The Brave Babes Battle Bus - BOINGing Into Spring, The Jesus(WhatNext) Way!

[Mouseface]

Hello, tis me, Mouse

I'm one of the Brave Babes aboard the Battle Bus, on the journey to sobriety.

We have drinkers, non-drinkers, inbetweeners, notquitesurers...... which is all fantastic.

No matter who you are or where you're at in your personal quest to get where you want to be, come grab a seat and join in the natter, just jump right in.

And, if you'd like to see where we've been up until now, HERE is a link to the last thread and the ones before it

See you soon.

Where has BizzyLizzie gone???

Thank you Thurso, there are many similarities between your situation and mine, not least the people pleaser/low self-confidence angle. I'm also a control freak so feel in good company here!

Fizzy, the desire to drink nearly overwhelmed me today as well but now I can't imagine where it came from. I'm so grateful I didn't give in and can go to bed with my book with a clear head and a clear conscience. Goodnight everyone, I'm so glad to have met you all.

So, just to recap . . . venus is going to write a new-age spiritual sex manual, and Saf is going to edit it. O Kay .

KW sounds like you're in Scotland? whereabouts? (just broadly....) There's a few of us around.

Night Soma and well done on another sober day x

I PM'd you venus

That's right faire. And some little vignettes would help enormously.... send them to www.youralcoholicsexualstorieswrittenbywomenwhoreallydo/didhaveaalcoholproblem.com

(and I f*ing hope that there isn't a web address with that name)

Hello lovely Babes.

End of day six. Yay! Tonight was easy peasy, I've no idea why after the unpleasantness of last night. Maybe because I had no expectation of drinking? Or because I'm starting to break the habit a bit? I was thinking a lot about smoking today, and how hard I found it to give that up. In a way the drinking's easier, because the 'twinges' of yearning only really come from mid afternoon onwards, whereas the twinges for cigarettes came every few minutes from the moment I woke up. I remember how it felt like I just couldn't cope with the intensity of my feelings without a cigarette to take the edge off - very similar to how I've been feeling with the drink (and totally how I used to feel with the dope too). So so many times I'd decide to give up smoking again, and I'd empty the ashtray and the rest of my baccy into the bin at the end of the night, full of good intentions. Then by mid morning, I'd be fishing around in the bin to retrieve the tobacco, or worse, fishing out the butts to unpick enough to roll one. When that didn't stop me, I'd pour water over the tobacco and butts to stop myself using them in the morning. That led to me drying out the baccy or butts on the gas fire.

And why didn't I just go out and buy some more fags instead? Because it was always just going to be one more cigarette that I smoked. Just the one more because I couldn't cope at that moment, but then I definitely wouldn't smoke again so I certainly shouldn't buy any. No siree, rolling up sodden butts from the bin was the much more sensible option. Fuck me!

I was doing that last night - just one glass bottle and then I'll start my period of abstinence afresh. Making all these excuses to myself. I'm really going to try to keep the similarities between this and giving up smoking uppermost in my mind, because if I managed to do that, then surely I can do this. I'm trying not to think too hard though abo ut the fact that it was only when I finally managed to accept that there was no 'one more' cigarette that I managed to give up, because just one more meant I was still smoking- it'd only be a matter of time before one turned into all the time again.

kirsty yes I'm an absolute control freak, amongst my many other flaws. it has always baffled me too that for someone who has the urge to control everything and everyone around me, I am so spectacularly inept at controlling my own impulses, and have spent most of my life imbibing substances that involve me losing control.

saf you were complaining of sbdominal bloating. Would you like some herbal suggestions that might help?

That should be abdominal, obviously. It's tricky to be accurate touch typing on the ipad!

Morning early bird - that sounds like a good plan, and another brave decision isindie

I've got a busy week - in my office today but out every other day, and commitments on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening. Promised SIL we'd do lunch, which I now can't so I've got to apologise for that, and also have no time to visit aged parents. If you catch me on here today, send me off to do some work, if I don't get on with it I'm going to be horribly stressed by mid-week.

Morning Isinde and Venus

Isinde on a lover who keeps their jaw relaxed and mouth hanging open during sex, what a turn on!!! Did he dribble?

Early start for me too, not at work yet, but have promised myself to be offline and work all morning until midday, on college stuff, trying to get ahead.

I hope everyone is feels happy and peaceful this morning.
I am reasonably zen, but, Dh has filled up my study window with chili plants on shelves, so sadly I can't look out and see the garden any more. It feels like the equivalent of high up windows in a workhouse! "only for 6 weeks" he said. Ah, that'll be just all the spring then, will it .

Take care mateys
Lots of love
xxxx

"is feels" ??!!!
bit too zen

I drank this weekend - too much :(

Today I will not drink alcohol.

Morning! Wishing you all Boinginess- Grey what are your plans for today and this evening?

(((Greyhound))))

Todays a new day, try again

Morning

Isinde glad you have a plan for some RL help. ((( )))

I hope everyone is doing ok. New day today, ODAAT for us all.

I am on day 23 (eeek!) and am wary of getting complacent. Normally around this time one of two things happen - I either think I have cracked it and can therefore drink again (and where is the logic in that?) or one the initial euphoria has worn off, there is a realisation that actually work is still hard, DD is still tiring etc. etc. and that life is not automatically perfect just because I am not drinking.

