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

Hope everyone's had a good evening and wish you all a peaceful night and blissful sleep.

Night night everyone x

Morning all

It is a really thick sea mist here today, I wonder if it will clear to be spring like later?

My back is still very sore, but I am going to work, so wish me luck! I just hope that I can get my tights on .

I hope MrMouse is feeling better, and you too BProud

Have good days everyone.
xxxx

I'm so angry with myself. Sat here nursing a hangover and feeling crap.

I need a new fucking plan.

Just sat for a minute to eat my toast before I go out of the door, and glad I did...MsGee

Sorry, MsGee I couldn't help but smile at 'I need a new fucking plan' . What do you think Plan B's were invented for then, hey? Plan A no good, ok, let's try something else. Do you think alternate days might work for you in the meantime too? So if you know you can have a drink tomorrow, don't drink today. When you do drink, alternate alcohol with soft drinks maybe? Build up to two consecutive days of not drinking? There are lots of other plans we can think of. Have another ((hug)) x

Hope your back doesn't give you too much grief today thurso and hope all the poorly babes and honorary babes by way of relation are feeling better soon.

Silver are you feeling any better yet?

Ooh just noticed, we are running out of space - hope to find you all later x

Thanks everyone

My hangover is a nice mixture of red wine and histamine hangover. Ugh.

Faire thank you for making me smile. Plan B it is!

OK ... I am trying to think what went wrong.

1. my new and exciting fruit allergy kicked in so I took an anti-histamine and so when I had my first drink, the mixture of the two was a bit too much like drink two so I just carried on (excuse rating 1/10)
2. I did not follow the plan. I didn't go in my office, I poured wine instead.

Today I have upped the plan. It has to be no drinking today. Because 1) my liver needs a rest and 2) my mum is arriving tmrw (HUGE trigger) so I need to know that I can do this.

Plan B
going to have a cup of tea with dinner NOT wine (never done this before but worth a try)
after dinner I am going to my office to do invoicing (specific see?)
after that I am going to relax in front of the tv with a non alcoholic beer. Or if I have the points, a hot chocolate.

xx

I have also instructed DH to rugby tackle me if I go for the wine. He seems overly keen on this

I have also told him that he can watch the rugby whilst I do my invoicing - I figure this will make me more likely to stick the plan.

(also when I mention points above I meant weight watchers points - am still doing the damn diet. yesterday I just didn't eat much so I could drink.)

morning!!!

ok, im having a panic! MOUSE! i can start new thread but i dont know how to link all the old ones! where is that flipping squeaky person when you need her?

msgee, a plan is only as good as your resolve!! come on! you can do it!

fwiw, my dm is coming today, i have my 'muttering technique' all ready and waiting! (this is where i trail after her, muttering like a loon about her wierdness! she is damned hard work!)

Morning all, sorry to hear some of you are struggling, wish I had any sensible suggestions but too new @ this myself. Well on day 3 and DP has not brought wine home for 2 days ( said I would pour it down the sink if he brings home) so that is really helping.

Thurso ah that is really sweet, I can really indentify how you are feeling my son will be 21 in March and is living with girlfriend and their new baby. They seem so young but so happy. I just go with the flow and not to try and over think it what will be will be

could everyone kick me please

I need a tougher plan b to but I think the kicking needs doing first

Trinity and MsGee: ohdearnevermind! All is not lost, it really truly isn't.

Have you got a spare 15 minutes? Can you sit down with a pen and paper and make a list of, say, five Plan Bs ... then choose the one you like the best?

Then write down what you will need around you to facilitate this plan (could be, for instance, your absolute all-time favourite soft drink in the house, b. your favourite dvd to watch c. a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with lots of sky d. no alcohol anywhere in the house - whatever it takes). Think ahead about what exactly what you are going to do when the first craving creeps up on you. Decide you are not going to drink today. You could write that on the piece of paper or write it on this thread. Don't worry about tomorrow or when you are going to have your next drink, don't give it a moment's thought.

And do remember that alcohol makes you depressed.

Might something like that help?

Morning all,am in very agitated mood,farking builder people have ripped all my floor boards up upstairs,I have no hot water and am traped in living room with dog.I can't go out as the poor dog can't be left here as she is already a nervous wreck

msGee :( on the hangover but I am sure your dh will love the rugby tackle and ensuing scrum :o

jesus my mother was here in half term so I feel your pain and need for muttering about them driving you barking

mouse I have no idea what is wrong with nemo but you sound like the most amazing person ever from what I have read

I will probably be mnetting a lot today to keep my poor fingers warm,no heating in house and doors being constantly opened,I am wearing my bodywarmer filled with lovely feathers and a pair of fingerless gloves,am waiting till super freezing till I up the ante and put my duvet coat on too

Hope all have as gooder ( real word? ) day as you can

Morning.

Feeling soooo much better now the PMT has gone! Boing, boing!

