The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Spring Into Summer.

[Mouseface]

Hello

Welcome to The Brave Babes Battle Bus.

This is a quest full of Babes, all fighting to remain sober, cut down or are somewhere in between right now.

You ticket to travel is free, it won't expire, and the Bus will always be here, even if there are days when you are not. So come say hi.

I'm Mouse. I have a thing for cheese and vodka, not together, well, not always!

Here is a LINK to the last thread, where you can read all of the previous threads and the journeys so far.

Thorn so sorry lovely. Start again tomorrow - fall down seven times get up eight times :)

Holly Well done for ploughing your way through my huge post

On therapy I kept going until I found the right person. Saw four or five - there are some VERY bad practitioners out there but the lady I eventually worked with was amazing -she helped me save my life. I so WISH I had got professional help sooner.

It didn't sound flippant at all. It felt to the point and spot on x

BOING

Yes, it's just turned 7am on a Sunday, and I am UP and about! I am really valuing these early morning times.

It has suddenly dawned on me how precious life is, how importnat not to waste it, especially when stll relatively young and active. The less time one has, the more precious it becomes...

And I just found this, online:

^"Ah, drink, it makes the shy bold and the repressed randy; it enables you to talk to a man at a wedding about his membership of the Roundheads Re-enactment Society; it permits you to participate willingly in a karaoke evening; and it is your certain friend for the night, if not the morning.
Drink makes you feel the way you should without drink, and after that it makes you feel like shit."^

Thorn hope you are ok this morn
mouse How are you today, furry one?
Everyone else- have a good day. :)

very quick check in - just off to run the Race for Life. Each year i run for my dear friend in France who has had breast cancer twice. this year, the DD's secretly arranged to get her over here - what a HUGE wonderful surprise it was! she is here to cheer me on
wish me luck.
Been off the thread a day or two - hope all is well with everyone
m

thornrose hope you're feeling OK this morning. You have some choices: you can either be really hard on yourself, you can tell yourself that you're a useless alcoholic and that you'll never beat this thing, and that it's so unfair that you can't drink normally, and you can drown your misery in booze. OR you can look back on the last couple of days and say, well that was an interesting experiment, and the results show me that even after a couple of weeks of not drinking, I'm not 'cured', and I still have the desire to drink like I used to. That was a useful experiment. Record the results, because now you know. That means you don't have to do that particular experiment again.

But you also know what you did in the first few hours and days that helped you to be sober for 2 weeks. Now THAT is an experiment worth repeating (and I think you might find it easier than the first time).

4c4 I like your quote - for me the most interesting part of it is the word SHOULD, because I've been finding out the the only person who really thinks I SHOULD be different to how I actually am, is myself. If I am shy, then other people are fine with that, none of them think I should be any different, it's only me that thinks that.

Ma best of luck with the Race for Life. What lovely DDs. You should be rightly proud of them. Hope you get some time to catch up with your friend.

Morning all. Not posting much but lurking and catching up mostly at weekends only.

Hope everyone has a good day and manages their relationship with drink as they choose to, just for today. For me that means today I will not be drinking and the day will bring good things and challenges, none of which would be improved with a glass of crisp dry white to hand!

Morning

Thornrose, I agree with everything that venus said. There's absolutely no point in beating yourself up about what happened but there's great store in learning from it x

I tell you what, I'm starting to feel quite differently with a little bit of sober time (only 11 days but better than I've done in a long while) behind me. I've managed to fend off the urge to drink several times during those 11 days, simply by doing the things suggested in AA. I had an inkling that starting the steps would make a difference and I was right I spent a large part of friday and yesterday having the 'I will, I won't' argument going round and round in my head and normally once that argument starts I know that eventually I'll hit the bottle, but I didn't WAHEY! I'm quite astounded because my will power is appallingly bad so there must be something else at play here I'm starting to get a sense of what my HP is, and it ain't sauce, alcoholic or brown.

