The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Carry On Past The Offy!!

[Mouseface]

Well, this is our tenth thread so we are throwing a little party!

Everyone is invited! No booze of course, soft drinks and mocktails only!

I'm Mouse, hello.

There are all kinds of drinkers on board the bus. Come and join the journey, whatever stage you are at, drinking, cutting down, wanting to stop or sober already.

Everyone is welcome to post here. Come say hi.

The journey so far is below.

JWN's original thread

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LittleRedPumpkin for a while I told people I was on a three month detox. That it would only really work if I did it for a long period like this, otherwise if it was, say, a month, I'd slip back too easily. (Incidentally, I did actually do this, for years, until I realised it was actually giving me 'permission' to get hammered for the rest of the year.)

People were usually quite respectful of this once they'd got used to the idea. It was 'ok' because I hadn't stopped drinking (horror of horrors), so they were more tolerant. And it made it very easy to say no.

Eventually I just carried on and now it's accepted that I don't drink at all. I'm 'out' to my good friends, who know I'm in AA, and just 'a non-drinker' to people I know less well. I live in a very gossipy small village and it's just not worth waving the 'alcoholic' banner for all to see.

MIFLAW I can't stand coffee but I have a friend that really really likes coffee in the same sense I really really like wine and she drinks about 15 cups a day.

pretty similar i think, different drink, different effect but same reason.

nice and welcoming btw thanks

Thanks CJ (I can't see your name in this thread without thinking of Leo!).

I hope I'll get to the stage when people just accept I'm not a drinker. I can just see the reactions of people I know if I said I was on a detox! Part of the problem (for people I know, I mean, not just for me), is that alcohol is still ingrained in the way people do meetings - last night I had a seminar, then off for the informal (for which, read, 'useful, career-important') talk over drinks.

I think it makes people quite selfishly afraid of losing their drinking buddies - there are probably more than a few people who don't want to admit they have a problem and so will heartily deny that anyone else does either. I've done that myself.

It's just part of the culture and I can steer clear of it, though.

Well, daddy, both coffee and wine are addictive - I guess that's the similarity.

I think the difference is though, when you're drinking lots of coffee it may be hard to cut down, and you may get symptoms from stopping, but being on a caffeine high doesn't impair your judgement to the degree alcohol does. That's the problem a lot of us have, isn't it? Having the first glass or two and then being tipsy enough that judgment goes out the window and we have more.

But you can get through it! This place is great and it's really helping me, hope it works well for you too.

LittleRed I have found that people accept it after a while. But some won't, and they're normally, as you say, the problem drinkers . I went to a party on Saturday, everyone was getting trashed, and only one person kept nagging at me - 'go on, just one, what's wrong with you?' Nobody else even noticed. I had a really good time, stayed till one and to be honest missed the fags more than the booze.

I think once you've made the decision, it's a lot easier to say no. If you're dithering, it's easy to be tempted and chalk it up to 'work meetings' and social pressure. Which, don't get me wrong, is considerable. I'm lucky because a lot of my friends are ex-boozers too, so quite often we're now the majority!

And I have to say that going to AA meetings really, really helps - because, apart from everything else, you get to talk to people openly and honestly about your drinking, and nobody there is going to force a G&T on you .

daddy I guess the problem is there aren't usually Priory Centres for with people being admitted for caffeine addiction, or 'Caffeinaholics Anonymous' or support groups for relatives of those with caffeine addiction... So it is a bit different.

I know that the lovely taste of wine is hard to give up, and some lucky people can enjoy one glass of seriously good wine and leave it at that. I am sure that wine collectors who spend £1000s per bottle aren't necessarily quaffing loads at a time. Maybe, life isn't fair, and you are just not one of those people who can have a glass and leave it at that.

I see - then I have no other useful advice for you. If you really like wine that much then you must, of course, keep drinking it for as long as you enjoy it.

