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..................

Morning lovely ladies.

Boing!! etc. Still so good to wake up sober.
It's DD's Daddy day so we'll be in for a stormy few days but at least he's coming to see her for an hour or so I guess. (But my blood still boils at 1-2 hours at the CMs every 2-3 weeks...)

Still dithering about work... old habits die very hard.

Have a good day one and all whether it's Day 1 or 10 years, it's just today, Friday 4th February, and today I won't be drinking, just keeping it in the day.

Hi lovely babes !

Well I have finished the allen carr book and I can safely say that I will never drink again (I'm already on day 10). I'm now looking forward going to functions as a non drinker, I will highly recommand the book.

Think I will try and get the book as I am struggling big time with drinking at the moment. Starting to annoy myself with how fed up I'm feeling these days

Hi Babes

Day 5. I was sorely tempted last night, but managed not to. YEEHA!

LADYB and Zany I'm going to get the Allan Carr book today. Just read some reviews on Amazon and it looks very helpful. Thanks for the recommendation folks. Just knowing you are all here is such a support. Thank you.

Mousie Hope today goes ok. Must be relly hard for you. I'm not with dd1's Dad and we have had some bad moments, although she is now a teen and we all get on well now. It hav=s taken a lot of hard work and compromise (usually on my part). Thanks for your feedback re AA. I would worry that, even if I just met someone on the way there, the conversation would go,
'Hi'
'Hi, where you off to?'
'I'm off to my first AA meeting as I am an alcoholic....blablablabla'!
But, yes, meeting someone in the meeting would be fine. It's meeting someone on the way upstairs in the church/community centre/outside that worries me. I just can't help myself I know this is pathetic, but I am very influenced by what people think, although I keep this well hidden at work. There's so much about myself I need to deal with now I've ditched the booze. Has anyone had counselling through the NHS?

Of to MIL's for lunch and then she is keeping dd2 overnight. Might try and drag dd1 to the cinema...

I can't wait to be free from alcohol's clutches - I just hope I can manage.

Personally I'd be very wary of anything that encourages you to say you'll never drink again, and I think those with much much more experience than me would say that too (MIFLAW, jwn, Mouse, venus, what say you?) - surely many of us have said that before... Keep it in the day, Lady - for today you'll not drink and if it keeps feeling good then you can do it again tomorrow. I read this the other day and am going to put it up on the wall in the kitchen

Mssoul, yes, I see what you mean now. (Fortunately I don't know all that many people that hang around churches at 7:30 in the evening!) Can I ask where, roughly, you live? I have told my mum I am going to a "support group" because that's not entirely untrue. Could that work? Some people go to meetings slightly out of area but I wouldn't do that as I love having supportive new friends just round the corner. To be honest... if I hadn't gone to AA I would have lost my daughter and job given more drinking time and then people knowing would be the least of my worries.

maud how are you this morning??

I've just put a pork, leek and tomato casserole thing with lemon and sage in my slow cooker for later. Off to a meeting again soon. Still having thoughts about work, not dithering, because that implies distress, but undecided certainly.

Catch everyone later, hope you start to feel a bit more peaceful about the weekend thurso - I honestly think you do so well and it does sound so tough.

I know loads of people who have stopped smoking for good with Alan Carr's help. I see what you are saying, though Mousie.

I live in Edinburgh, so plenty of choice here. I don't even come from here (like most of the population), so I may be worrying unnecessarily I do tend to meet people in unfortunate places though. Like when I nipped quickly into a pub to use the loo aboout 11am on my way to a meeting and literally walked straight into my boss's boss coming up the stairs (was a basement pub).

There seem to be different types of meeting - do you always go to the smae one?

Morning BBs

So, thurso - what are we going to do to help you get through to DH. The way your posts are reading, this is getting YOU down too.

Not at all good my lovely. Time to act.

Christie - I'm pleased to see that your DH is getting help.