Horrid rainy day here which is a shame because I was having a washing frenzy yesterday and now I won't be able to get anything properly dry

Have a lovely day everyone

Ma - GO GIRL!!! What a lovely surprise to have your friend there. Such a nice thing to do. I hope you have a truly wonderful day, I'm so proud of you. xx

4c4 - I'm exhausted. Nemo has a cough which is BAD news for him because of his restricted airway. I've been up for most of the night repositioning him so he could breathe.

You know that feeling when you think you've done something or been somewhere or done something, that floaty, not quite in the room feel? That's how this little Mouse is today.

So far I've burnt my hand on the oven, give DH a random shopping list that made no sense, walked into a door frame, put the eggs under the sink and the oven gloves in the fridge......

Not sure that I'm fit to be doing anything today, but thank Jeff I'm not hungover.

Loved your quote too

Golly - NO ONLY's ALLOWED!! 11 days is MASSIVE, well done xx

Thorn - if you're out there, I hope that you are okay today and I too agree with what venus has said. Keep posting xx

No-one expects this not drinking lark to be easy, well actually, I did at first so ignore that. I thought I could do it no problem. I'm not an alcoholic, I don't have an abusive relationship with booze, I can handle my drink, I can go without............

The classic 'I don't need a drink, I want a drink, or seven...'

One of the many things I've learnt from this thread, is all Brave Babes will go about not drinking in different ways because that's how it works. I couldn't go to counselling because of my past fucking dreadful experiences with counselling. Even my most recent appointment with a counsellor had me running hobbling for the door.

I don't want to talk about why I have an abusive relationship with drink, or my past, what led me here, who led me here.

I've spent YEARS burying memories in boxes at the very back of my mind. The last thing I want or need is for someone to start unlocking them.

So it's not for me. But it may be for others. That's why I'd never tell anyone not to go to AA, counselling, their GP etc.........

Source the support that works for YOU and stick with it Babes xx

afternoon!

thorn, i hope you come back an post today, what everyone has said is so right - dont beat yourself up, there is absolutly nothing to be gained by it - just take today as a new fresh day when anything is possible!

we had a nice day yesterday, nephews drained our life force!

HOWEVER, dd and i have managed a huge horrible shout fest this morning where she told me what a shit mother i have been, that i was never there for her and she couldnt rely on me for anything during her teenage years - im alternating between feeling crap and bloody angry, i know i was drinking and behaving badly but fucking hell, i have also worked my fucking socks off, i have provided a fucking roof over her head and food in her tummy and birthday parties and pretty clothes and sleepovers and education and all that fucking shit that everyone does because they love their child and i know im flawed yadda yadda but really, cant i claim even a little respect for the good things ive done, cos there have been some good things and im fucked if im going to wear a fucking hair shirt for the rest of my natural! - dh is really getting me down, i feel that he has emotionally cut himself off from me and that he sees me as a just being a needy cow that now has new problems he has to deal with!

yes, i recognise that all the above is a selfish rant from a selfish alcoholic who has made a bloody fucking mess of everything and sitting on a huge cushion of self pity and self made misery but right now i need my family to tell me they love me enough to support me without having to keep on pointing out my faults and flaws - i know what they are, i bloody live with them and take to AA as often as i can - tbh, i feel like a little girl who needs her dad to tell her that everything will be alright!

and to carry on! - dd and i did get past the shouting stage and talked but now i feel even more guilty as i now feel that i expect too much from her!, i kind of off-loaded on to her and now i feel like i have treated her as a friend and not a daughter - I should be the strong one, I should be listening to her etc, not the other way round - right now i feel as big a failure as anyone could be, my ONLY saving grace is that im sober and tbh, the way i feel right now im wondering why i bother! - all i can think is that at least i have some sobriety now and can look back and see that picking up is the last thing i need to do!

Oh JWN it's so tough isn't it. And somehow our closest family seem able to know exactly what will hurt most when we are feeling vulnerable.

