The Brave Babes Battle Bus - We're All Going On A Sober Holiday!

[Mouseface]

Hello, I'm Mouse

Welcome to the Brave Babe's Bus. This is a bus full of drinkers old and new, sober and not, and those who are somewhere in between.

We are all at different levels of sober so you can bet that one of us has walked in your shoes.

If you want advice and support then you're in the right place.

Come take a seat or just lurk, we're happy to have you along for the ride.

And here is a link to the last thread so you can catch up on the journey so far HERE

" i know i'm not alcohol dependent as in the physiological side" - that's probably true. But very few alcoholics actually are until really quite far down the road. It is not the dependence that keeps us drinking - otherwise, even those that ARE dependent, once they had been through treatment, would never drink again. Of course, many do. It is the (to coin a technical term) fucked up head that is the problem, telling us that next time will be different, that there is no problem because we can still remember a day last March when we went home after two pints.

Alcoholism, as I undersatnd it, is an inability to handle life on life's terms - whenever life gets too good, or bad, or boring, or exciting, or even too lifelike, we need a way out. For alcoholics, the way out is a drink; but, once the drink is taken, the alcoholic wants another one. Perhaps this is a physical thing; perhaps it is just the perfectly logical (but sadly wrong) position that, if one drink makes you feel great, two will make you feel twice as great. Whatever. The drink is almost coincidental - it's the need to be in charge and to be able to escape from whatever life throws at us (rather than facing it like those sad, boring, "ordinary" people we meet every day) that marks out the alcoholic as such.

Bolly Today you will not be drinking. Well done. Keep posting if it helps

Can I just say, that all the time I am not drinking, I am perfectly able to see alcohol for what it is. I can honestly say that after a year it is very easy to decide not to drink, infact you couldn't pay me to drink these days What I know without a shadow of a doubt is that once that stuff is in my bloodstream, I will fall head over heals in love with the sensation, and another glass will feel like a good idea, after that, another three will be an even better idea, then all bets are off!! At some point much later I will either become a horribly self pitying emotional wreck, or I will tell somone to fuck off for some mad reason. I HATE both of those women they are no longer welcome in my life. Te only way they can ever come back is via a bottle of chilled white wine. x

If it helps you one way or the other, SAF, I have set out to get drunk probably two dozen times in my life, maximum.

For the last two years of my drinking (maybe more) I was drunk practically every night.

Maybe you get drunk less often than that - but my point is that you don't need to want to get drunk to be an alcoholic. Sometimes, the biggest sign of all that you have a problem is that it "just happens".

SAF you sound like you are getting your head round this, we all have to try to make some sense of the madness, we may all reach different conclusions, and take different journey's, as long as we get there in the end safe and sound is all that matters. If that makes sense?

SAF I am also in the 'I don't want to be drunk but I want to keep drinking' phase. Doesn't make any sense when you write it down but I know what you mean. The thing is, I could switch to non-alcohlic wine/beer but have never done that, so obviously it is the alcohol I'm after, not just the taste.

Presumably this is why the 'herbal' cigarettes don't work when people are trying to quite smoking. It's not the 'taste' or 'inhaling' they want, it's the nicotine.

I love the Alan Carr phrase "I would no more put a cigarette in my mouth than I would put it in in my ear" or something to that effect. Once the physical addiction is gone, you have to deal with the mental or emotional addiction which is why I think alcohol is harder to quit than nicotine.

hi. not drinking but a tough day. giving away our old car seat and baby pram today. am trying to work but in bits.

Sorry for interrupting discussion, just needed to post for myself. don't feel like drinking would just like to disappear for a bit.

SAF yes I have a lovely DD, who is 3.5, absolutely wonderful and healthy.

Two mcs in 2009, too bonkers and unhealthy to try again till this year. Just always wanted two children. DD keeps telling me to grow a baby in my tummy because she wants to be a sister.

Have major work deadline for 5pm which I will miss, so workign all night so that they don't go ballistic on me!

SAF - MsGee has a gorgeous DD.

Hello all, I'm back! Did you miss me? [hopeful emoticon]

IsinDe - come here lovely, I'll pass Nemo to you and you can have as many cuddles as you like.

Jemima - I was going to suggest an infection before I saw you had that diagnosis. Thank Jeff you went to A&E. I'm surprised they didn't put you on IV antibiotics and admit you for 24 hour obs. How utterly horrid for you!

How are you today? Can I suggest that you keep the sores clean and dry? Bathe with cooled boiled water and then dry them by patting? I'm sure you've been told this before. My psoriasis gets to that point when I'm really stressed or worried.

