turns out Stritly isnt on until the 1st October so my plans are upside down and I dont feel justified in having my wine now. Ffs sake life was so much easier when I just drank when I wanted !!!

Evening Babes.

Well, I went out again today. It was awful! So busy but I had to go into town. I was sweating, shaky and breathless by the time I got to the car.

But, I did it. I went out. Into the madness! I hope you are all safe and well, whatever youa re doing tonight.

getting - (I think it was you who nailed 3 bottles with your friend last night?) if you drink your wine tonight, will you get more for tomorrow?

silver - how are things with DP? Well done for drinking slowly last night.

JWN - what glam event are you hosting/at tonight?

Off to make pizza, back later.

Welcome aGlassOf

Well done for getting this far. And BTW, most of us, apart from MIFLAW, drank/drink more now that we are married, with children, in our thirties plus etc than when we were younger, single, and responsibility free!

The drunken haze, the fuzz, the zoning out is all I ever needed too. And still miss. The rest, the shakes, the sickness, the mood swings, the lows, I don't miss those. You can keep them.

So, what's your plan of action?

Hello aGlass, can you say more about "what I'm worrying about is that I can't not drink at the moment"

Do you mean that you feel you can't control your drinking or resist having a drink when you had intended not to have one?

I think that some people get into the habit of drinking too much, when they decide to change that habit, then they do. It can be a bit tricky (as it can changing any habit) but they can manage realtively easily and once the habit is changed they carry on drinking at normal / acceptable levels.

For me it is more than a habit, I never just have one drink.

Drinking a bottle of wine is not healthy, doing that frequently is certainly not healthy, drinking when you don't want to is not healthy. So what do you want to do about it? Do you want to try and cut down? Do you want to stop for a while (anything from 1 day to 60 years)?

If you have a real problem, then it is about more than willpower. MIFLAW (who posts here and who has not had a drink for 7 years) says that for an alcoholic to try and use willpower to control their drinking is similar to trying to rely on willpower to control diarrhoea.

Welcome and feel free to post about what's going on for you.

aGlassOf - it's a start and right now, that's all you need.

Don't over think it though. Just take it easy. Stop or cut down but what ever you decide, 1 day at a time. Life is so much better through sober eyes but don't force yourself.

You have to be ready. Be kind to yourself. Nothing you can do about last night, or the night before.

All you can do is take your life forward in a positive way.

Small changes, little steps = big differences to the quality of your life.

And. nobody is asking you to give up for ever. NO PROJECTING!!! Rule number 1.

Just take it a day, hour, minute at a time.

If you want to keep drinking, do it. If you want to stop, do it.

Your choice. It has to be your choice. xx

aGLASS if you are reading through this thread and others you will find lots of posts that talk about taking it one day at a time. It sounds trite, but it is how am getting through this and staying sober.

A few months ago I would have written exactly what you wrote about wine "I don't want to ever not drink again. I enjoy wine - the taste, the differences between them, the feeling of a few glasses, the warm red with a sunday roast, cold glass of white on a friday wind down time etc etc."

But today I have not had a drink (and I've been doing that for many days now) and I feel good and fine.

Have a good sleep, and keep coming back and teling us how you are. All of us on here have had exactly the same dilemma as you are having now, and we've come to different conclusions and decided to approach things in different ways. As mouse said. It will be your choice.

evening everyone! nice to meet you glass!!

thinking about drinking and your habits etc. is a good place to start - i have come to the conclusion that if you are unhappy/worried about the amount you drink then you are proberbly drinking too much!, if you then decide that the amount is too much and its controlling you rather than the other way round then you have a problem - one thing i would say though, alcohol is in no way going to help pnd, imo, it will help you stay down much longer and delay your recovery. anyways, whatever you decide, keep on posting! all welcome here!

mouse - i have been to an art gallery opening, OMG!!, how fucking pretentious! (or maybe i am just a bloody philistine! ) i really tried to 'understand' it, i still reckon it was a load of old bollocks though, dh is right arty (very good at nudes! ) as is dd, i am the resident twonk who says things like 'why is her face green'? or 'why is her fanny all fat?'

glad to hear you went out today, its all to the good!, hows your little fella today?

Hi mouse how are you doing this evening? Well done for getting out today.

I am a bit agorophobic and sometimes I don't go out for days, and then the barrier to going out feels even bigger. For me it is strange, I have no problem going out to work or to arranged appointments but I will avoid going to the shops and will find excuses not to go to new places.

And strangely I have no problem at all with big trips like going on holiday on my own.