Would you define your friend's attitude to coffee as normal, by the way? And does it have the same unpleasant side effects as your attitude to wine?

Oh and sorry daddy I haven't said hello, hello and welcome and I hope that you find this thread helpful and supportive!

Thanks CJ!

It's so good to get some sense of how to plan things out, you know? At the moment (and I am only 8 days in), I've been doing a lot of determined, 'hey, you know you wanted to meet for a drink? How about a coffee at 11?' stuff. It seems to be working so far!

thanks support is all I was looking for, I know I have an issue and I know I have to start dealing with it. I've kidded myself for too long that I can have just one glass - I'm not like that and it's just got worse and worse.

I'm sorry if I was sounding ungrateful MIFLAW but for me it's a pretty huge step to admit that I have a problem with it and even come on here, let alone even think of admitting it to anyone else. I have huge admiration for anyone dealing with alcohol issues, so I'm sorry if I was a bit snipey.

What I was trying to say is that there are other posters who don't like the taste of wine and simply that I do, which is where my problem lies.

thanks everyone for the welcomes and hellos and support. might just stay quiet and watch for a while here.

fallen and redmoomin are you out there?

LittleRed, meeting for coffee is a good way to go!

Can I suggest that you talk to some, or at least one, friend that you really trust? Be honest, say you're struggling, that you think you've got a problem and you're trying to kick it for a bit. You don't have to say 'I'm an alcoholic and I'm never drinking again' - that tends to alarm people - but a true friend should respect that you're worried and hopefully become an ally.

I actually gave up drinking for a while when my best friend stopped - partly to support her, partly so as to keep her as a friend, and partly because I suspected, deep down, that I might have a problem too. I went back to drinking [shame] but I still respected her decision. I was really, really sad because I'd lost my drinking buddy, but something stopped me from trying to talk her out of it. It's really hard to understand, but good friends will support you if they know it matters to you.

Hello daddy! I think the truth is that we all really, really like wine. That's why we're on here

PS the problem is that everyone knows you as a pisshead big drinker, so it's not so easy to carry off the careless 'Oh, do you know, I think I'll have a soft drink, I'm not in the mood for wine tonight' attitude. You get a lot of looks.

It feels like turning an oil tanker around but eventually people will get used to it. More importantly, you will and you won't give a toss what they think. I promise you.

Please don't feel you sound ungrateful - you sound perfectly normal (well, normal for someone who has a problem with drink.) Certainly I have taken no offence.

I think, though, that you would find more advantage in comparing yourself to typical people rather than to people you know are atypical.

I think you should probably ask yourself what you would do if your top quality wine was not available for whatever reason.

I used to drink excellent wine - I still have fond memories of a St Emilion that I drank at college that was not available in shops, it came straight from the college cellar.

But, alongside that, I have to place the memories of living in France - Sundays where money was short and where the only shop open was the Arab grocer's. On those days, it was 1 litre for 10 francs, with a plastic stopper. I loved the taste of excellent wine too - but the lack of excellent wine did not stop me drinking really very poor-quality wine. What do you think YOU would do in that situation? Go without? If so, for how long? A day? A week? A month? How would you feel if you did go without?

daddy keep posting as much as you need to. I am finding out more and more about my own relationship with alcohol the more I post, think and ponder.

The really really annoying thing for me is that if I drink, and I have discovered I CAN sometimes have one glass and leave the rest it in fridge, but even if I do that, 1. it still disrupts my sleep and 2. far far worse, it makes me depressed and moody the next day, even if I just have a little.

Very boring.

I think I am going to try this meditation thing this weekend, quite looking forward to it. Especially time being kid free!

i actually won't drink really crap tasting wine. I really don't like the taste of it. DH is more a really really nice wine drinker, whereas i'm happy to pour anything pallatable down my throat. but if I couldn't get a reasonable glass of wine I don't think I'd drink really awful tasting stuff.

but then you know, i don't know, so I guess this is me trying to see how i do react and what I do.

my difficulty is just will power and having the will not to have that one more glass. we live in south africa now so do most of our entertaining at home, or we just stay in and have a great meal and lovely wine, because it's more difficult to go out. And the house we're renting has a wine room of all things - so it's not like it's not there.

thanks everyone.