I ended up having to lie down with a cotton sheet to cover me up. I'm so sorry that you feel so ill. xx

Ma - Nemo is scratching less, but I need to re-treat him on Thursday just in case!

Hello to the new Babes , welcome to the Bus.

venus - great e-mail

Well, what a weekend I had. Mad busy getting everything ready for BIL's 40th. It was so lovely to see all of DH's family and be with them for the whole weekend.

Nemo had an awesome time, really sociable and of course adored by all those who hadn't seen him before.

I'm ashamed to say that I drank a lot this weekend. Which is stupid for two reasons. 1) drinking makes my meds double in strength and I lose the ability to talk, lose the use of my arms and forget what I was saying.....hmm, just like a drunk dose anyway? And 2) i really enjoyed drinking with everyone there. Staying up and talking for hours with a nice bottle of wine.

So I need to re-think what I'm doing. I drank last night. And I've had a drink with lunch to counteract the hangover I've had all weekend.

It's not worked obviously. Now I just have the big bundle of guilt dragging me down.

I'm really shocked that I slipped back to this so quickly but I know that most of you won't be, especially MIF.

So, I'm sorry to ignore the posts of others but for me to drink in the day is making me really worry about why I'm doing it.

I haven't told DH. I've only just admitted it here, right now.

*does not dose

msgee it is so crap when you have to do things like that. I'd always imagined myself with a whole brood of happy children. Had one, and life changed . Exh became controlling and abusive and I faded to a shadow of my former self. 5 years later dc2 was born (conceived under horrible circumstances) and then we split up. Selling the baby stuff was like selling all the dreams I'd ever had.

When dp and I got together we made a conscious (and difficult) decision not to have children together, for the sake of my existing dc. I was as broody as fuck for a long time, but I'm so glad we did what we did, not just because we now have a lovely adult life, but also because dc1 suffered from terrible depression during teenage and I can't imagine the (additional) guilt I'd have felt if I thought that having another child had contributed to that.

dear, dear, msgee bask in the love and humour of your lovely daughter (iirc they are so funny and fantastic at that age ), and build a long and loving relationship with your dp.

mouse is there anything that I could say that would help? I wrote a post to you last week because I thought I recognised your 'symptoms'. You sounded exhausted (not surprising) but you also sounded sort of reckless. Your resolve to stick to it all for the sake of your darling nemo had sunk under the weight of everyday life. It's funny how on here, through the anonymous medium of t'internet, it still feels as though you can feel subtle changes in people's moods and thinking.

I think you know what you need to do little mouse. I understand that you often can moderate your drinking, have a glass or two of wine with dp, or a beer with a curry. But for the moment, it feels like it's back to basics time. What non alcoholic drinks are you going to have TONIGHT? Focus on that, focus on going to bed sober, so that (if possible) you sleep, and if not possible, you are there in every capacity for nemo.

You are doing such a fantastic job, you have faced things that might have broken many other women, yet here you are still fighting, and most importantly fighting for yourself. Go heromouse you can do it.

Echo what Venus says Mouse.

Thank you venus, your words mean a lot. I know exactly what you mean about selling your dreams.

I know that in hindsight I will regret the decisin and know that it was the right decision for us (if that makes sense). And my DD is lovely - once I crack this work / life balance, life will be good!! And yes, she is funny and wonderful. Her favourite thing at the moment is getting cross with me and telling me I can't come to her party. I then bark like a dog and all is forgiven. Its a bizarre life being three!

mouse (welcome back - HUG). Thank you for saying DD is gorgeous (she takes after her ma you know!).

Now then, don't overthink it .. don't replay the whole weekend and re-think things. All that went wrong was the first drink ... :) because we know that for the most part that is all it takes. And drinking is fun yeah?? Staying up till the early hours yeah?? Oh wait ... what about the hangover or the guilt? The drink to combat the hangover .... mouse over the past year you have done brilliantly well. You just made one bad call and for us, that leads to many more. So don't beat yourself up, just don't have another drink today. Be kind to yourself. Tmrw is another day.

msgee I know what you mean about the bizarre life of a 3 year old. I remember having to play "poor lost kitten" where I would hide under the duvet and meoww pitifully untill dd came and reassured me that "mummy kitten loved me"

We also had lots of imaginary friends - Hammy and Boots - one was a horse and I never found out what the other was, but it was small enough to jump in through the window of a moving car.

No. Just going back to hosp. Am taking nightie and big knickers, just in case.

juggling ask for iv antibiotic if you need them.

And if you can bear it, let people on here know where youa re, you never know there might just be someone nearby who can come and hold your peeling hand.