The Brave Babes Battle Bus - New Year, New Start, The Journey So Far.........

[Mouseface]

Hello, I'm Mouse

Welcome. There are all kinds of lovely Babes on board this Bus, drinkers, non-drinkers, part-time drinkers and those who have no idea what they are when it comes to drinking. Some are newer posters and some have been here forever for a little while.

Come and say hi, there are no rules, no 'must haves', just plenty of open and honest support.

You can talk about whatever you like. Your life, your love or even your laundry. We've seen it all!

The important thing is that you can post if you want to, or not if you don't. There are posters in AA and posters who are using medication to beat The Booze and of course posters who are just trying to cut their drinking down with the support of The Bus and the people around them.

See where we've been so far by following this ---> LINK TO PREVIOUS THREADS HERE

morning

*Trinity :o at the buggering getting it wrong about drinking ad well done

Rain I am feeling the same as you,snappy,irritable and just vile,the dc are complaining so have eaten biscuits to replace sugar as had an inkling that's what it was.Yesterday afternoon was tough.

I never had a roblem with having to avoid champers with the parents yesterday as it all went tits up and I ended up so wound up by them (I do love them dearly but and scuse my language they really fuck me off at times).Last night became a battle as all I wanted was a glass of red to make it all seem better but as I live in the sticks,have no shop,don't drive and mr quiet is away I had no choice but to ride it out.Poor children :(

I have bought some multi vits so will start taking them today,problem is I am not going to bed till 1am as for some reason I am just not tired,hoping this will be a temporary thing as otherwise I will be the size of a house if I stay up eating biscuits.

Problem for me is that I am already planning some wine at the weekend so what's the best thing to do? keep off it even if I am not coping with the kids or have some on fri/sat though I know that I will finish the bottle on fri.My mind is all fuzzy and can't make proper descisions and to be honest I want to put my youngest into care,he is difficult at the best of times but right now I hate him :(

quiet, have you spoken to anyone about your last sentence
maybe having a drink at the weekends wouldn't be a good idea

Haven't been following the thread recently so apologies for jumping in with both feet, but I would say as a general point that ...

... if you have come to this thread it is because you are seeking help with your drinking.

if you are seeking help with your drinking then, by definition drink does not help you to cope - drink has become a problem, not a solution.

Therefore, whatever you decide to do about your drinking - cut down, stop, keep it to certain days, etc (and I know what I had to do for me) - any idea of drinking in order to cope is like accelarating your car to deal with a series of tricky hairpin bends.

hope this is useful to someone.

Quiet

Re sleeping - your sleep patterns will be fucked for a little while.

TWO THINGS TO REMEMBER:

1. it is temporary and will sort itself out with time
2. apart from torture victims, no one ever died of lack of sleep. People die every day, in unimaginably bizarre and unpleasant ways, from drinking too much.

quiet - you sound pretty mis my friend! what can we do to help? personally i think you are doing the right thing by not drinking, i dont think it will make you any happier and i certainly dont think it will help you cope with your ds, who im also quite certain you love very dearly! i can also understand that right now you dont like his behaviour! - can you arrange for him to go and play with a friend for a while today? go to a park and let him run wild for a few hours? is there a local footie school during half term? anything to let him burn off energy? i dont think you are alone in finding children fucking difficult at times, i know i occasionally felt totally out of my depth (still do sometimes, its just that the problems are different as they get older) but looking back i can honestly say that the times when i wasnt drinking to excess i coped better and dd was a much easier kid - i think they have an inbuilt radar which tells them when you under par so that they then know they can behave like little sods!

hello MIF!!! nice to see you! XXXX

Trinity this was a problem when he was born.I had a horrofic birth ans as I said further up the thread I drank to deal with ptsd.My ds 6 was always different (he was deprived of oxygen at birth and due to an unholy fuckup by the medical team I ended up in ICU,family told I would not survive,should have sued trust but head was not in a good place).He never spoke,head butted,anger issues,major traits of ASD.Spoke to my gp/health visitor who sent me on a parenting course (4th child) and told me it was all down to his birth ,eventually I did get them to take me seriously and he was sent to a paed who said it was gdd and he had anger issues.Then I moved over 100 miles and had trouble settling and ds also,he does not like change or boundaries and whatever comes into his head comes out of his mouth,he rants and never stops arguing.I find this difficult.