Can you take a step back from it, just for a little while. Yes our dcs are wonderful - but they are real people too, and that means that sometimes they can be hurtful and hateful in the comments they make. Sometimes they can be selfish and difficult. We all can.

But take comfort in this - if you are hurt, then it's because you are sober and you can feel things; if dd can say difficult things to you, then it's because she feels you can hear her (and maybe she needs to be heard). I know it feels really, really horrible, but deep in your heart you know that you weren't a shit mother - just look at the list of all the positive things you did!

JWN maybe one of the best life lessons that you can show dd now is that you can accept yourself as your really are (with all your glories and faults), no need to hide behind drink, no need to be wasted to deal with your emotions or to run from them. You are who you are, and if that means funny and noisy and bold and organised and needy and energetic and tired and human and shoe-loving.... and everything else..... then that's just fine. In fact it's better than fine - it's bloody marvellous. It's the unique combination of all of those that people love you for, and that you should love YOURSELF for.

You don't have to change a single one of those things, just accept that they are part of being you, and love yourself for each of them.

It already sounds as though you've raised a wonderful dd who is confident and proud of who she is, build on that by showing her the example of loving yourself.

venus - thanks!

yes, she does need to be heard and i desperatly want to be here for her, i think right now though i need to stop this emotional merry-go-round for a while, perhaps i too selfish but im tired of trying to be all things to all people, i have a feeling that i need to find something to replace the alcohol iyswim?, it was my 'friend' for so long that i suddenly feel very lonely again, its a different feeling from the 'alcoholic loneliness' i used to feel, oh, im so muddled i cant articulate how i 'feel' - just lately i have been reminded of so many things that happened before my drinking started and i just dont feel i have the capacity to deal with this kind of flooding of emotions and feelings i have now - i feel very childish and needy and not at all in control and i just dont like it - do 'normal' people get like this sometimes?, or is it just us?

i want to be and to be seen as, a loving compitant mother, a loving caring wife, a compitant business woman, someone my parents can rely in old age, a good sister and aunty, i want to be organised at home and present myself as well as i can - im failing miserably at everything right now and im losing my way, it terriffies me that im on a path back to chaos - other people seem to manage, why cant i?

Mouse so sorry - what an awful night.

JWN So sorry you're having such a shit time with dd

You KNOW you've been a good Mum - but look at all this you are saying about yourself:

Guilty
selfish
Selfish rant
selfish alcoholic
Bloody fucking mess of everything
huge cushion of self pity
self made misery

Please, please cut yourself some slack and stop beating yourself up. Being sober is HARD. You are doing brilliantly. Do something nice for yourself, today, please - something just for you. Treat yourself to something pretty -or have some quiet time, or read abook or watch a film - treat yourself as a loving parent would treat a child who is hurting.

So... a loving competent mother listens to her dd, takes the flack when her dd takes her anger out on you, treats her as a friend and a daughter, hurts when she thinks of how she might have let her down in the past, and organises an engagement party for her.... a loving caring wife panics when she thinks that she and alcohol might have ruined everything, takes time to work on her relationship, even plans to go to counselling, cares really deeply about whether the relationship is right..... a competent business woman faces potential downturn in the market by throwing herself into the business, working HARD at business networking, stays sober during business lunches, celebrates new contracts, and doesn't give up when the going looks tough..... a person whose parents can rely on them does amazing things to turn their life around, follows her mother around the shops muttering (rather than refusing to go); and loves her dad enough to want him to tell her it'll be OK.... a good sister and aunty can be relied upon to look after nephews, is sober enough to take them to the park, and plans to share the responsibility of caring for parents in their old age.... an organised person turns up regularly at AA meetings, sets up a women's group, can sometimes find the energy to bake like a demon, is never seen out with her hair in a mess, and always, always wears heels.

Now, JWN tell me which one of those descriptions isn't you? Because I've known you to do all of those.

