The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Still On A Sober Holiday, Waiting For The Summer!

[Mouseface]

Hello, tis me, Mouse

I'm one of the Brave Babes on the Battle Bus, it's HUGE and never gets full, the doors are always open, 24/7, every single day.

We're a mixture of people who have been drinking for most of our lives and in one way or another, abuse(d) alcohol.

Some of us have stopped drinking every day completely and are taking it One Day At A Time.

Some are trying to control their drinking with medication, willpower, AA, some of us aren't quite sure what we want or where we're trying to get, but we're here, we're all in the same boat Bus, and there's a seat for ANYONE who wants one.

You can find the previous threads HERE and where this Bus first started it's journey, thanks to a wonderful lady, who'd hit rock bottom face first (and she'd admit that to us herself), seeking help and advice from a bunch of 'strangers' on an internet forum........

Come have a peek, take a seat, we don't bite or judge. We listen and will try to help, best we can.

Hi babes and welcome nat day 2 is good keep going
Sidecar for me again tonight, but by tomorrow this will be a dry house and so keep my seat warm nono I intend walking away from the demon but lets wait and see ODAAT.
Have AA meeting tomorrow too 1st one scary!!
koti great to have you back really missed you

rural - so glad to hear you have found an AA meeting.

Should be picking up two kittens tomorrow. Eek...

kittens! squeeee

< heaves on handbrake, bus shudders to a halt >

Always room for kittens

Tee hee. I have never had kittens before but have had numerous adult cats. Feeling slightly nervous but hate all the carpets in my house, have next to no curtains and only paid £50 for my sofa so have nothing to lose really

Names so far are Figaro (Figgy) for the tabby; and Diavolo (moshi monster character) for the black one. Chosen by the kids obviously.

you children have better taste than my son nono - our cat is called brian. kittens don't tend (ime - hope you don't get devil ones) to be that destructive. compared to puppies carpets are safe.

rural - well done! just huge well done. the tip they always say but really is important is 'listen for similarities, not the differences'. people have very different stories but there are very similar themes. look forward to hearing how you get on. if you have any questions - like anything you want to know to reassure you then pm me. i remember wanting to know what actually happened at a meeting, like the structure of it before i went so i knew what to expect.

all good here. blew the healthy eating last night because i made the cardinal mistake of putting chocolate spread on the grocery order. i cannot, really CANNOT have it in the house still, thankfully i'd eaten really healthily that day so still came in under my burnt calories so should have just stalled rather than crashed the diet.

couch to 5k again today [scared emoticon]. i am aiming to walk ds to school with the little dog. come back, change and swap dogs and head out for the run. my superfit lab will be good running company - the puppy would be under my feet trying to kill me.

Oo enjoy the run saf. I am still ill . Am thinking the kittens will dig at the carpet by the door in the lounge which is the room they will be kept in at first. All my cats have dug at carpets to get out of rooms...

rural hope it goes well today

Morning all

I gave my cat a treat every time she scratched the scratching post. She has never once scratched furniture or carpets (in five years) so hopefully she's trained. When she's hungry or just fancies something to eat, she scratches her post and looks at me all big eyed and soft furry faced

I've also trained her to knock on the door to come in because we don't have a cat flap. We had one at our last house but neighbours cats used to come in and attack her!

Well done to all those on Day 2, 3, 4, 44 or whatever. We're doing great

Isinde how did you get on?

Venus haven't heard from you in ages. Is all this talk of running frightening you away?

Well, I know autumn is here for sure. Two signs - one, all the spiders are coming in the house and, two, I wore my bedsocks last night because my feet were freezing and I couldn't warm up!!

Have a great day babes, it's Try Hard Tuesday, enjoy! x

have been re-directed to here by another kind poster as originally posted in health, just going to copy message......

