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Original poster

The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Turning Over Autumn Leaves In Search For Our Own Personal Sobriety

999 replies

Mouseface · 24/09/2012 11:09

Hello, I'm mouse and my best friend used to be vodka. We were inseparable at the time, such fun! Wild nights out, wild nights in..... danger, excitement, strangers, not knowing where I was when I woke up, oh it was all so fantastic.....Hmm

Not the case for the last couple of years or so, since I found this Bus. Smile

Now, we are practically strangers. Don't get me wrong, I still abuse alcohol and use it to self-medicate which completely defeats all of the work I've put in, trying to see my life through sober eyes but that's just how I do things......

Anyway, that's enough about me Wink so why not come say hello to the others on the Bus, we're all at different stages of drinking, not drinking or complete abstinence (of the drinking kind!)

No-one on the Bus wears judgy pants, nylon bloomers, leopard skin thongs? Maybe...... I wouldn't like to ask to be honest! But we are all here for the very same reason, we can't (or don't want to) control our drinking like 'normal' people do.

If you'd like to see how this all started, why not have a look HERE and read about one of the most inspirational ladies you'll ever 'know'.

You can also follow the threads, one by one, by clicking on the links on each thread towards the end, leading to the next etc......

See you soon Smile x

OP posts:
dementedma · 02/10/2012 21:12

Obrigada - well done you

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 02/10/2012 21:20

Well done babes who are on the bus

I am about to have a self absorbed whinge. please feel free to ignore.I am seriously hacked off. Now nearly 4 weeks of illness. Went to gp finally today as I have a very sore throat which is covered in white spots and feel seasick and dizzy with hissing in my ear. After 4 weeks of lurgy I finally thought the time had come for some antibiotics. Although the gp says my throat is bacterial she would rather I fought it myself. With what exactly?!?! She had diagnosed labyrinthitis and given me drugs but I have a 4hr drive to Warrington in the morning for work, followed by a 4hr return trip later after a 3hr audit. And the following day I have a 6hr round trip to Hemel. The drugs cause drowsiness so I daren't take them. Will have to drive dizzy instead

I am so seriously fed up with being ill. I can't ever remember being this poorly. Is it to do with giving up alcohol? Because right now I will drink again if it will get rid of this current lack of immunity

I am so sorry to whinge when some of you face much worse illness and chronic illnesses. But I can't take much more of this Sad

Witco · 02/10/2012 21:28

Feeling positive and might just have an early night to get through my 1st sober evening! Sparkling water and keeping busy and you lot have kept me going, thanks SO much Grin

aliasjoey · 02/10/2012 22:08

NoNo I understand how you feel, my health seems worse since I've not been drinking... its not exactly an incentive to carry on, is it? The only thing is, at least if you're not drinking, well you can rule out alcohol-related problems.

venus once said (oh where is she, I miss her Sad) if you were taken ill tomorrow AND were also drunk, the doctors could so easily misdiagnose you, or not be able to treat it properly or... oh she put it much better than me, but you get the idea.

What would happen if you didn't on the work trip tomorrow? Because if you carry on, then you will end up so ill you have to have time off anyway so isn't it better to take the drugs and look after yourself ???

GoldenSeptember · 02/10/2012 23:37

Joey Grin Grin at pimp my poodle and I really miss reading venus' posts too.

Faire I'm up for the weight loss challenge. I'm doing a combination of low GI and low-carb. Mainly low GI but today I hadn't eaten any carbs since before lunch so I used up all the cream and lots of cheese making a low/no-carb cauliflower cheese. Yum.

saf I can't remember whether you take ADs or not. If not, have you tried St. John's Wort? It has mixed results as an AD but can be good for SAD related depression.

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 03/10/2012 04:08

Thanks alias - the reason I can't be off sick is the redundancy situation. They are counting sick leave as part of the scoring matrix. I had some part days in may but can't remember how many. I also think I may have had some time late last year but am not sure and can't find out. So I am terrified of taking more time off in case it affects my score

Can't sleep. Throat sore and nose completely blocked. This is going to be a horrid day Sad

Again - sorry for whinge

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 07:35

Checking in, yet again.

Beautiful thread title, I love that. Smile

I will come back and chat later but just marking my place for now.