LADYBOAK - Wow! You've come so far.

noteven - Hmm, yes. The never drinking again thing scares the pants off me. I never say never when things like this are concerned.

I may have felt like never drinking again. On numerous occasions!

But I think to truly understand your own drinking habit (because that's what it is) you need to take it one day at a time.

For me, that really is the only way.

Plan each and every day when you wake up. Your mindset and indeed life changes so often, you don't always have control of it do you?

One Day At A Time.

Red - is still off work BTW but she sends her love.

thurso - hydro was hard work but Nemo didn't vomit again yesterday

Mssoul

"Where are you of to?"

"I'm off to a meeting."

"Oh."

In my experience, this is how the conversation is likely to play out. The fact that people might think I am going to a business meeting, Round Table meeting, Sealed Knot meeting, even a Quaker meeting, does not overly concern me. I have not needed to complicate things by lying and they probably have their (minimal, polite) curiosity satisfied. if they said, "what type of meeting?" I would say, "oh, it's a local thing" or "oh, it's at the community centre" and then move on.

Personally, I would NEVER say I have given up drinking for good because the pressure would be too great. (Interestingly I stopped smoking with Allen and did just that and for me there's no contradiction - probably because I accept that smoking is physically and universally addictive whereas I see my alcoholism as a mental problem which is specific to some people and not others.)

There ARE different types of meeting but, like the people in AA, they have more important things in common than they have differences. "Step" meetings discuss one of the steps; Tradition meetings discuss one of the Traditions; Big Book meetings discuss an extract from the Big Book; As Bill Sees It meetings discuss and extract from the book ... oh, you've probably got the gist.

Open meetings are open to interested non-alcoholics, doctors, partners etc (in theory - in practice, they tend to be exactly the same as closed meetings, which are closed to everyone except people who agree that they have a problem with drinking.) If in doubt, go to closed meetings without a special name.

I go to the same meeting every week and do service (i.e. help out) there and I also try to get to one or two others each week, though which ones and how often depends on what else is going on in my life.

At first, I would recommend more - try to get to a meeting every night or, if you prefer, go to a meeting every night unless there is a good reason why you can't. If you managed to spend 2 hours or more drinking every day, you can probably manage to spend an hour and a half in a meeting every day (plus a quarter hour of travel each way.) But there are no rules, and even one meeting a week will help you immensely if you let it.

Hope this is of some practical help to you.

To add, my drinking is a 'habit' to me.

I fully appreciate that to some, it is a physical need, a depenance.

Therefore requiring a little more than a change of lifestyle or simply stopping.

boing!!! morning all!

super sober night!!, loads of compliments and a marriage proposal!

off for lunch with the girls today - bugger, i dont half enjoy life these days!!

btw,

TODAY I WILL NOT BE DRINKING!

that is what is making the difference for me, i still do all the things i always did, i just do them sober!

see you later babes! (and you MIF!

Lovely babes, and Milflaw
phew, what a morning!

DH didn't go into work until about half an hour ago .

We have had the biggest talk that we have had for ages, me crying, him distraught that I am so unhappy.

It hasn't helped that I have been on a big backslide with the wine in January, and didn't help that I started drinking a bottle of wine at 10 last night [shame].

So, this morning I was exhausted, hungover, and out it all came. We haven't been angry with other, just really sad.
DH said that he did think I had been drinking too much again, and thought it was because I was unhappy, but didn't know what to say, or where to start.

I really love him, and he says he loves me, and he is such a lovely, lovely man. But I just feel that we have been living like housemates, not lovers. I don't know, maybe this is what marriage is like after this long (22 years!), but I don't want it to be like this.

We have talked a lot through though, and I really am going to sort out my problem drinking, once and for all. I so want to.

Thanks for listening, whatever would I do without you, there is no-one I would tell in RL.
Much love xx

JWN you have made me smile, you star!