I suppose if I am totally honest I probably increased my drinking over the last 18months to escape from him in the afternoon/evening and now without the drink I am actually having to face up to the fact I don't know how to cope with him,all my family agree that he is not quite "normal" when compared to the average child,and don't anyone even dare to pull me on this,sorry have had so many interfering sometimes strangers talk to me in the street trying to advise me on how to cope with his angry tantrums.I need to go back to the doctors and start the whole process again,his school is totally crap and no use at all,very closed ranks and as it's a tiny village school has a preference to those parents who go with the crowd not with an outspoken gobby cow like me.

Sorry for the long post but if honesty is required here for me to face up to stuff then so be it.

So in answer to your question Trinity,yes I have spoken to someone and yes I know I need to seek help again :(

and Miflaw thanks for letting me know my sleep patterns will correct eventually.

sorry quiet, my last post is obviously of no use to you, i didnt realise your son has these issues tbh, im at a loss to know what to say to you, its plainly been a bloody hard few years and i have no experience of what you are going through - what i can see though is that if you are self-medicating with alcohol you are on a very dangerous trajectory! please please try and stick with not drinking, i have heard many similar stories to yours in AA except that those people had gone much further down the road in to total alcohol dependancy and its not a nice place to be!

oh god that's it,I never dealt with the past and now it's caught up with me,lightbulb moment I think it's called

This is such an amazing thread, I do wish that all fabulous though still afraid to come out of the wine cellar women would come here.

It's the sugar, the B vits, particularly 3, the normal problem of this dreadful cold snap at the end of winter rather than the beginning, and guilt for not being the perfect Mother once in a while.

Great analogy Miflaw.

Quiet you are remarkable. And you know exactly what needs to be done with your special child, just so frustrating I think for you. Perhaps half term wasn't perfect timing for this but when it the perfect time. Just think that if you can cope with all of the chaos this week without a drink, then look how easy it's going to be next week. Piece of piss.

Be back in a bit. xxxxx

quiet - something i have learnt over the last few months is the fact that although booze will numb the feelings, it means that you are also never dealing with them iyswim? - i think im pretty emotionally immature and always used to beat myself up about being selfish, the longer im sober i kind of see that im now dealing with the crap in my head that was always swimming around, the booze stopped me doing that, it kept me in a place where i had the thoughts but not the tools to deal with it all iyswim? sorry, im waffling but i guess im trying to say that self medicating with the booze will ultimatly hold you back, you need to deal with the shit and move forward, not stay stuck with the crap of the last few years.

Quiet it sounds like you know what you need to do to get some help, support and practical advice about your ds and his condition. Hopefully, your GP will be able to sort things for you there but, if not, keep looking because your son deserves the medical care he is entitled to.

Also, try to do what you can to look after yourself . Not drinking is the best thing you can do for yourself at the moment because after the initial detox, you will feel better, sleep well, have more energy and feel that you can cope better with whatever crap life throws at you.

Have you had the opportunity to talk to professionals regarding your ptsd? If so, was it too soon for you. I really think that would help because it's a terrible burden to carry. Sorry if this post is not helpful or tactful. It is well meant. Whatever you do, please keep posting and share your feelings if you can. At the very least, you can rant and we can listen x

Quiet- it does sound like seeking some help with DC in your new area would be a good thing to do but having had dealings with getting medical help for DS1 it can be an uphill struggle.

Thanks for all the words of experience regarding my mood. It does help to know that I should feel better if I just keep going. It has felt a bit demoralising the last 3 days as I guess it took a lot to come to the realisation I had a problem and I expected to just feel great once I stopped drinking. The withdraw symptoms are enough to send me to drink!

I am taking a multivitamin anyway as I have been very anaemic recently but I had not considered the sugar lows I am expereincing so I have been eating a few sweets .

