The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Are Going To Need A Bigger Bus!

[Mouseface]

Which is FANTASTIC!

Welcome to the Brave Babes Battle Bus, I'm Mouse and I'm addicted to cheese, but have a pretty nasty relationship with alcohol too, mainly vodka.

This Bus is for anyone and everyone. Drinking or sober, or somewhere in between or just not sure if you're drinking too much........... this is the place to ask and maybe have a chat too.

No pressure, no judging, no cliquey savoury flans (although I'm rather partial to a cheese slice ), we're all on The Bus for the same reason; alcohol.

Even if it's not you, and you'd like to talk about someone you know, come and say hi. We won't bite, well, not unless you ask very nicely!

And, if you'd like to see our journey so far, follow THIS LINK and read back through the previous links there.

See you soon xx

I've just read back, you guys are funny, real funny. You have to have sex or at least sperm last time I checked! I'm not up the duff but loving your optimism!

venus - love the name change, we can always see venus when she shines

Right, I'm really going now!

Night all, lots of love xxxx

Hopefully I don't quite understand why you'd consider quitting antabuse so soon when it seems to have been helping. Do you think in a way you regard it as too easy a way to stop drinking and that therefore it's not the right way to do it?

I like taking my little pill (well my half pill) because for now it's keeping me safe. In the meantime I'm trying to break the habit, teach myself a new way of thinking, help myself realise that I don't need alcohol to enjoy things, to be happy, to know myself. I would be truly scared now that if I stopped taking it I would sooner or later pick up a drink. I don't see it as a weakness that I'm hoping to stay on it for a good long time, until somehow my brain has been re-wired. And it's hard to imagine you being dull, I'm sure if we met, we'd have a good old time, without having a single drop between us.

You must do what you feel comfortable with, but IMHO I think it would be wise to stick with the antabuse for just a bit longer. What have you got to lose?

Venus what time is dawn at the moment? Let me know and I'll set my alarm. I love the sky and the universe all the wonders within it and the immensity of its beauty and strangeness makes me feel like a kid at Christmas.

so... this weekend went pretty well. Both Sunday & Monday night I drank too much (had to take an antacid for the first time in 3 weeks) but not as much as would have normally. Delayed the first drink as much as possible, alternated wine with soft drinks (or diluted with elderflower).

Was pleased to discover that I really enjoyed the first part of the evening even though I was almost completely sober!

I'd only had one g&t when my DM made some critical comment about me (honestly, I'm 43, you'd think I could become more assertive) and my first thought was to go get another G&T. Actually it wasn't even a thought - it was more like an instinctive response, some kind of Pavlovian thing.

Anyway, I DID NOT REFILL MY GLASS !! Seriously, I went upstairs did a few gentle breathings, read a chapter of my book instead! That is the second time in a week that I managed that. Go, me.

The only downside was this morning I felt that familiar 'it's over, can't wait till the next boozy evening'. Then I came on here, and read venuss wise words about how life just sometimes is dull and boring, get over it. its like you can read my mind and once again I am full of hope that I can do this, we can ALL do this!

mouse if you are not having sex with mrmouse, could you perhaps hire him out to the rest of us?

Morning all quiet Babes - who was up early enough to see my transit across the sun?

I'll be back in normal guise later today.

I was up at 5.30, Venus and tried to catch it, but couldn't see anything :(

Yes you are right Soba, and Venus too. The issue is wanting to control it myself, but I am forgetting the years of trying (and failing) to control it. I am trying to run before I can walk. I'll just carry on taking the tablets :)

Morning, tis me, mouse

Ma - ahem! Excuse me Mrs! Amazingly enough, we did manage to be intimate last night, I think all that thinking about not having sex got me a bit fired up! And then this morning my period arrived...... spooky huh?

HR - I too wondered why you'd quit so soon. I totally understand the urge and indeed the need to be in control of your drinking, what you can have and when etc but (and you know this!) you are taking Antabuse for a reason. As we've seen, they don't hand it out easily so your GP/HCP obviously thought that you would benefit from how it works.

