The Brave Babes Battle Bus - On Their Way To Spread The Festive Cheer, Without The Beer!

[Mouseface]

Hello, I'm mouse.

I have an obsession with drinking, I can't have a drink, not just one..... it has to be more. Always more.

So, I got on the Bus, this Bus, full of Brave Babes who will help and support me all the way. Come say hi, grab a seat and a . We're a real mixed bunch that share one thing without any doubt - alcohol abuse.

And if you want to read about our history, it's HERE

See you on the Bus xx

enjoy seeing dd venus - it's so nice arriving with cake - and the advent calendar is super cute x

thinking of highlights of the year is a good idea - i need to do the same actually. oh and i don't know if i announced my good news on here that yesterday morning a very official letter arrived and instead of being a nasty bill or problem it was the tax office letting me know i was due a £611 tax rebate from the working year 2005/2006! very unexpected bonus

Afternoon babes

I didn't hear any storms in the night but something may have blown out because it's gorgeously sunny here today. Washing's on the line, DH has gone to the supermarket and I'm about to take DD shopping for school shoes. Am going to get her to try on boots she likes while we're there then nip back later and buy them for Christmas (sssh, don't tell)

Got a friend coming round later for a good old gossip catch up, then the whole family are going to watch St. Trinians which is on tv later. Might even stretch to some popcorn.

What are the rest of you up to?

Has anyone heard from Isinde lately, hope she's ok.

MsGee if you're reading, hope things are good with you too.

What about Dotv and all the others? Give us a quick update will ya?

Ciao x

another good day after a very windy night - the weather, not me! Went to a craft fair and spent far too much money bought a few things for Christmas. Have made a big pot of soup and am just chillin.
hoping to have another good week booze-wise, but mustn't project.
venus good to hear you feeling a bit perkier. 2011 has been a shit of a year on the whole, I'll be glad to see the back of it and hope that 2012 is easier emotionally and financially.
Hope all the other Babes and BoyBabes are safe and warm.

Hi all,

noteven thanks for remembering me!

SAF, just wanted to say that you truly are my drinking drama twin - for some reason your drinking cycles / thought patterns seem to pretty much mirror mine. Just wanted to say- and this may well be way out of line - just be very careful about moving the focus on alcohol to a focus on food. As I may or may not have mentioned a few threads ago i used to have an eating disorder and moved away from that and onto alcohol - I am firmly of the view that different kinds of substance abuse are interchangeable.

Had a very bad lapse into depression yesterday morning - I find I can kind of "stave off" attacks for a couple of weeks when I'm busy and then they hit me with a vengeance- but managed not to drink other than a glass of wine with dinner so that was good. Read about the wales football manager in the press today- have been reading all the "but why? he seemed so on top of things and so successful" comments in the media. Didn't seem surprising in the same way to me - I guess I kind of assume that all manner of people might seem fine to all appearances but have underlying problems.

So - and I know I'm rambling - I am starting to wonder whether I shouldn't go to the GP and consider some form of anti-depressants. Have been very anti-them before, largely because DM was dosed up with valium / librium / who knows what when I was a child and i don't think it was a great success. Anyone who wants to share thoughts of any description, fire away (should be on the mental health thread but I know there are "nice, kind" people here...

Hi Legal very late reply, but I'm sorry you are feeling so low. I have taken ADs for about 6-8 months at a point in my life when I was really stuggling. I found that it did really help me through a bad patch, sorry I can't remember the name of the drug or the dosages as it was quite a long time ago.

I am sure that your DM's experience would not be repeated, drugs have moved on and docs are much more wary of the side effects.

One thing I did do wrong was to decide that I was feeling better and just stopped taking them which caused panic attacks and anxiety problems for a short time - you should be carefully weaned off when the time is right.
Why not book an appt to chat with your GP anyway, then you can decide what you want to do. Good luck.

Just checking in, quiet on the bus today.

Legal I've not had them but family members, friends, work colleagues have and have found them extremely helpful. I would agree with Bproud about being careful coming off them. Almost everyone I have spoken to about this says they felt so much better they thought they didn't need them anymore. But then, I suppose, that is the point of them. Speak to your GP.

Well done on not drinking more than you wanted to.

Sweet dreams babes x

Hello everyone

Sorry you're feeling low, Legal. I don't know much about anti-depressants but it wouldn't do any harm to discuss them with your GP would it? I think that treatments have changed quite a lot over the last couple of decades so maybe your GP could reassure you about the side-effects/effectiveness etc of current anti-depressants. For me, personally, I think I have decided that what would be more effective is more of a counselling/psychotherapy type of treatment. I think I know that my problems stem largely from my past so I would think that coming to terms with things would be more effective than medication. But obviously I don't know your situation/history etc and I do know that many people have found anti-depressants to be very, very helpful. I hope you feel better soon. One glass of wine with dinner is very admirable!

I'm feeling rubbish today too. Drinking too much, sleeping badly, ruminating over current/past problems...bleurrghh. I am finding that if I try really hard I can stop drinking anything for a few days at a time, and I feel physically great, but very stressed and obsessed with alcohol. Or if I drink more (and I know it's too much), I feel physically crap but it's less intense and it doesn't feel as though drink is dominating my life as much, even though I'm drinking more? Am I explaining that properly? I feel as though I can either be sober and stressed and obsessed with my drinking, or actually drinking but calmer but with grim hangovers. Don't know which is best. I hate feeling uptight and obsessive but obviously drinking too much is bad for my health. I guess I will have to aim to be stressed but sober. Can't wait

Blimey I'm in a right horrible mood. Sorry for moaning. Hope everyone else is doing better. Roll on a new week eh?

just a quickie, been to m&ds for dinner, am now shattered, i love my mum dearly but i am finding her increasingly hard work (her drinking pretty much out of control and she is not a 'happy' drunk! )

legal - i took fluxotine for about 3 years, they certainly did help but i dont think it is coincidence that i finally came off them after getting sober, speak to your doc and listen to the advice, perhaps a short term plan is all you might need.

night all, see you tomorrow! xxx

silly if you persevere with not drinking it will dominate your thoughts less and less. At first you might find that you're thinking about it almost constantly sometimes but if you keep busy it will go away. I have found that side of it does get easier. I still get cravings sometimes but the gaps inbetween are getting longer.