Have posted on here before about issues with alcohol and the general consensus was that Yes I had some issues and should go see the GP. Well with all good intentions life got in the way and I didn't and thought I'm ok, I'll manage.
Now hopefully not too long but want to go over what happened at the weekend. Went to all day wedding and had resolved not to drink wine as that is my demon drink and drink anything other then wine. Well as soon as I got to the wedding I had wine instantly albeit as a spritzer but as soon as I sat at the table I had some of the wine there. Well one drink turned into several and ime people always seem to like to ply me with alcohol as I think for the first few drinks I seem like quite good fun! Then I was gone, have blacked out much of the night but little bits come back and I've been told I was up dancing on my own cringe cringe I was at the frony of the hotel doing cartwheels cringe barely comes close also not sure if this was on my own, with other adults please let there of been other adults or children think part of me dies when I think of that I have then been told I fell going down to the car that my pregnant host drove me home in and the worst worst bit for me was that in my drunken haze I tried to open door of car whilst it was doing 70 miles on motorway with heavily non-drunk female driving!! I do not know what on earth was going on in my drunken mind but this to me just shows me that I am a risk to myself and others when drunk. I am so ashamed when I think of how drunk I was. I don't want my life to carry on like this.
I'm going to go to the doctors today and take the first steps in getting some proper help. Guess I just want some support, I know I was totally in the wrong and have since sent an apology card to the couple.
If you've got down to here thank you so much for taking the time to read

Any support appreciated

Morning babes,

Rural brilliant news about aa. Please come and tell us all about it. I think that aa is probably the only thing that will move me on from my drinking patterns, so please come back and say that it was ace.

Well, I'm drinking again. Today is day one again we have friends coming over tonight and one of them is teetotal so I shall not drink with her. She's really good at stopping the whole 'oh go on....' thing when people try to persuade you to have a glass. Beginning to feel pretty hopeless though, still fat , still drinking, still my own frigging fault though!

nono Kittens! lucky you, bet they are gorgeous. Can we have lots of kitten news? I am sorry you are ill too, not just focussing on kittens really.

saf I'm very impressed and at the healthy living, good inspiration for us babes still drinking.

Hi to new babes, shwmae , it's such a contradiction that as a society we drink so much and venerate alcohol but it's considered embarassing to own up to drinking too much and wanting to stop. I'm hoping that booze will go the same way as ciggies, that there will be much more public awareness followed by it being made harder to get hold of the stuff and eventually it might become the norm to abstain.
On the other hand, not everyone has a problem with booze like me!

Hi cluttergone hadn't spotted your post until a minute ago.

Just to say well done for posting on here, being honest about drinking is a step towards taking control. Good idea to go to the dr's. Was this a one off occasion or do you drink at other times?

It sounds like a horrible evening, not one you want to go through again.

I'm hoping that a sober babes will be along in a minute to give some advice, but welcome cluttergone

Day 1 again

Morning all, day 6.

Welcome to clutter I have no real advice, usually there are some very wise people on this bus, but not seen them lately (venus? jwn? silver? thurso?) In the meantime, well done for posting.

Last night I was getting all 'why am I bothering? Life's too short to be eating sensibly and in bed by 10.30'. Feeling abit down, but still determined...

clutter - welcome and well done on getting help. First step

faire - your cat training sounds fab. Sadly these two are boys and therefore I suspect totally stupid. Gross generalisation I know. However ime the girls are much smarter than the boys. Which is why I was happy to take the two boy kittens!

I have just had a weird co-incidence. I'm reading a novel which includes the line 'the dog returneth to his vomit', and although I understood the basic meaning, I've just googled it to find out more. Yahoo answers had one answer from someone who used alcoholism as a reference, ie going back to something disgusting even when you know its not right.

I'm probably never going to get that phrase out of my head now, uggh. Its from the Bible, btw. 'The dog returneth to his vomit, as a fool returns to his folly' Uggghhh...

Yuk!

I'll try to bear that one in mind next time I'm tempted!

Which book are you reading? That's a famous quote but i can't remember where from, is it Conrad? Make a book geek happy joey and tell me!

lol on the boy kittens, 'tis true.

guggs the book I was reading was More Lives Than One, by Libby Purves.

The quote was from the Bible.

And the books title is I believe a quote from Oscar Wilde.

Hi guggenheim nope unfortunately not a one off, I seem to get myself into many, many states like this when out on the lash! This though was taking it up a notch for me as I (don't think) I have ever tried to open the door of a car going along the motorway at 70mph and the scary thing is I have no recollection. I do 9unfortunately) remember many of the other horrible states I've got into. My friends, work colleagues, random people always seem to want to invite me to things and once there I always end up drinking. But most people I go out with don't have a demanding toddler to get up with at 6am or earlier and look after all day or have a teenage one there to see the wreck that is her mother!!