MsGee, Trinity, hope you're feeling OK... I think the alternating days is a great idea. I know I struggled with the pressure I put on myself to not drink. I couldn't do the ODAAT thing properly as I couldn't not think about tomorrow, and the next day and the weekend after that... What really helped me was setting a definite target to aim for. In my case it was the rest of the month, after New Year's Day (no plans for originality!). So it took the pressure of me knowing that I would be 'allowed' to drink fairly soon, yet that month gave me enough sober days to really feel the benefit of not drinking. I think you really need about 5/7 days at least before you really feel THE boing. And once you feel that it helps motivate you so much. Maybe after doing the alternate days you could try a bigger block of days? It depends how your mind works really i suppose. I need to know that I can drink if I want to (otherwise I start to obsess and feel deprived), it's just that now I don't really want to (I can't believe that this is me talking!! ) I've drunk 3 times since 1st Jan, and only one time was 'unhealthy' drinking (I NEEDED it and drank too much, albeit less than I used to almost every night ). Obviously I am a work in progress but I'm doing better than I thought I would. Just a suggestion anyway. Hope the hangovers are past their worst...

Hope everyone's having good days

I can't do one day at a time either, I have not given up drinking yet. But I am doing better and the only way for me to reduce my consumption is to have set non-drinking days. I started off with Mondays + Tuesdays and have gone from there (with plenty of setbacks along the way).

Interestingly, the liver and addiction experts who were all over the news recently when Government guidelines were amended to say we should all have two consecutive alcohol-free days per week, were saying that this was not only to give the liver a chance to recuperate but also to halt the slide into dependency and addiction.

That's interesting Bibbity. A lot of it is just habit I think. And I know of people who only have maybe one glass of wine a night but when it's every single night the thought of not having it can be quite scary. And as lots of us know it doesn't take long before the one glass becomes one bottle.... It was interesting what Sarah said about habits taking 6 or so weeks (don't quote me on that ) to break or develop. When I had my first booze-free evenings I thought the nightly battles would be exhausting and would last for the rest of my life, but my new, healthy eating and drinking has become my new habit and so my habits are helping hugely when I have the inevitable cravings. It gets so much easier doesn't it? Thank £&@€!

It does get easier, I agree sssm. Every time I get through that 6pm to 9pm slot without too much fuss I feel a bit better about myself, a bit more optimistic, and it gets easier (to the point where I hardly notice it now and, oddly, I actually look forward to the drink-free days after the weekend).

For some of us babes the thought of giving up drinking for good is too daunting, or not what we actually want.

I am fairly sure that it was Michael Caine who said he had to tackle his drinking in middle age because he didn't want to give up drinking!

bibbity I find the thought of never drinking again really daunting and traumatic but I need to find a middle ground whereby I do not feel compelled to neck the whole bottle and then move onto the next drink but am happy to have a couple and leave it at that.This I will find hard.

I know what you mean Quiet. When I drink white wine I tend to want to drink about three quarters of a bottle, that seems to be my natural quota for an evening. I know its too much, but one thing at a time. I am willing to try any trick to reduce my alcohol consumption to safer levels and a number of drink-free days is my preferred method atm. In January I stuck to Monday to Thursday drink-free (with one small fail of 1 leftover glass on a Monday night) and I am thinking about going back to that after my current 6 weeks off it altogether.

Did you decide to go booze-free til Lent, btw?

I did bibbity I did but right now I am not too sure I will do it,see above post as to why my stress levels are sky high.I refrained sun,mon,tues night and am going to try my damndest tonight and tomorrow but in my head there is a fixation with fri night,tis the only thing getting me through.I don't deal with stress well anyway and just stupidly went upstairs and I am now a gibbering wreck after looking at the destruction work in progress

Oh, yes, its awful having builders in [just been without kitchen for 6 weeks emoticon].

6 weeks bibbity,oh that'salong time;in my old house I went 3 weeks without one but 6 I would be [whitecoated men and me locked up in physch ward emoticon]

Afternoon all. From what I gather, most of you are misusing alcohol, as yet have not become full blown. I said ages ago there are different types of drunks/drinkers, and will not but labels on, I know they are not particularly liked.

Most of you want to control your drinking. Some will, some won't. There is a good metaphor that AA use. If you consider your drinking career like a journey in a lift, the alcoholics lift only goes in one direction, straight down. The good news is that you can get off it any time you want, but only if you accept the gift of desperation. So far, I don't think that the majority have reached that point. Which again is good news. Usually something pretty awful has to happen before desperation sets in. Hope you don't have to hit that point. Because hitting rock bottom for me was more like a swallow dive, for years with amazing grace, a bit like you lot, and then BAM. The line was crossed.

Mouse hit the nail on the head. You drink because you can and you want to. You don't need it, the stuff you need you have already got. The brain is so clever at dismissing painful recollections, including what you consider unacceptable behaviour when you have gone one over the eight. Just becomes a bit of a blur. Like choosing the best photograph of yourself, when you know full well the bad one is still you but the good one is how you want to be perceived. Goes to the bottom of the pile, and is forgotten or torn up. Has anyone ever taken a picture of you when you are pissed? It's painful to see. I know I hated my children seeing me like that, and without the sound bites which were ten times worse.

All the planning when you drink is hard, but you want to and still can but just spend the next day beating yourselves up about it, feel better, then there is always the next time...

Quiet I hate to think of you this stressed.

Honestly, Quiet, the 6 weeks went by in a flash. I can hardly believe that we were 6 weeks without a kitchen but my calendar tells me it was so.

And (funny we should be talking about 6 weeks), a week of my 6 weeks off alcohol for Lent has already passed. It feels no more than a couple of days, honestly .