The sleep thing is annoying. I have always had problems with insomnia but found that the alcohol knocked me out. It is frustrating to be experiencing these symptoms again. But it is comforting to know that they should get better.

Miflaw- your words about future drinking are very wise and I know them to be true but whether I can stick to this I can not be sure I am craving alcohol A LOT.

I have kept myself and DCs reasonably busy. We went on a trip to the library for books for them and I picked up a couple for middle of the night reading.

I am at work tomorrow but will check in in the evening.

Good luck to everyone who is approaching their drinking hour. I am going to pour myself a glass of diet coke

lol demented, I must say I was a leetle worried about that too

haven't crossed that bridge yet as this is only day 2

ma it's all about facing up to life. In my previous marriage I dodn't ge much choice about not having sex so I was always drunk to blot it out. very different story now

I'm going out for dinner tonight, but I was having a really busy day and I fortgot to have much lunch. So now I'm ravenously hungry but I don't want to snack on anything incase I spoil my appetite for dinner. Maybe some lime and soda (and just a few wasabi peas).

That's what I'm going to have now, not for dinner.

RainQueen

"Miflaw- your words about future drinking are very wise and I know them to be true but whether I can stick to this I can not be sure I am craving alcohol A LOT." Well, of course you are. You've got a problem with drink. Definition of a problem with drink - you want to drink even when it's a bad idea.

So you have a choice - give in or stick it out. Give in and you're fucked; stick it out and you've got a chance. It's one day at a time; you don't have to decide now you're giving up for good, just that today (or this hour) you're not going to pick up a drink.

It gets better, quickly. Stay with it.

@ miflaw

ok
dp has just come down with what dd1 has had for weeks and is shivering and falling asleep on the couch

dd2 wont concentrate on her reading homework

gecko wants to do all of dd2 homework and wont be queit so I can listen to dd2 mess around read

I'm still bloody hingry even though I've just eaten my tea but I do have 5 points left

the dog is struggling with her ear and wont settle

dd1 is really quite ill in bed

the fire has gone out

the kitchen needs cleaning up after tea

arrrgh

there is pink vodka and lemonade in the kitchen

I DONT WANT IT
I DONT WANT IT

i fucking do

by fuck I am not having a drink tonight

I am not having a drink

it will make me feel better for a short timw but only because it will make me forget whats wrong

well thats just stupid isn't it

instead I'll do soemthing about shit

hey Trinity keep at it, I'll be here for a while if you want to chat. The craving usually lasts a relatively short time, so if you can get past it right now you will feel better later. make yourself a lovely cup of tea or pinft glass of lime and soda or whatever.
Leave DC to watch a DVD or something, one night without homework won't matter and a happier healthier Mummy will make a huge difference to their lives.

many many thanks for all the supportive messages from you lovely lot it made me a bit more :)

I seemed to have opened the floodgates here,daughter 12 caught me weeping and asked whats wrong and it all kind of tumbled out her little mouth,she is so sad :(

I have not resisted and had 2 gins,I don't even drink fucking gin but I felt in so much pain after hearing her cry and open up to me...........it took the edge off all the crap,still I have not poured another so will eat,chill with her for the evening and start again tomorrow

I hope this does not disillusion anyone else,feel a bit of a failure now :(

Quiet time for the drill for you, brush your teeth, and have a huge drink of water/tea, put the gin away now.
Tomorrow is another day, but in my (bitter) experience your DD is just at the age where your drinking will become obvious to her and she will start to withdraw.

I'm not saying this to be horrible, I want you to learn from my experience.
It is awful for the Dc, I used to forget what they had told me when I was drunk, they didn't trust me because they couldn't tell what mood I would be in, they were ashamed of me.
Tomorrow is another day, join me for a booze free friday

Also meant to say, don't feel a failure, it takes time to change habits.
Oh, and sorry for repeating myself!

quiet, you have not failed
you've made a breakthrough

well I didn't clean up the kitchen really, I put away leftovers and stacked the dishes, put the rubbish out

but I did throw the old broken desk out the window(kids thought that was hilarious), put the kids to bed

AND I HAVEN"T HAD A DRINK !!!!