Thurso I find that when I have been drinking (like the last week or so) then it does act as a depressant which is also made worse by being tired/hungover. You both love each other still and by the sounds of it want to make things better between you. After 22 years (I only managed 10) I can imagine that you do feel more like housemates but that doesn't mean you can't get back what you had - you have a good basis in that you love each other. Are you able to get out much on your own without DC's (sorry can't remember ages) or even to go away for the night somewhere, even a change of scenery may help.

thurso - living like housemates is sometimes what happens when life takes over.

DH and I aren't even spending the whole night in the same bed anymore due to Nemo not sleeping.

But we recognise this, we can see what is happeneing so make more of an effort to hold one another, snuggle on the sofa, kiss and say I love you etc......

We have date nights (as I'm sure you have seen me post about on here ) and make a real effort to cook something nice, choose a movie, have a bottle of cava or nice wine (although not more than a glass or two for me) and hell, sometimes we even manage sex!

What I'm saying is, that maybe cut each other some slack. You are allowed to feel low and down.

What you shouldn't do, is let it spiral into despair on both sides.

Talk. Talk and then talk some more.

Don't be afraid to tell each other how you feel or what you are thinking. Even if it is about the other person.

Do something different, break the cycle.

Scabble? DVD? Movie? Dinner? Swimming? Sex? Walking?

Just make time to de-clutter your heads. When DH gets in, he most likely doesn't want to talk about his day, I bet he'd rather just eat and veg.

My dad is the same. He has a very stressful higher management job. Drives my mother nuts! But, they know how he is so the work around it.

He needs to learn to open up to you, that you will not judge him, only listen and try to help him. You love each other, you are in love too.

You will be okay, in time. xxxx

JWN - you just oooooooooze eligance.

Thanks Zany,
yup the drink sure does make everything worse.

My Dc's are pretty grown up, one at uni, and one going in September. Dh and I can pretty much go where, and when we like.

I think one of the problems is that although I have always worked, my DC's are my life, and I have spent 18 years trying to be perfect mum (certainly not succeeding in at least one way [wobbly smile], and I am finding the change to being just me again really hard.

Dh did admit to me, that when I am low he finds it easier to know what to do, almost exactly what Christiane said earlier.

Mouse Hugs and kisses, thank you. xx

I can imagine Thurso that it will take some adjusting to be YOU again after being a Mum first for so long. Know what you mean thought about DC's being your life - I am even taking mine out for dinner on Valentines night, early though so I won't get too many sympathetic smiles from annoying lovely couples.

It does sound as though thelines of communication is opening up between the two of you which is good.

Thanks MIFLAW. That is both helpful and reassuring.

thurso!! you poor love!, and your dh too! - the thing is, when i read your posts i see that you both have the will to make your marriage work!, i do think that 'life' can get in the way, being lovers takes time and effort and sometimes it takes all our time and effort to just keep the roof over our heads and shoes on the kids feet - with your dcs now leaving home and you regaining some independence you and dh are both starting a different stage of life, i think it happens to all of us over time, just hang on in there, try and stay sober and just try and make a bit of time for each other, but, dont put too much pressure on yourselves to try and make everything 'perfect' straight away!, like mouse says, have a few date nights, watch a film, go out for a meal, just dont talk too deeply everytime you are together! try and laugh and regain your sense of fun with each other and above all, give it some time!

Thurso that's tough. DH and i have been married 24 years this year so I get the housemate thing. He also has mental health problems such as depression and paranoia, which can make things rather suffocating for me. i think his neediness is a factor in my drinking, although, of course I also have the option to say no!
Hang in there....
Mouse hello my lovely
JWN you sound dead posh
Chardonnay comoe on girl, you can do it just for today

Alright Ma.

Well, so far today we have lost four fence panels and gained several chickens.

Not a bad swap.

at Mouse
Weather here is seriously shite - absolute monsoon weather outside and has been all day. Not looking forward to the hour's drive home in this.

No Ma it's not great is it?

Safe journey xx