I just feel I have had enough of this cycle, it's been like this for years and years and I've so had enough of feeling like complete shit for days. Thank you for being so welcoming.

Just went to see GP and he's giving me the details of a drop-in support centre that can signpost me towards further help.

Thanks again, appreciate any help, support, advice

Thank you- I was way off track, unless Libby is a little older then she lets on

That Oscar, he had a way with the words.

Feeling really whingy today, which serves me right for drinking. Someone say something to cheer me up

Actually, I can think of something funny. We have a glow clock thingy for the TT because he considers 5 am to be a civilised time to begin the day. We have attempted to train him to stay in his room playing until the clock shows a yellow sunshine. This has backfired on us as he just climbs into our bed in the small wee hours and demands that I go and check on the colour of the clock while he stays nice and warm in our bed! He has staff for the dull parts of life, you know.

what does TT mean, is it a toddler?

My DD when she was about 5 woke us up early with the breaking news that her ear was itchy

welcome clutter. i'd consider aa if i was you - according to many people there who have tried all sorts it is the one place that really made a difference. reading your posts sounds very familiar to myself and other aa members stories. it is a great help to talk and listen to others with the same dodgy relationship with alcohol and to get hope that there is a way out the other side.

i've just done the couch to 5k - second time - one more at this level then onto week 2 - i dread to think what week 2 is like! aargh!

just trying to recover enough to climb in the shower then i might crack on with some decorating stuff.

clutter - the really familiar bits were: i'll avoid wine as that's my bad drink, i'll be ok so long as i don't drink X and stick to Y. accidentally ending up drunk when you fully intended not to. blacking out. seemingly having no control over what happens once that first drink is in the system.

Clutter good on you for asking for support, from your GP, this thread etc. I cringe too when I think of some of the things I've done when drunk and cringe even more at the blackouts when I've had no clue what's happened :(

I was out this morning walking the dog when I came across a guy in his late 30s slumped on the pavement with half of a bottle of wine next to him. Something made me stop to make sure he was OK. He'd travelled from Leicester to St Albans for "old times sake" but was obviously on a bender and crying and very distraught. It turned out he'd been brought up here and wanted to visit his mum's grave who'd died six years previously. He had some contact numbers on a scrap of paper so I called his dad who was polite but didn't want to know - no doubt this has happened many times before but it still sent a chill down my spine that a parent could disown their child like this. Eventually I contacted the police because I didn't know what else to do and when they turned up they seemed kind and assured me that they'd try and get him home.

So another life blighted by alcohol. I couldn't help but think was he drinking because he was sad or was he sad because he was drinking but I don't really suppose it matters now. Maybe it's too late for this poor vulnerable guy and everyone's washed their hands of him. There must be thousands like hium :(

This is stress. This is normal. Its what happens at work. It is not a reason or excuse to drink.

Clock off at 3pm, go home and walk the dog. Look forward to (ummm? chocolate? again?)

This is normal. My colleague is Hindi (I think...) and they don't drink and she copes with the stress. This is life. Stop pouting and thinking you're hard done by. Actually this is nothing compared to the stress some people have, I work in a library for god's sake not on an oil-rig or down a mine. (actually begining to think I would rather do something mindlessly phsyical than try to wade through another incomprensible spreadsheet on statistics )

This is NOT a reason to drink!!

(Stern talking-to over)

oh soma you are such a kind person, most people would have been disgusted and walked on. Hopefully in the depths of his despair, he will know that someone cared enough to help.

oh puts my whingeing last post into perspective.

Yes, take the dog for a walk Joey, always helps me! I don't know if it was kindness that made me stop rather than a "there but for the grace of God go I" sort of feeling...

soma ye-e-e-s but still you had compassion cause you understood (a bit) what its like.

Gawd the Mumsnet Musical has just started, and people are settling down with glasses of wine

Okay, I know, MN is not the real world, and its not even real wine (just little pretend icons) but it just struck me. How careless we (society) have become in normalising alcohol.

Don't know why I am on moralising high horse. Sorry, can't even ride horses.