The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Kicking The Devilish Demon Drink Into Touch This Hallowe'en!. Mwahahahaha!

[Mwahahahahahahahouseface]

Hello

I'm Mouse, well normally! [hgrin]

Welcome to the Bus. We are a mixed bunch of Babes, some of us drink, some of us don't and some of us are trying to find out the best way to cut down or stop completely.

There is plenty of room on the Bus for everyone so, come say hi. [hsmile]

And, if you'd like to see what brought us all here, you can read all of the past threads, including the original one by JWN RIGHT HERE

Hi SaF - not around online much at the moment as ferociously busy, but called in briefly and just wanted to say I know exactly what you mean - from some of your previous posts I think your drinking pattern is very similar to mine. I had a couple of mid week drinks last week (but was pretty good over the weekend to compensate), and I know that I had them deliberately, for the calculated purpose of "taking the edge off", as you put it. There's a small part of my mind that still holds onto the thought that that's the lesser of two evils, if that makes any sense - although that only holds true if I don't go down the slippery slope of regular / automatic / too much drinking, if that makes sense? Not sure I'm ever going to be an ordinary drinker. Or ordinary thinker, which I suspect is the underlying problem. :)

They want my attention but I don't have the stamina sober. Right now I have one calling me to look at something. If I could get in from work and meditate or something I reckon I'd knock it on the head but I have 4 hours of teeth grinding fake cheeriness for my beloved kids. I crash out on the sofa every night and the horrible cycle starts again the next day where I've failed to get school uniforms or something so I have to get up before 6 to catch up. Ugh

Leatherette

Hello. Just a very, very quick one. I know just how you feel. I have three children pecking my head right now and I know just how tempting it is to reach for the wine. But it will only make things worse. Please try not to drink tonight, give yourself a chance to see how different your life can be.

I will be back later (DS3 won't stop talking to me so I must go!). Well done for posting here. Since my first post a month or two ago I feel soooo much better. If I can stop drinking so much so can you!!

X

Leather

I don't have the stamina sober

Have you ever tried it sober?

Honestly, drinking just makes everything so much harder. As you say, you don't get prepared for tomorrow, so you wake up hungover, swearing you're not going to drink and you're tired and irritable and worn out by 7am I expect.

How old are your children? Bedtime routines can be established. I know it seems impossible, but tackling the drinking will help you feel able to tackle everything else. Drink does not make you cope better, it gives the appearance of helping you cope.

Hey Babes - i am really sorry but no time to read back

I NEED TO GET IT OUT..........

fucking fucking fucking hell

Mother dying - no cure - a 'few' years - chemo

my sisters and brother please JUST FUCK OFF...... please please please

I thank you my lovely babes

for the time being.......................

Mouse

Get your own fecking cheese my love.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello silver - new here - what have your brothers and sisters done?

I got to 8 but I couldn't go further. I've done this every night for 20 years. I truly believe I can only cut down and then stop. I want to stop. But cold turkey frightens me like nothing else. I have never had a night off in my adult life when I wasn't very ill or pregnant. I counted the days of my pregnancies till I could drink again. I know I'm killing myself and I know I have no idea if my kids wake up in the night but somehow I keep going and I look normal at work ( I think) and I use my eye drops and get through each day. I want to get better.

Silver don't go !!

I know it's awful for you at the moment but stay with us on the bus. Take a back seat if you like, and keep spilling your guts. My MIL is the same. She was given a maximum of 5 years and that was a year ago this month . It's so hard, I know, my lovely. x

Silver, so sorry about your mum. I'm sorry, I don't know what to say. Take care of yourself as well as your mum x

Leatherette, I so know where you're coming from. I think my first post was basically me saying I couldn't cope with the bedtime routine without a drink. Your house sounds just like ours around tea time and bedtime. I find it so hard. They argue, fight, cry, whinge, and all at a time when I'm my most tired, and obviously they are too. I started off having a glass of wine to help with the tension, and up to a month or so ago I was having at least a bottle, almost every night, and it was getting to the point where if I'd only had one bottle of wine I thought I'd done well . And every morning I would wake up, feeling like shit obviously, swear that I was never going to drink again, then, come tea-time, I'd be at it again. Never thought I would be able to stop the cycle.

Now, although I still have a major problem (found myself drinking two bottles on Saturday ) and I feel so incredibly unqualified to post on here trying to help, I am now managing to only drink at weekends. This has made a huge difference to my life - I sleep better, feel better physically, emotionally and mentally, and I am managing to build up my previously non-existent self-esteem. God I'm waffling aren't I? I just wanted to say that there are people here who know how you feel, who can help and support you, and who you can be completely honest with. It has been a huge help to me. Hope it helps you too.

Good luck x

oh silver stay with us.
for God's sake don't let that nutter nice person isindie drive - she's not safe on the roads!!
leatherette pretty much a bottle a night here too.Try and fail on a nightly basis.

Oh sillysillymum thank you. You give me hope. If I could get to the point where I drink nothing in the week then I would be so happy. Just getting to 8pm tonight was so hard. What did you do? How did you manage? I before I had kids was a heavy drinker but a social one. I drank in bars and out. I was always out. But the babies meant I now drink at home. I feel such a mess

Erm - newbie - but isn't silver saying she needs to shout and run? I don't think she said she was leaving?

I think she said get IT Out not get out

Leather I think Mouse started to cut down almost literally a drink at a time to start with.

I cut out drinking Monday - Thursday. Then Sunday - Thursday. Now if I drink it's usually on a Friday or Saturday unless I'm socialising on Sunday. But I don't drink a lot on Sunday because I've got used to going to work on Monday without a hangover and I honestly don't think I could go back to struggling through the working day like I did before. I don't know how I did it.

