The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Carry On Past The New Year Wine Offers!

[Mouseface]

Hello all.

We are the Brave Babes. We're on the Battle Bus, travelling around sobriety and going day by day, hour by hour, through the detox hell of not drinking, cutting down or sometimes even not.

Come say hi. We won't bite.

No doubt one of us has been where you are now......

It's fine. No judging, no nasty jibes, just us, the BBs.

Come meet the others..................

where is Mouseface?
luci lots of water. less of the beating up.

I'm here Ma.

Got your e-mail. I hope DS had a fantastic birthday. Thank you x

I was away this weekend so that's why I've not been around.

Luci - you know the drill.

I know...sigh.

It's all so pathetic and ridiculous. Stopping altogether is the only option available to me. I am quite incapable of stopping at 2/3 drinks.
I hate this panicky, stressy hangover feeling. Just want to go back to bed and turn my brain off for a bit.
My poor kids being saddled with a loser like me for a mother.
Right, am going to try and learn from this latest relapse. Look at it from all angles and try and devise tactics to avoid it happening again.
Back to day 1 for me.

Right.

You are NOT a loser. A loser wouldn't give a shit about the way that their children might feel about their drinking.

A loser wouldn't want to take control.

A loser would stck two fingers up tp the world and carry on getting wasted every day.

Stop beating yourself up and channel that energy into getting through today.

And when you wake up tomorrow, be super proud of yourself that you didn't have a drink today.

Because you won't, will you?

'stick' even.

I forgot to say, when I went to the offy yesterday to buy some cigarette, the shopkeeper asked me : So you are not buying wine again today ? It has been a while, what's going on ???....The shame

Luci - You are not a loser, you are just having a really hard time, I'll recommand you to read Allen Carr easy way to control alcohol, it opened my eyes !

Was about to post to Luci who ISN't a loser but I think Mouse has summed it up perfectly. Put it behind you, stop the guilty feelings and put that energy into carrying forward.

I won't be drinking today. Thank you Mouse. I feel like crying. Got to pull myself together to collect DC2 from nursery now.

And thank you Zany and Lady. I am going to order the Alan Carr book. Been meaning to for ages but today I need to do something positive to help myself.
Something Miflaw said last week has stuck with me - that I would like to drink heavily without facing any consequences. Have had a harsh reminder of the consequences today...banging headache, guilt, self-loathing and worse still, DP's "disappointed" face when he left for work this morning.

Luci - 'and worse still, DP's "disappointed" face when he left for work this morning '

Keep that image in the front of your mind.

"I forgot to say, when I went to the offy yesterday to buy some cigarette, the shopkeeper asked me : So you are not buying wine again today ? It has been a while, what's going on ???....The shame"

The REAL shame is when, after you're a little while sober, you walk past one day and the pub or shop's boarded up because it's gone out of business - and you think, "was that me? Was I keeping them afloat?"

I understand what you are feeling very well,honestly try to move on, what happened has happened and you cant change that. Today, you wont drink. What have done the last few days to avoid cravings or help with the withdrawals symptoms is not to deny myself any food. The last 6 days, I had all my favourite food, like cheese on baguette, my favourite choccies, full fat coke so instead of looking forward my daily bottle of wine I was looking forward my fav food. It helped me lot coping.
I told myself ok you wont drink for the next 7 days, you are going to suffer from withdrawals symptoms, you'll probably feeling shattered, uncomfortable..So what is the food which could provide you an immense confort ?

It worked so far, it is just an idea !

Miflaw - you are right, I spend more that 400 pounds a months in my offy (I mean I used to)..All the money I'm saving from not buying wine goes into ab account which will pay the allen carr stop smoking clinic. Win win situation.

I agree with LADYBOAK (except for the projecting - keep it in the day, FFS!)

Basically, you are doing something that you won't like.

So, in every other area of your life, be nice to yourself! Want to smoke? Smoke 40 a day! Like coca cola? Drink it like water! Like new clothes? Buy a new outfit!

When I first attended AA I wanted to fix everything at once. I smoked, I gambled (mainly when drunk), I was in debt, I was single ...

Their advice was, "address your problems in the order in which they are killing you." And drink was SO clearly top of that list.

It goes without saying, of course, that if you have already stopped any other bad habits, you should ideally not start them again.

Also, I stopped smoking with allen Carr (the book.) Worked brilliantly - because, unlike the many previous occasions, I was sober enough to LET it work!

I know 1 day at the time, its true, one day at the time.I have to contanstly remind myself and I get exited and this feeling should be under control too.