I'm a control freak with a dash of OCD and not being in control of my pain meds was really tough and in the end, I started to take drugs that hadn't been prescribed to me and fessed up to the GP with swiftly put me on Oramorph so that I'd stop ODing on Tylex. (codeine 30/500 paracetamol)

It's working most days but as I said the other day, a glass of red wine seems to have a faster pain relief effect than just my night meds alone IYSWIM?

If you stopped the Antabuse, how would you control your drinking....... ?

I need to dash, our friends are due in half an hour! Eeeek!

Be back later, have a safe day Babes xxx

Hello lovely Babes

I've told DH that I need help to stop drinking, and if he's drinking I may have to consider moving out for my own sobriety.

I have woken up with hugely swollen glands on one side of my face - I think I may have mumps. Bah. On the plus side, I now know what I'd look like if I was a shaved hamster.

Will check back in later lovelies. I am not going to drink today. xxx

Fucking hell I just wrote a really long post and then lost it. God that's annoying.

I'm going to be very brief now then in answering questions. Grrrr!

Mouse I don't know what I want to do about my drinking. I was annoyed because I've been feeling more in control and happy about the amount I was drinking, then fucked it up by getting drunker than I intended on Friday and starting the long weekend with a hangover. Glad you got some loving and at ma wanting to hire MrMouse! I've had endometriosis for years (we have weirdly matching ailments!!) and it's one thing I did find herbal medicine very effective for, although the improvement was slow and steady rather than dramatic. I'll PM you soon.

Hopefully yes I think about drinking much too much. Exactly as you said it's that cycle of reining it in, letting it slip, reining it in again. I agree with others that if you've adjusted well to your current dose of antabuse then stay on it for a while whilst you really bed in your good habits.

Joey DP did and does cut back a lot when I do, and he finds that relatively easy to do. No chance whatsoever of an alcohol free house though - it's his hobby to read about wine and food and he spends hours choosing it. Wine society delivery day is the highlight of his month and we have boxes of bottles in the spare room awaiting the special occasion to drink them.

Sorry to be brief now but I've spent ages typing the post that I lost and I don't want to devote any more time for now to thinking about alcohol, if that makes any sense.

Venus I missed you in the sky but I've been enjoying the pictures.

Everything ok with saf?

Silly I hope your DH can support you, and that your poor face feels better.

Have a good day all. Xx

hi. yes thanks mia

long weekend saw me socialising around drinkers a lot - a friends party, family stuff etc. which was ok. i'm getting used to it and i truly am finding i have just as a good a time if not better tbh. i only thought alcohol made things better - the only reason it made things better was because i was obsessing about it and therefore needed it to feed the obsession itms. there's nothing real that is missed - it reminds me of the alan carr idea about smoking that we think we get pleasure from it but in fact the only pleasure is briefly alleviating the craving and withdrawal. not sure that the craving was physical with alcohol but same principal applies i think - the 'pleasure' was just getting a break from wanting/obsessing over the drink once it was in my hand but of course that was temporary till that drink was finished. in the end really there wasn't even that brief pleasure because i'd be obsessing about my next drink whilst i still had a drink in my hand

at one party i was at they were drinking pimms and it all seemed very civilised and harmless and then i was honest with myself about how i would have felt drinking pimms from little plastic cups and the truth is i'd have hated it. there isn't enough alcohol in pimms and it tastes like pop so not just guzzling it in one and being left with the nagging empty glass is really hard work. it would have been massively frustrating and greed provoking for me. i'd have had to switch to something else that let me control how much alcohol i was getting rather than drinking the pseudo alcholic pop on offer.

so all in all better to just not drink! i had tea and pop and coffee and ate lots of cake.

fuckit - how are you? did you speak to the local aa lady? what's occurring?

hi to everyone hope you're all doing ok and those who went a bit benderish over the long weekend aren't suffering too badly for it. if you're feeling down and tired and despairing in a weird can't shake it way remember that's the effect of several days of drinking. it's what it does. it doesn't mean that your life or you are actually in some terrible place it just means you've od'd on a depressant for a few days x

