The Brave Babes Carry On Past The Easter Booze Offers.

[NotTheMessiahJustMouseface]

Hello,

I'm Mouse, well, I am usually!

Welcome to the Brave Babes Bus.

This is a journey of sobriety, started almost a year ago by the wonderful jesuswhatnext. So why not come aboard and find a seat. There's heaps of support on here whether you are sober, drinking or somewhere in the middle.

And, for those of you who want a bit of history, here are the Previous Threads

now QO! - right my love im about to be brisk!

get your bum off the sofa and get in the shower!, you are now wallowing in self pity and its not fair on dd!, you DONT need to call SS, you DO need to get a grip though! - OK, you have fucked up big styly, you are sorry, not washing and living like a slob will not change it!

where are you?, if i can i will drive over later and give you hand, but the first effort has to come from you!

SO

GET UP!
WASH!
OPEN THE CURTAINS AND A WINDOW!
SORT OUT YOURS AND DDS BEDS FOR LATER!
FIND SOME FOOD AND SORT OUT A MEAL!

COME ON! - TODAY COULD BE THE START OF SOMETHING MUCH BETTER!

Good practical advice JWN, if you take this advice Qo you will feel so much better, the longer you lie there the more you will feel sorry for yourself.

thanks mouse and jwn.
I know. I know. As with everything though, there are other complications....I think I might let them declare us bankrupt instead of keeping trying to make it. then the flat will be sold and we wil have to start over, one way or another. I would sell it myself as it binds us together but don't even have the money to put it on the market, not even on a private website.
DH finally answered his phone so he's alive anyway.
going back to the docs tomorrow.
thank you all for your support - its just too big for me right now because of other things

Mouse - I'm also on citalopram after 4 (yes 4 ) years on fluoxetine.

I've recently switched onto the citalopram and feel much better for it but know that there's nasty side effects that come from mixing them with drink that you and MIFLAW have mentioned. Another reason to either cut down my drinking dramatically or stop all together x

Qo please listen to the wise JWN - she's offered you some great advice there and I agree with mouse that phoning SS might not be such a good idea at this stage? Surely you've got the chance to put this right yourself? You haven't drank since when, Sunday? You're already off to a good start by not picking up! x

Ma I don't know much about your back story but I could relate to much of what mouse said to you earlier. Hope you're as OK as you can be x

Bugger - epic bolding fail there!

WasOnce

If you are a problem drinker you will almost certainly find that stopping is much, MUCH easier and more pleasurable than cutting down.

Was - what dose are you on now? I found Fluoxetine was useless for me, I actually felt worse on it and even like ending it all.

Ma - fuck it! What have you got to lose by declaring that you are bankrupt? It can't get any worse than where you are now can it?

Debt Free Direct are a good place to start. Yes you'd be bankrupt, but at least the creditors would go away. This must be eating you up inside. I can't begin to imagine how you cope day in day out, but then again, I guess you don't.

Look into debt resolution if you haven't already. I know CAB can only do so much for you.

Maybe it's time to let this happen. I know how much of a proud person you are, how much this means to you but sometimes, letting go and giving in (not to the drink) are better for all involved.

I wish I could do more, I really do.

Why is it that the really nice people in this world, are the ones who get shat on from a great height?!

Life sucks.

And by the way, MIFLAW is right re the stopping. I tried to cut down at first. Then tried again and then again.

Eventually, I took the hint and stopped.

I really don't enjoy being pissed. I can't stand it in fact. The out of control feeling, the nausea, the panic, the tears, the downer the next day or three.

It's just not worth it. But you won't ever get the comparison until you have stopped for a longer period of time than just a few days or weeks.

I'm lucky in that I have found the best outcome for me and alcohol.

Is there anyone around who can answer a very quick question re AA meetings?

The search results for my local group all refer to different "types" for different evenings. If I were to just turn up, would it matter to which? (eg, tonight is described as MULTI-MTG: STEP & TRADITION,)

Sorry for barging in without catching up first.

tristmum yes there are likely to be some differences - a STEP meeting is more likely to discuss the steps, but I recall (maybe not correctly) that if someone totally new is there, then they will do whatever is necessary for that person - they will not turn you away because you've gone to the 'wrong' meeting. So don't let the title put you off. Go along. Some meetings you might like, others you might not like. Experiment, try them out, see what works for you.