Thanks CJ, good advice. DH has just been in for lunch and I was chatting to him - as we're going to try for a baby at some point in the next couple of years, that's not a bad excuse.

I ought to tell a friend. I have done before and what annoys me is that both times, they've simply not believed me. One has a father who is alcoholic, and I suspect is more the classic type of alcoholic that people tend to imagine is the only kind. My big thing isn't social drinking, and of course my tolerance is high so quite a lot of my friends think of me as the one who'll be least drunk, who'll get them home at the end of the night.

Time to be really sober in that role, I think, instead of just masking the alcohol.

"but if I couldn't get a reasonable glass of wine I don't think I'd drink really awful tasting stuff." Can you imagine yourself abstaining then?

imagine you were one of the Chilean miners. Once you knew the rescue team were coming, how big a part of your mental suffering would have been down to the fact that you couldn't get any booze, for an (at least initially) undetermined period?

I guess this is how people are different. If I can't get wine, and know I can't, that is fine. The difficult thing is having the freedom and the money to go out and buy it, and choosing not to.

Hi Babes I can't help thinking that the quality and value of wine is a big fat red herring. There is so much ritual and ceremony that goes with wine drinking. The special glass, the sound of the cork,the toast. Not to mention tasting a splash first, sniffing the cork carefully examining the label and cleverly noting the region. It's bollocks really isn't it? If it ends up as sick down the front of your posh frock and yet another row with your beloved!!

LRP I think that's a very fair point - although I have to say that I believed that about myself but, on the rare occasions I properly put it to the test, I found it a lot less true than I had hoped it was, and I really MINDED not drinking or drinking less than I had planned to. But you're right, it's exercising the choice that's hard. There is a reason why there is a pub bang opposite most prisons - and why so many prisoners end up straight back inside.

However, I think it is very hard to get even to that point if one feels one's use of alcohol is exclusively down to informed choice, with no compulsive undertones.

i'm with LRP - yes I can imagine myself abstaining if I can't get it. It's the willpower of choosing not to open a bottle that I have the issue with.

Fundamentally i think although I can be a very strong person, I'm pretty weak willed all round - although I used to smoke and was one of these people who said they'd give up when they tried to get pregnant, and did. And didn't do it again. That reminds me, I always said i wouldn't drink at all when pg or bf'ing, and I didn't. Not a drop. But then when I could, I did - and it's just got a little bit more day by day or week by week.

probably learnt more about my attitude just today than in a long long time.

daddy I used to live in East Africa and the temptations and ease with which one could drink were crazy. Not least because we had nannies and maids to take up the slack if we felt like a long hungover lie in, or couldn't be bothered following a toddler around the garden and rather would kick back with a glass of something lovely in the shade. The remnants of boozy dinner parties would vanish by the next morning, all cleared up by someone else as if they had never happened.

Do you keep alcohol in the house, daddy? I find it so much harder when DH has stocked us up with 'nice' wine - which of course means, wine we must keep until a special occasion. I find it's so much easier if there's no wine in the house, to resist going out and getting some more.

MrsP I know what you mean - and would probably think about it more that way if I was throwing up - but I don't get to that point. I get to the falling asleep point and because we're home I just go to bed. And i get killer headaches the next day, not throwing up.

DH and I row a lot when we're both drinking, if we're out. Not at home so much. We're not nice copmany if we're both on it.

MIFLAW I get that it's compulsive for me - I understand that I am weak willed and o'h why not, it's just the one glass / it's thursday / the kids have been playing up all day are all easy excuses.

sorry, my compulsive posting is helping me, I'm just going to be a bit too self absorbed and self centred today.