So this week I will be vigilant

I am going to be very busy at work this week, out at meetings all day tmrw, lots of deadlines, so won't be around much. Stay strong lovely Babes and I shall just sit here at the back quietly with the lap top

life is not automatically perfect just because I am not drinking

True MsGee. But it's a hell of a lot better. You only have to re-read all the regretful posts to remind yourself.

No-one ever, ever, ever comes on here the morning after not drinking saying 'Didn't drink last night, dammit '

23 days wow. Just wow. Isn't it strange how it can be so hard to get to 4 or 5 days sometimes and then suddenly, you just take off and the days seem to go faster and you don't spend all your time obssessing about drinking. Long may it last .

I must confess to being a bit of a control freak too it does seem to be a common trait. But I think perhaps if lots of us weren't control freaks we wouldn't be here. We would happily let the alcohol take over.

mia - maybe it's that your stamping inner toddler is getting a bit more used to being told no? and the you, you is getting more used to saying no and meaning it? who knows, glad it was easier yesterday though and yes please to herbal remedies for looking 6months pregnant

isindie i love tmi liked your 'joining the dots' phrase too. so pleased you've taken some actions - well done you. really hope the therapy helps.

greyhound - do you want to try and break it down here? how you drank, why you drank, what happened? sometimes helps to unpick it.

msgee - you're at about where we got to back in autumn i think - can you remember what happened that time? you drank and i went ooh actually we have done really well and went bought a bottle of wine despite the fact i'd been feeling great. literally i just made an insane choice when you look at it. not blaming you btw! probably two days later it would have been me getting off first and you following - this time we're doing it for ourselves though right and without that pernacious time limit we put on it last time - i think we were aiming for halloween for some reason.

everyone else

monday, last day of school hols, going to go grocery shopping with my little old lady shopping trolley and a rucksack for ds who thinks it's well big boy to help carry the shopping (well he does now, guessing the idea will not look as cool when he actually has to do it).

should pick a bus time or i'll end up sitting here all day thinking in a minute

i've got a feeling pernacious is not a word? apologies to the pedants - i do like to make them up as i go along i'm afraid.

Boing!

Morning gorgeous Babes. I am utterly blown away by the novelty of waking up on a Monday morning, my absolutely most miserable point of the week (with four days stretching ahead of me of trying not to drink too much before I can let rip again), and I feel fine! I have no headache, no thick head, no feeling of anxiety and doom (which is normally my default setting ), no feeling of just wanting to curl up in a ball and hide from the world.

MsGee said "I am on day 23 (eeek!) and am wary of getting complacent. Normally around this time one of two things happen - I either think I have cracked it and can therefore drink again (and where is the logic in that?) or one the initial euphoria has worn off, there is a realisation that actually work is still hard, DD is still tiring etc. etc. and that life is not automatically perfect just because I am not drinking."

God this really resonates with me because I know that it's exactly what I'm going to do - the novelty and euphoria will wear off, I'll be shocked when I realise that not drinking hasn't made everything perfect, and then I'll have a bit of a rebound slump. But hey... you lovely babes will be here to give me a stern talking to, right?

Isinde you sound in a much better place. What great news that you've sorted out some therapy. Seems to me (not knowing you at all) that you must be pretty damned fabulous, since I'm seeing a whole lot of love for you from the veterans on this thread. Your posts come across as warm and very funny, and it sounds like you have a beautiful family (I'm referring to your DP and DTs, not your parents or GPs ). Seems like you have everything to get sober for, in fact.

at thurso about the dribbling.

I woke up this morning full of plans, so I'm off now to do something useful.

This book I've been reading Willpower , looks at research done over the past couple of decades into willpower/ self control, and what affects it. The basic premise is that our willpower is a finite pot each day (or even section of the day), and is depleted by certain things, and topped up by others. It sounds a bit self-helpy but actually it's not; it's summarising the results of bona fide studies in this area. I've only read about a third of the book so far, but I've found it very relevant to all this giving up drinking lark (in fact, it's what precipitated it).

If anyone's interested, I could summarise here the bits I felt were particularly relevant to drinking?

pernicious - thank you brain, you got there in the end

saf assuming that your bloating is due to sluggish digestion, you could try some herbs with carminative properties - this means that they are usually high in volatile essential oils that have a relaxing effect on the smooth muscles of the digestive system, reducing spasm and...er...wind. Easy ones to get and have in the cupboard are ginger (root and powder), fennel seeds and cardomom pods. Peppermint tea is a classic one (makes me feel sick, personally) and easily available in teabag form, as is chamomile. Get some ginger, fennel and cardomom while you're out shopping and if they don't work then at least you can use them up in cooking. Hey the recipe I posted for kashmiri chicken has all of those in!

Of course, the bloating might not be due to that... could be water retention, which would call for different things entirely. Are you bloated anywhere else? Breasts, ankles? Are you premenstrual? Any pain or tenderness? PM me if you like. Also PM me if you're on any meds, so I can check out any potential interactions before I go blithely giving advice.

The good thing about the herbs I mention above is that they're not going to do you any harm, and most of them are good tonics for the system generally. If they don't work, you've not lost anything, and you might have found a drink you like.

i've got ginger and cardamon here - would you make tea with them?

it's just my tummy mia - you know when it pops out right from under your bra line to the top of your pubis? basically like a pregnant tum. the rest of me is exactly the same. the shopkeeper when trying to back track furiously when i said i was just bloated said it was because i was slim it showed up markedly on my frame. i'm not a skinny person by any means but i'm sort of long and slimmish and in proportion (normally) so it does really stand out.