BOING!! hello you lovely lot! been away, had a lovely time, got some really close time with dh, hadnt realised how much we have been kind 'ships in the night' just lately, so i feel all 're-connected now! (get me drift? )

just looking back over the thread, a few things spring to mind, Fuckit, give aa a go, you have nothing to lose! i promise you will feel amazed at how different a bit of soberity can make you feel, i have always had a 'self-distruct' button, i can fuck up my life big time, any time i choose and looking back i can see my weapon of choice has always been booze, the more i drank the more i could say 'fuck it' the last 2 booze free years have been the calmest of my adult life, not without problems, occasional traumas and dramas but always dealt with an underlying serenity - that may sound daft but its the only way i can describe it, what i cannot describe is the feeling of inner peace i have found, something that i always felt would elude me, without the booze however, i found it pretty quickly!

oops, being called, back later babes!

mouse you are SUCH a spoilsport!

Hi everyone. I spoke to a woman in AA. She was 74 and had been sober for 22 years. It was interesting talking to her and she invited me to a meeting on the bank holiday Monday.

I didn't go though.

I went to London to see a friend, determined I wasn't going to drink. I even told them I wasn't going to drink. And then I did. Only three, and I didn't feel drunk at all, but I still drank.

Why do I do it? Any sane person would take one look at the consequences of my drinking and just stop it. Why can't I?

I'll find any excuse to drink. Now it's going far away to a place where people don't know I have a problem just so that I can. I feel as though I can't relax and enjoy myself without it, as though life without it is all hard edges and sometimes I just need to switch off, even though none of the consequences of getting drunk are at all enjoyable for me and in fact are often disastrous.

The woman at AA said that alcoholism was an illness - a progressive illness that always inevitably gets worse over time. Which just made me think that I couldn't be an alcoholic, as although my drinking had gone through bad and worse phases, it was not necessarily getting worse over time. But if I'm not an alcoholic, what am I? Someone who is deliberately choosing this for themselves?

I know I will feel a fraud if I go to a meeting, even though I desperately want some support to stop. Perhaps I will just go to next Mondays and see how it goes. But I imagine it will be full of stories of people who were eventually drinking all day every day, and I don't. Sometimes I don't drink for weeks. It's just that when I do drink, it is more often than not a total car crash.

I feel as though everyone will think, 'What are you doing here? You're not an addict. You're just a twat when you're drunk. Stop being a twat. Problem solved.'

it isn't full of people who were drinking all day every day fuckit. and no people won't think that.

seriously there are all sorts of people. i think that yes, you should just go to a meeting and see. you don't have to speak or do anything. you can just sit down and be silent if you want. you don't have to do anything. well you do tend to have to shake a lot of hands i found but that's not too taxing

why not try doing some reading? there's a chapter i think would make sense to you that i'll dig out a link to if i can find it online.

Thanks Swallowed. Always happy for reading material. I have read a couple of books about stopping drinking, and they made sense, but... my drinking doesn't seem to be based on sense or logic.

I will go to the meeting next Monday. Because what else is there? I have to stop this, and I seem unable to by willpower alone.

it isn't based on sense or logic - it's insanity really.

willpower is pretty useless - it's more giving in to the reality of not being able to drink anymore than it is getting your willpower up to fight it iyswim. once you give in it gets a lot easier because you're not caught up in that madness of trying to be able to drink normally anymore. it honestly is a relief to just throw in the towel.

on chapter 11 - 'a vision for you'

old book so forgive the language/tone a bit and try and read it looking for the similarities not the differences (as they say). there are all kinds of experiences and types of people etc so we're not going to identify with everything.

