The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Players and Supporters Bus

[venusandmars]

Hi I am venus and I am an alcoholic.

Thanks to the first thread by Jesuswhatnow I have not had a drink for a long time.

There are lots of us on here, please lurk, post, whatever does it for you. If you are worried about how much you drink and your inability to stop when you want to, then someone on here can probably understand.

You are not being pathetic at all, you are addressing the problem just by being here. It's not a competition. Everyone is struggling in their own way. I have tried and failed many many times before, you just haven't seen me doing that because this fantastic thread did not exist all the times I fell off the wagon. (still clinging on by finger nails at present to honest). Just hang on in there,

ma surely there is no shame in trying and if you were indeed pathetic you wouldn't be spending your time reading this thread & sharing with us?

I have alcholic parents & although at this time in my life I am able to use my young children as a smoke screen for keeping my distance from them I know I will end up in your situation in the future.

I think you are a very strong women who is just trying to do her best with a shit hand dealt to you x x

Oh & I agree with BB droopy draws from now on!!

Sorry very un-MN punctuation going on there!

Ma You are very supportive of others and your posts will be helping many. Taking control of your drinking is your challenge and not a time to compare - everyone is working to their own timeframe. Had it been me in May that was posting you would have been doing better than me in that you are cutting down and then I was rapidly returning to and exceeding my pre-Lent drinking level even though I knew I needed to stop. Try again tomorrow to not drink and take it from there. How about a large glass of water now?

thanks BB - the parent thing has knocked me for 6 certainly but I am not going to allow it to become the reason for failing. you would think that given my upbringing at my father's hands, i would run a mile from alcohol.I have seen - and felt - first hand what it can do, and yet I haven't learned from it.
I will try and be the strong woman you refer to....right now i feel weak and stupid, but i will stay on this bloody sodding bus until i get wherever I'm going.
I'm off to tip the rest down the sink and go to bed.

Good for you ma
I feel I have some understanding of where you are coming from.
I remember drunken arguments & mum pissing on the stairs oh & that hoiliday when I was about 9 & dad slapped mum around the face for talking shit...... that is the good times that I CAN talk about.

I won't be them, I will fight their disease a lot better than they did/do.

Night night ma & take care x

well done Ma for pouring it away - we have all been there with the drink - that's the beauty of this thread - however low you feel, however worthless you feel - we have all felt that way and many of us still do.

I think maybe for all of us the crucial word here is worthless- and I use the word 'we' not in that I am trying to speak for everyone on this thread, but because 'we' rather than 'I' feels so much more encompassing and comforting and true.

feeling worthless, in my opinion is the real root of problems with alcohol, drugs, any substance that changes your mental state.

if we didn't feel the need to obliviate feelings that hurt us inside - why would any of us NEED to change our mental states?

Answer - we wouldn't need to because we would be content with life.

Whatever happened to cause those feelings in the first place - and I really think that most of us have no real idea what it was that created them, caused them, developed them, fed them - is not the priority here.

What is important, is to try to stop feeling worthless. We have to believe in ourselves because every one of us has so much to offer to our children, our partners, our parents, our friends, our colleagues, the person you pass on the street every day but whose name you don't know.

We all need to feel again - and that means feeling all the emotions we have obscured with drink. And then with a clear head we might have a chance of MOVING ON

Night BB's and seet dreams xxxxxxxxx

oops sweet xxx

hey I'm on a roll here - everyone gone????? x

Still here just catching up on Desperate Housewives. I often think I drink because I feel worthless and then the drink just exagerates the feeling

"how hard can it be not to buy the fucking stuff in the first place?" REALLY fucking hard.

"I need to get a grip." If that was all it took this thread wouldn't exist, nor would AA, and nor would the Priory.