I haven't had anything to drink for 8 days now, because I have no reason to drink but I was on a bottle of wine almost every day when I joined the bus. Maybe tomorrow, you could try to get to 8.30 before you drink.

Whatever you are trying, keep posting x

Silly when I first started cutting back I used to drink a lot at weekends too. It's like a 'reward' for getting through the week. I would have a lovely evening drinking on Saturday, but a totally shit Sunday because of the horrendous hangover. Now I prefer to not drink and enjoy both my days at the weekend

Fairenuff, you sound like you're where I want to be! I know I'm doing so much better than I thought I would but the slip up on Saturday means there's no chance of any complacency. You're right, getting pjssed was my reward for not drinking during the week...really clever. I felt so good during the week, and absolutely dreadful on Sunday. Mind you, I found myself in a shop on the way home tonight and found myself buying a bottle (just so I had spent enough to be able to use my card you understand...I'm surprised to say it is still in the fridge, unopened ). Well done on the weight loss by the way. That is amazing. You must feel so proud of yourself. That's not easy to do, especially when you're battling with booze too.

Leatherette, well as you can see I have not conquered my drinking problem yet! But what has helped me is planning the teatime/bedtime time a lot more and doing whatever I could to decrease the urge to drink. That was my main focus - to decrease my stress levels at this time, so I was less inclined to feel like I HAD to have a drink. So I had really easy meals planned, tried to make sure I didn't have anything else I had to do at the same time (so I could just focus on the kids), and also I cut out the coffee! I'm irritable enough without the caffeine! And I started the bath and bedtime routine earlier so if they did mess about (if?!) I wouldn't be watching the clock and getting even more wound up. And when they were in bed I stuffed my face with all sorts of chocolates, biscuits, toasties, hot chocolate, anything so long as it wasn't alcoholic! Maybe that's why I haven't lost weight... And I keep reading here. Keeps me focused (most of the time...).

I hope you manage to cut down for a few days just to see how much better you can feel. I can't believe I managed to cope feeling the way I did almost every day. Like someone else said before, everything is harder when you're drinking.

Good luck everyone x

Morning (gingerly steps on the bus with a throbbing head) I am so cross with myself, I really was not going to drink last night. Made dinner spent time with DS, came to dinner table and DP had large glass of wine waiting, because he wanted to drink. I know could have put it back in the bottle but didn't. I am weak and he is a tosser. Sorry for the rant but it is is like wafting chocolate cake under a chocoholic nose when they are on a diet. I want to not drink during the week and sometimes I actually manage this but DH seems to sabotage this, literally putting a glass on of wine in my hand just so he can justify his drinking, I know I should be stronger and sometimes I am but not last night. Anyway half a bottle of bourbon later ( last night) I feel all think headed and not fresh and alive like a should be.

I need some kind of coping strategy, any ideas?

Hi Blossom - me and DH are the same. One of us will have a tiny bit of will power and the other will sabotage it. I almost never buy alcohol - probably once every ten days but he always comes home with some. I will say 'I'm going to find tonight without any alcohol really hard' and he will say 'oh for goodness sake, are you going or am I? ' and I dont have the will power to stop him. Its a well worn script that we both know. Its dreadful.

I live in a mess. I just want one day when there is no stress or mess when I can just get through the hours I need to get through to start fresh the next day and tackle some of the problems. I used to have an immaculate house and now its a pig sty. I know its a cycle but I am trying to break it now. Getting out of bed is so hard every morning and I find my kids such hard work. I can't go on like this.

Hi Leather, I feel like crying this morning. I also do not buy alcohol during the week. So how do we find the ability to resist. My house also a tip, though I do work full time and am the only person in this house that does anything.

I work full time too. A 4 year old and a 5 year old. My life feels like a slow motion car crash

Test

A lurker delurking here. My life is a car crash too.

vtechurope - hi - whats your story?
I'm on nearly 2 bottles of wine a day although I did start later and have quite a lot less last night with the help of this thread. I feel less shit today than usual.

About the same as you. But it is nearly destroying the family, my job etc.

Leather, I used to do 2 bottles of wine, have now switched to bourbon and diet coke seems a little easier on the waistline, god how sad that sounds. Trouble all the coke makes a little jittery, hands are shaking this morning

legalalien - thanks for popping on to support despite being so busy - i hope things calm down soon and i've remembered i've done nothing about your ds's football cards! you have to pm me your address or find me on fb and do it there?

leatherette - bedtime shouldn't tbe that manic really should it? i wonder if what alcohol does in these circumstances is allows us to 'cope' with chaos at the expense of actually sorting things out so that they're not chaos anymore? think about what ages they are and what responsibilities they could take and what you'd like to work towards them being able to do and then present them with the plan and go for it - big them up about their new jobs/challenges etc and praise like mad as they progress. do it sober and focussed and write yourself a list of what you have to get done in the evening - unifroms sorted, bags packed etc. routines take a while and a bit of focus to really establish but then your'e there and it gets easier.

having said all this i am the mother of just one child but i'm the aunt of three and used to look after them after school for a year and was the one to get routines and rules and systems engrained in their reluctant heads till it became automatic with all but one who is the flakiest child known to man but even he improved. stop doing it all and be the manager instead - more effort at first but eventually a lot easier. you remind me a bit of my sister in your post hence thinking of them and the work i did with them.

sorry for mad lecture but you know you've got to sort this rather than have it as an excuse for drinking. your house, you're in control, get things how you want them.