And, JWN talk to your sister, talk to any of your friends, read posts on here. Can you find anyone, anyone at all who does feel guilt about being a crap mother, doesn't feel that their relationship is failing sometimes, doesn't feel that they have / will let thier parents, siblings, or friends down? It's not about being sober, it's about being human. Anyone who doesn't have those feelings and judgements about themselves would be utterly selfish and narcissistic, eogcentric and not very nice.

So my lovely, I hate to be the one to break the bad news but yes JWN if you feel all those things then you are predictably, boringly normal (I knew you'd hate to read that ). Emotional roller-coaster? Just let it flow - you don't have to beat it, you don't have to win. Let it pass, and carry on being the wonderful JWN that you are.

oh!! you are a wonderful lot! - venus, you have made me feel like a worthwhile person again! and thank you 4c4!, just when i needed a boost, you two have come along!

thank you!!!

L XXXXXXXXXXXX

note to self!, its 'competent'!!!

Thanks for all positive thoughts about my fall from grace last night!
I can view it as an experiment venus and I think that it was in a way.
I'm not beating myself up, just moving on swiftly.
I only drank 2 days out of 17 for that I am proud.

thorn!!, be VERY proud!

And JWN you have helped me this afternoon. I am at home on my own, dh is out till late. We had friends over last night and they brought wine. So I've been sat here knowing that there's booze available, and to be honest there's nothing I'd like more than to open one of the bottles... or so I thought.

This afternoon I've found something I'd like more than that bottle, I'd rather be here on mn in the company of people who are/have been/will be in the same place as I am. Thank you for posting something that I could ramble on about

thats all right venus! anytime!

JWN Sorry you're having a crap day so far. I'm having my own teenage issues here so I'm in no position to advise unfortunately.

Mine involve feeling equally like I must have been a crap mother to have bred such a monster. One who has behaved in such a manner in the past that she now bullies me and dh into giving her what she wants because we're so bloody scared of the consequences. In the last 24 hours this has involved driving over sixty miles to avoid her smashing someone else's house up, when there were other options that just didn't suit her quite as nicely. I've been in tears several times this morning and just feel utterly powerless over the situation. I made a decision some time ago that if she gets violent/destructive again then I will be calling the police, but I can't allow her to do that in someone else's home hence the long drives to get her out of their house. By the looks of her she took something (drugs) last night, so the worst is yet to come.

She's home now and I cannot bring myself to even look at her. I'm ashamed to say that I don't want to live with her right now but I also have massive amounts of guilt about what my part in her turning out this way has been. It would be extremely easy to pick up a drink right now but I won't because it would make things ten times worse.

Thornrose well done on coming back x

JWN * unmusnetty hugs(((())))
Venus I loved your response to JWN!
Thorn well done!

Oh and JWN 'competent' is one of my 4Cs. The others are caring, capable and compassionate... some days more than others, but, hey, we're all works in progress.

JWN - to me this is like forgiving an infidelity (sp?) or broken trust, I'm not going to say what venus and 4c4 have already said so very well.

Here's my take on it. She feels let down by you, after all that you have both been through she still holds a stick with which to beat you. Up until now, you've not had this conversation so she's bottled it up for the last 12 months.

Now she feels safe enough to tell you how she felt for all those years. She needs to get this out, she needs to blame you. She needs to hurt you, just like you hurt her. Not intentionally, but still..........

This is the time that she can get rid of it all, she's ready to tell you, she feels you are strong enough. Not that you are, but she is.

She's drawing a line under the past as her life moves forward, it had to happen. You let her down, you are the one person that she could always rely on, and she resents you wanting/needing alcohol more than her.

She doesn't understand how hard it's been for you this last 12 months. You have turned your life upside down, inside out and back to front. No easy task!

You thought that the rough had gone and only the smooth remained. Well, hopefully now that she's letting go of her anger, hurt, disappointment and fears, the road will be much smoother.

I hope with all of my heart L that this is the last time that this happens between you. Throwing your mistakes back in your face will not be productive for either of you. Draw a line.

Huge hugs lady xxxx