Hey M how's you

Know what you mean MIFLAW I told a friend recently that I felt I was drinking too much and she said 'Just don't drink in the week, I'm often too tired for a drink after work anyway'

Yeah never thought of only drinking at weekends before - its easy - NOT

just smoked a sneaky fag under the oven extractor - DP just gone away for a week and it is sooooooooooooo cold outside - smokers will be with me on this one

just to clarify about what I waffled on about before - I don't mean in any way to undermine or belittle what anyone has experienced in RL that might be cause/root of feeling worthless.

if it came across that way I am very sorry

"I'm often too tired for a drink after work anyway"

Even after nearly 8 years sober I am no closer to understand what that could even mean, still less to understanding the mindset of the people who come out with stuff like that.

im back! , really good meeting, really good canapes, really good cranberry juice!

silver, i just read the evenings posts and i was thinking what to say to ma! - your post beats all!! i sooooo get it!!, makes me sort of happy and sort sort to sad to realise it - feeling worthless is the worst state to be in and i truely think i got to a point of 'worthlessness' but carryed on drinking anyway, WHY? god alone knows! - i can say though, without the alcohol bringing me down, that feeling lifts a bit more each day!

this being sober lark is hard bloody work at times!, its sooo worth the effort though!

im off to bed lovley babes!!, got to follow up a nice little contact in the morning - cor!!, i love doing a bit of business!!

L XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hiya all,

Well done to all of you that are doing so well.

I have been watching this thread for quite a while and have posted on here a couple of times(I think!) but never had the follow through.

I really need to get myself together now, I have had two periods of sobriety this year, one for 25 days (June) and one in september, 28 days, the first one because my body had had enough, I think, and gave me a terrible bout of gastroenteritis (I went to the doctors and he said it could be pancreatitus (blimey!) or that I had an ulcer that may put me in hospital soon. My bloods were all over the place, so I learnt later, awful liver results.

That brought me to my senses and that was my first period of sobriety it was really hard but I took the advice that I had seen on here (Thankyou) lots of sweets when wanting wine, distracting myself etc and I ate like a horse for the first time in a long while.

I went back to the Docs a month later and all my blood readings were brilliant, all organs working great and when I said to my doctor I hadn't touched a drop of alchohol for a month she was amazed at my self control, and the results were there to see. I left there on a high!

I went to my sons' prom completely sober (which he and his girlfriend went to in a Rolls Royce Silver Lady 1954) I was so proud of him.

Then I had the stupid thought that a bucks fizz wouldn't hurt. (idiot that i am!)

Then I just (?) drank Lambrusco with orange and other wine with lemonade.

I thought about it all and after being a bit poorly again I had my second bout of sobriety, I had so much energy and buzzed about doing all the things that I SHOULD of being doing for my family over the time when drink seemed to make it all impossible to cope with, gosh did they see the difference, my oldest son (to my shame) said you seem to now be taking everything in your stride (sob!)

Don't get me wrong my children have always been of the utmost importance to me and are in robust health mentally and physically, (thank goodness)

Then I slipped again, two things are now going on in my life, one that is distressing, sad and unfair and another that is happy,confusing and a real test of my character.

So that is where I am, not wanting to drink because I KNOW it will do no good but wanting to because it will stop, for a while,
all the worries that are crowding in. I am ashamed of myself now but I want to get back to the wellness I felt before, it just seems like it's a long road at the moment, I think I need some help not to have THAT first drink.

Thankyou for getting to the end of my post (if you did lol) I hope that I could give some advice to anyone who needs it because I know somewhat the situation we are in.

thanks for reading

Morning Brave Babes.
I feel terrible. Been vomiting most of the night. I am being self-pitying too. This too will pass, right? My body aches. I hate myself and what I've done. I feel lonely and scared. I've got palpitations. I really need to get myself to work today but I feel really ill. I'm so frightened.

Anyone else up yet?
I am a bit better. Still not sure about work but am lecturing and absolutely no one else to stand in for me.
What is the thing with the diarrhoea - is that usual withdrawal? I have e-mailed AA, and been reading as much of their website as I can. DD seems ok but still doesn't want to go to nursery. Hmmm. I have loads of things I need to do. I am still panicking.