(back to usual name - for the next 105 years )

fuckit one of the posters on here (MIFLAW) used to say that will power was about as much use against an alcohol problem, as it is in trying to control diarrhoea! Please do try some AA meetings - you'll never know what you'll find until you've been. Not everyone finds it to their liking, but I am pretty certain that you will find some things that people say that resonate with you. It' not so much how much they were drinking, or how long they've been sober, but that shared sense of others who understand the madness of drinking when you know it's not fun any more, and who will know that you're not just being a twat, and that you're struggling with this (whether you call it an illness or not).

no booze tonight - first night in a long time.
whew - why can't I do this every night?

Thanks Swallowed. The link didn't work but I googled it and read it. It didn't really describe peoples experiences though - it was more like a creative piece about how AA came about. Did I read the right thing?

I like the idea of meeting people who will understand what it is to be a problem drinker. However supportive people who drink normally might be, they don't 'get it' and it would be nice to meet people that do.

Something I'm scared will happen though - because it is a mixed group - is that there will be a man there who is a domestic abuser (an awful lot of abusers blame their crimes on their drinking). I work in domestic abuse service provision and just wouldn't be able to sit in the same room and give my support to that. I'd have to leave.

Saf loved your description of drinking Pimms, reminded me of the madness of always never having enough. So much easier to forgo it in the first place than forever being on edge about where the next drink's coming from...

Right - burying this here - tomorrow is the day that I don't drink (at least for one day) am sick and tired.

SAF well done on your weekend btw! x

fuckit that's a tough one - but don't let your worry about it stop you from going in the first place - it might not happen. Also JWN after going to her AA group for a while got together with some of the others and set up a women's group.

And if something like that did happen, then you could leave. But I don't think that anyone there would be 'supporting' an abuser - nor would they support anyone who had driven drunk, or stolen to fund their addiction. If someone is working the AA steps, they will go through the process of 'making a moral inventory' and then of making amends (if that is possible) - so they are more likely to be facing their behaviour, not excusing it - and in any case that process is usually done in private with their sponsor, rather than in the group.

Ok thanks Venus, that's good to know. Unsure of how it all works so I guess the only way is to suck it and see.

I really like the idea of a women's group. Don't think that's available here though. There might be one in the nearest city but that's at least an hours drive away.

Have to say I'm really relating to what Saf and Soba have said about the Pimms. Piddly little not very alcoholic drinks just make me feel on edge. Because you only want more and then you have to worry about where more's coming from. I'm the same when there's a big group of people and only one or two bottles of wine to go round. I'm always thinking in my head, 'What fool worked this one out? There's only enough there for everyone to have one or two glasses! What's the point of that?!'

I remember going to a party once. I was in a dry phase and trying really hard. I'd managed not to drink for a while. But still my visceral reaction when entering the party was to panic at the lack of alcohol for the amount of people. It's like it was just my default setting to immediately size up the booze situation.

fuckit, i dont often do this but i am going to call you a name - you are an alcoholic! you have just described me, my reactions to drinking, my 'reasons' for drinking, my thoughts about drinking and im an alcoholic, we are different women, different lives, different towns, different jobs, different family setups, but OMG we are exactly the same!

fwiw, i have met men who have hit their wives/partners, they have frightened their children and sworn and shouted at their parents, i have met men who have killed their drinking buddies, i have met men who have been done for gbh after a night out at the pub - i have met women who have neglected their children, who have abused their husbands/partners, women who havent washed for a week, who have woken up with wet knickers in doorways after a night out at the pub - what we do is leave our judgements at the door, accept that we are all in the room for the same purpose and try and get on with our lives and be truthful and honest about what we have done and try and make amends to the people we have hurt. i have never heard anyone condone or excuse domestic violence, or any type of violence for that matter.

the thing about being an alkie is that we all have differing 'rock bottoms', compared to some, mine wasnt that much of a big deal, to me it was the end of the world. i was very verbally abusive to my husband and my daughter, physical violence was perhaps only a drink away, i dont know, im just glad that i met people who understood that, who knew how desperate i was to change and didnt judge me. i have no doubt that if i hadnt found them, hadnt found the people on this thread, hadnt admitted that i was an alcoholic that over the past 2 years i would have lost my family, my home, my dignity and possibly my sanity.