Hi isindie hope you and you little ones had a good break - they'll still be too young for chocolate - make the most of it and eat it all yourself

Thank you Isinde

Depends on if DH is back in time in any event!

x-posted - thanks Venus too.

Tristmum

you are welcome at any meeting and, regardless of how it is described, all but the most hardcore are much more a function of who shows up on the night than what the Where To find says it is.

Good luck and enjoy!

Merlincat - 17 years? Immense. Well done - obviously if you're still going it's because it's working for you!

Hi merlin. I'm another who has found that cutting down just tormented me. I was forever adding up how many units I'd pretended had to drink, dividing that by the number of excuses that I could dream up, subtracting the (small) number of days that year when I'd not had a drink, and convincing myself that it was OK if I just had ONE more . I knew it was load of tosh. I knew that I was drinking waaaaaay too much, I knew that hiding empty bottles from my dp and having sneaky drinks when out in social situations showed that I was far, far from being in control.

It is so much damn easier just to have an apple juice and soda or a big mug of peppermint tea.

ma I do feel for you. I think that it doesn't really matter what your exact circumstances are, whether you have money or whether you have no money, there are many, many things that keep us locked in a relationship - even when we know it's doing us no good. My financial circumstances were different to yours but I still stayed with exh for far too many years AFTER I'd recognised that I was truly unhappy. I remember lying in bed (in a similar situation to you, weighing up whether to 'give-in' or deal with the fall out) and being unable to comprehend that this was all there was to life. Yet I still stayed for another 5 years of that exact same shit.

For me, one day, a straw broke the camel's back, and I just thought fuck it!

Maybe, ma there will be 'straw moment' for you one day, and you will break free and regain yourself in some way or another. Until then, keep posting. Lots of us here understand.

But hey, we also understand that drinking aint going to make any of it better x

qo are you still around and reading? How are you doing? If you're reading this on Tuesday evening then please just do ONE thing for yourself before you go to bed. Don't try to sort everything, just do one thing, anything. Wash your face, or read your dd a favourite book, or find clean knickers ready for the morning.

Mouse I started off on 40mg of fluoxetine (which incidently was started after a few huge benders that left me a shaking, quivering wreck that was scared to leave the house) then cut down to 20mg.

Stayed on that dose up until a month ago, tried changing to 10mg of Citalopram but it wasn't enough (panic attacks) so it was upped to 20mg and I feel that it's a better dose for me. I have a long history of depression which stems from having post traumatic stress when I was 19. I also started abusing alcohol round about that time, but stopped during my pregnancies and whilst bf and actually had many a year when I didn't really drink much at all, maybe a bottle on a Friday night and that was it.

But over the past 4-5 years I've gotten way out of control and I really appreciate the advice I've been given tonight RE cutting down. I know that I've tried to moderate things before and I was always end up back where I started. So I guess I know what you're all saying is true and it's up to me to haul myself up again.

am on 10mg of Citalopram but need somethign stronger I think. Tried to get DH to talk but to no avail. Suggested he turn round from his computer game for 5 minutes if he wanted to talk and he said "he wasn't prepared to". I made a very sarcastic comment about his priorities and asked where I came in in his list of football, Radio Five Live, beer, Facebook and more football but he refused to answer.
He muttered something abut sorting things out, but that's as far as we got.
Might as well go to bed, I suppose.

ma take a good book with you, or a mug of tea and a biscuit. Or take a note book and write, or draw, or dream.

Was

You need to remain monitored over the next few weeks, months. Am I right in thinking you've been on Citalopram for about a month at 20mg?

If your main source of issues are panic attacks and anxiety, then you will need to gradually increase the dose, with the help of your GP.

Do you take anything else? Sleepers? Diazipam? Anything as a 'buffer' to regulate your attacks? You might find that you are worse before you are better too.

Sorry, I know I'm bombarding you here, I'm just tyring to understand you IYSWIM......

Where are you geographically? Are you near Shropshire at all? I'd be happy to meet with you to go over some fine tuning! I'm no expert or HCP but I've done plenty of reserach and have had a good few years of mental health meds in one form or another.

Really, if you want to talk, just let me know. It's a scary place sometimes xx