I have tried the Allan carr book but it didnt work probably because I was not sober.

I have had a long battle with myself..what should I address first ?? The fags or the booze, the booze or the fags ?? And ending up nothing... So I have decided to address my problem with alcohol first and completely indulging myself with other things.

There is a little voice who is telling me, wow you are doing great, maybe you should fix yourself a date for stopping smoking? Then I refrain myself, one problem at the the time, once alcohol problem is sorted then think about stopping smoking.

I used Allen Carr to quit smoking so maybe the he can help again with the booze problem.

Keep on keeping on lucil x. Get back on the wagon today if you can. I always find the first day not drinking is the hardest, and then it gets a bit easier.

It's bloody hard though. Was alcohol free for 4 days last week and then everything went pear-shaped at the weekend

Have bought myself Nitol (non-herbal) for this week as it's the fear of not sleeping that will often put a spanner in the works for me.

Awful thing in the supermarket yesterday. Lady in front of us in the queue was trying to buy a bottle of vodka. She could barely stand and couldn't get her purse out of her bag. The looks on people's faces were just ...upsetting really. Security came to tell her she couldn't buy the vodka and they led her gently away. I was nearly in tears. There but for the grace of God go I, I thought.

Supermarket is a way from residential areas, so I've been wondering how she got home, if she got home, if she had a home to go to (no sign of her when we left).

Lucil

Have you tried AA?

if not, is there anything about them that stops you from doing so?

Obviously I'm biased - I would probably be dead today if it wasn't for AA - but it strikes me that Allen Carr has the success he does because he is widely acknowledged as having a working solution to a lethal problem and he has credibility because he's been there and come out the other side.

And it always seems to me that, if you were looking for whatever ticks those boxes where drink is concerned, AA is a more obvious candidate than our Allen.

Hi luci
How would you define your problem with alcohol. When I finally looked at AA's website I saw the line "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable" I had a sudden feeling they were talking about what I had. I couldn't stop when I had started, heck, I couldn't even stop thinking about it even if I might occasionally hold off from drinking. I was terrified of admitting the unmanageable bit, that's taken me a bit longer. But like MIFLAW I love AA though am very new to it.

Incidentally I was extremely averse to trying AA.

I attended, and continue to attend, because I don't have a better idea.

I don't think I've ever had a healthy relationship the alcohol. My problem has definately worsened over the last few years. I have used a drink (or 10) to give me false courage and a more bubbly personality...or so I thought.
Now I drink out of boredom and a need to escape the confines of my life.

I am considering AA. May reservations around it are a) I hate the thought of opening up to strangers in person. I find it terrifying actually and b) the religious aspect. That said, I am considering it seriously for the first time.

Luci-I could have written your last post, almost words for words...I was talking to dh tonight about my relationship with alcool..

For me it all started 3 years ago, I was very exited as it was Friday and somehow I tought oh why not having a little glass of wine (it was 9.30 am)and it became quickly an habit.I have started to lose control very early on, then the real problems started, the money worries, the constant stress, the fatigue, the depression...I will drink when I was stressed, when I had a good news, a bad news, when I was bored.

On the other side, I had also a good social life with a lot of drinking involved, I was the life and soul of the party because I was loud,funny (apparently)...

At one point, my drinking was so bad, I was drinking 2-2.5 bottles a day-night, 1 week before xmas we had no money left because I had spent it all on my booze, my fags, my social life so the guilt got worst and worst..

I managed to stop for 6 weeks quite easily then I have introduced alcohol back into my life, it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be as financially we are fine (could be better).

I have decided to stop my heavy drinking because I have no excuses to do so. I think alcohol was the reason why my life was so fucked up for the last 3 years, it caused so much more problems. I'm not saying my life is going to be ice cream and sunshine all the time but I know that without this addiction I'll find easier coping with everything that life is going to threw at me.

I'm sorry for the rambling and I hope what I'm saying makes sense, I find it so difficult to express myself.

Roll on Day 7 !!

Luci - AA

you never have to open your mouth (except to breathe!), if you don't want to and there is absolutely no pressure to.

there is no religion involved at all.

give it a go

have a look on their website.

xxx

Evening All

luci, I was also extremely reluctant to go to AA, but I couldn't think of a better way to deal with my problem drinking.
I too was reluctant about the religious part of it, but it is really really helping. I am really truly grateful to be there!! You don't have to say anything, you just need to listen and find the commonality between you and the other people in the room.

It has only been 10 weeks for me, but already I feel so so much better.

Hope everyone else is doing well.