I just popped back because I read a quote and it made me think, so I thought I would share it with you lovely lot.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ?Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?? Actually, who are you not to be?

Hmmm.

PS silly would you please give some thought to changing your name? x

silly - keep on trying with the not drinking, i have found thinking about drinking really does become so much less obsessive the longer you can stay away from it! i do remember the first fwe months, all i seemed to think about was drinking/not drinking/weighing up the pros and cons yadda yadda for what seemed like HOURS at a time, these days its just generally a fleeting thought, then move on to the next item! its so liberating!

x post faire! plainly we have great minds!

aint that the truth!

Faire I love that quote . The rest of it goes like this: "You are a child of the Universe. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Love is what we are born with, fear is what we learn. Our personal journey in life journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to expierience love in ourselves and other, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us."

silly I have found that if I am "trying" not to drink, it is exhausting. It is a thought-worm that keeps raising its head and keeps asking because there is always the possibility that I might say "Yes". So it can feel like every minute I'm having to re-make the decision to not drink. And that does feel like I'm obsessed.

I take a leaf from JWN's book, and often in the morning will decide (DEFINITELY) that TODAY I will not be drinking. Job done, decision made, and no need to obsess about it for the rest of the day.

It's not always as simple as that, obviously, but for me there's something about 'trying hard' that keeps my focus on alcohol all day, whereas deciding definitely puts the thought away.

Faire, Jesus, you are both lovely. So nice of you to reply so quickly. That is reassuring to hear that the preoccupation with drinking should decrease. When I'm really trying not to drink at all I have found myself absolutely gagging for a drink at ten in the morning! I have never ever had or even thought about having a drink in the morning before and it's freaked me out a bit. I never realised that trying to cut down or stop would be quite this intense. Thank goodness for the support of people on here.

Sleep well babes

PS will think about changing my name when 'silly' is no longer appropriate! x

Venus, cross-post. Thank you. That quote is very powerful. I will go over it all again in the morning. I hope you are feeling better today and that you had a lovely time with your DD. On a lighter note, your toffee apple cake sounds delightful!

Sleep well everyone x

Morning all. I am making the decision now so there will be no faffing about later - TODAY I will not be drinking.

Happy Monday one and all, hope today brings peace in some form to each and every one of you. Well it is the season of Advent.

Speak later x

Morning all, sorry to hear lots of you are having a rough time.

Fot the first time in years has an alcohol free weekend, DP also did really well as he has lost his drinkinhg partner but he did bring back a box of red yesterday, I refused to be sucked in, ate huge amounts of chocolate, oh dear!!. trying to justify this by thinking did not consume huge amount of calories in the booze.

silly hope you are feeling better this morning, your post did make sense to me, feel exactly the same, also the total irritation/anger is terrible, I hope this will pass. Hope I can get past day 3. Actually felt like smashing DP face in this weekend

Blossom Well done! Don't worry about the chocolate, you can wean yourself off that later. I ate industrial amounts of chocolate for the first few months of no alcohol. I still have some every day but have reduced down to the smallest bars which are only 110 calories (about the same as one small glass of red wine!).
Off sick from work today so looking forward to loads of Mumsnettting

Bproud Sorry to hear you are not well, hope you feel better soon , Umm on a porridge frenzy this morning, loads of golden syrup, yum yum. This sugar craving is mad.

i love that quote venus, trying to remember where i've read it. it is true, you can feel in your guts and in your nightime spirals that it is true.

legalalien - i have pm'd you as i really wanted to respond but it was a bit too epic to write on here - hope the pm is not too epic! am thinking of you x

i cooked very successfully and had everyone over - all good. then me and my sis started talking heavy stuff and it was like a lid came off a box that i hadn't opened before and i got very emotional talking about my nightmare employer battle years back and the way i was treated for having dared to get ill and it being god forbid a mental illness i did rather a lot of crying and opening up and then consumed a whole bottle of wine. oh dear. it's all good though. better out than in i guess and it allowed my sister to get some stuff off of her chest too that she's struggling with.

so i'm not going to go downhill or panic over having been emotional. i seem to be in a strange phase of little boxes opening and emotions finding their way out into the light. i don't know what has brought it on but i'm trying not to be scared and see it as a sort of positive thing - maybe i'm safe now, maybe things are actually ok and so these feelings that have had to be stashed away are finding a way to come out now and release the pressure.

sorrry the deep crap as usual - and on a monday!

oh and legal you're so right about the interchangable business. had problems with food when i was young. i can project my issues onto all manner of 'stuff/substances' i do have to be careful, thank you for the reminder.

legal I take Citalopram, 20mgs and have been for the last 8 months. it has made a HUGE difference. See your GP for advice.
the quote above is timely as I start to tell myself I am not good enough to step up to be senior manager. Printing it off now

i'm actually worried about my sisters drinking now she says she drinks a bottle of red wine every night and it sounds like it's pretty depressing drinking you know? just wiping herself out and ending up feeling very down. not sure how to help her.