Morning Noteven, not an expert on withdrawal symptoms as haven't managed more than 6 days without alcohol! However I do think it sounds more like you are ill (or hungover) rather than suffering withdrawal as it's not 24 hours since you had a drink IYSWIM?
I could be wrong and am sure there will be someone more "qualified" than me on here to advise you soon. I know that when I am unwell i totally wallow in self-pity and everything seems so much harder. What time are you supposed to work at?

Morning noteven, bloody well done for not having had a drink. You may well be physically dependent on alcohol - have you got the shakes too, are you sweating? If you have absolutely no choice go into work today but make an urgent appointment to see your GP. They'll know exactly what your symptoms mean and can help you with detox if they think you need it. You'll be given some benzos to cope with the symptoms and loads of other help.

On the other hand if you're just psychologically addicted they probably won't
give you meds but worth talking to them anyway. Mine has helped enormously. As for the shits (sorry can't spell diar...and no time to look it up), I always had them after a night's drinking so I suppose it depends. We're all with you, you have to go through this before it gets better. But it will, I promise. Take care, please come back later.

noteven - agree with dipso, get to work, do what you have to but make a doc's appointment too.

If you've been drinking day after day without a break, then it's probably been a long time since you've seen a hangover through to the end (and it's a hell of a lot longer than recovering by lunchtime ). But the good news is that if you can struggle through that couple of days, accept that you will feel rough, that you sleep may be disturbed, that your guts will be upset, then you WILL start to feel better pretty quickly.

Please keep coming on here, please keep contacting AA, please look for some real life support. I get the sense that you are at a potential decision point in your life, and you are at that point at lust the right time - when there is a group of people on here who are willing you on. Sieze the momemnt!

demented this is not a competition - if it were I might have already won the prize for the number of mornings in my life where I have woken up determined no to have a drink, and have gone to bed kicking myself for having given in today.

And in this 'one day at a time' approach, TODAY we are all in exactly the same spot. TODAY the person who got up earliest, is the pperson who has been sober for longest (so noteven is today's potential winner ). The fact that I was sober yesterday, and that some people may have been sober for years ONLY means that we have had more chance to exercise the habits and strategies of being a non-drinker. It's been (and still is) a difficult set of skills for me to use - they are not skills that come easily to me, but I'm learning.

By way of a comparison.... I grew up thinking (KNOWING) that I was crap at art. I was rubbish compared to everyone else, my art teacher confirmed it, and I had inherited my Dad's gene's for art-crappiness. Then I had to go to an art class with dd1 (as part of her recovery from teenage depression). And some one TAUGHT me some tips and techniques and strategies for drawing. And I started to find my own - which media I liked (hated chalks) what still made me want to stump off in a huff. I don't think I'll ever be Rolf Harris, but I'm not as crap as I though I was, and I no longer believe that I inherited my Dad's anti-art-appreciation gene. parts of my drinking are the same. I was crap at going to parties sober, I had inherited weak self control etc. But on here (and in other places) I have been TAUGHT some tips and techniques and strategies for being a non-drinker, and I am finding out that I am not as crap at not-drinking as I thought I was. I doubt I'll ever be Ghandi, but I'm learning ways of thinking differently about my self.

Thought you post last night was brilliant Silver.

And to add to that, sometimes the first step towards not feeling worthless is just to recognise that sometimes we DO feel like that, and actually that is OK. Not ideal maybe, not particularly helpful to ourselves, but feeling worthless in itself is not going to be the end of the world. Accept that sometimes we feel like that, and maybe try little things to disrupt the link that says 'I'm worthless, so i might as well have a drink' and try 'I'm feeling a bit worthless. Maybe I'll have a nice bath, or a mug of tea, or go for a walk and eat an apple.'

Nice to meet you steam and hello to desire, MIF, JWN, zany and all others.

Have a great day. See you later.

Morning Dipso and Venus, knew I could rely on some of the brave babes coming along and advising noteven!