Witco · 03/10/2012 08:27

Great night's sleep and am so relieved not to have drunk last night. Thanks Babes, am feeling groovy!

kotinka · 03/10/2012 09:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 10:39

NoNo - alcohol will not get rid of a lack of immunity. Alcohol CREATES a lack of immunity because your body is weakened by the constant slog of processing alcohol. However, it does mean that you don't notice illnesses and also that your body doesn't really have time to be ill with anything except drunkenness (I'm no doctor, this is just my experience.)

When you do stop drinking, your body pokes its head above the parapet ans says, "right, time to do some repair work."

Of course, it could also be a coincidence - it is autumn, after all, and lots of people get ill.

If you don't go through this now, you will go through it whenever you do stop drinking; and, in the mean time, you will be permanently ill because of the side effects of chroninc drinking.

So your choice, logically, is never stop drinking; or stop and take a brief illness on the chin.

Note the word "never".

You've made the right decision, stick with it!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 10:41

MIFLAW! Hello!

Last time I was on here you weren't around.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 10:41
MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 10:48

Not at all - weren't you previously Little Red Dragon?

How's it going?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 10:49

I was. Smile

It's not going too badly - I was sober for nearly a year, but I've had a few goes at getting back now, and really need to work at it.

How're you doing?

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 10:51

Not too bad - still sober which is the main thing. Probably - well, definitely - about to separate from "wife" (her choice, not mine) but it is all as amicable and grown-up as can be expected and we are working towards joint access so I will still have lots of contact with kids.

No plans to drink and fuck things up even worse.

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 10:52

What got you back on it after a year?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 10:56

Oh, I am sorry to hear that about your wife. But very good to hear you're still sober!

For me - just the usual idiocy, I think. 'Oh, can I be cleverer than alcoholism? Why, no, I can't'.

It was a very good year for me, though, and it has given me a lot of confidence to know I can do it again. And that when I slip, I need to just keep coming back and trying again instead of writing it off as impossible.

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 10:59

Keep it one day at a time, or it's very easy to worry about a situation before it even happens. (I know this for a fact - I often worry about how my daughter will cope with drinking as she is a lot like me. She is 4.)

LRDtheFeministDragon · 03/10/2012 11:01

Will do.

I can see why you'd worry about your DD, but at least she's going to grow up seeing you not drinking, and she'll have you on hand to warn her/look out for her if later on she does get into it.

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 03/10/2012 11:04

MIFLAW - thanks for responding to my whinge. We haven't met before. I have been on here since August. I am sorry to hear about your separation. I don't know how old your kids are. Mine are 6 and 3 and I am divorced from their dad. The joint residence thing is very hard - I won't lie to you. But it will help if you are able to communicate with your STBXW. I have real problems communicating with my ex and it makes joint parenting very hard. So the one thing I would advise above all is to keep communication channels open if they still are. Ours had shut long before we separated

I am feeling a little better now but did call in sick which is a risk with the redundancies. However I also realised how irresponsible it would have been to travel and audit a team of people when ill. I could pass it on to lots of people and it is truly a vile bug Sad

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 03/10/2012 11:04

No idea why met is bold?!

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 11:09

Well, that's just it, isn't it? If I was normal I would think, "well, she's only 4 and I can tell her what it was like for me and she'll never see me drinking if I plod on, one day at a time, and anyway she might take after her mother in that respect." But because I'm NOT normal I'm thinking, "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, you're born this way or you're not, I never listened so why should she, and would I even want her to be like her mum because that would mean I couldn't relate to her?" The proper advice would be "wait and see", but I still end up worrying!

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 03/10/2012 11:10

Oh and xpost. I see DD is 4 so perhaps your kids are similar ages to mine. If I can help in any way pls feel free to pm me with questions about shared residence etc. expect there to be outbursts of over emotional behaviour; lots of 'I don't want to go to mummy / daddy'. DS would cling to pieces of furniture at handover time or become so involved in something that he literally wouldn't stop during the handover. Frantic colouring while I put his shoes on etc. that I think was related to him not wanting the handover to happen so he was ignoring it as much as he could. It took time - probably around 8 months for DS to get used to it. He was just 4 when we separated. DD was only 18 months so her reaction was different again. Now in the main they accept the status quo. I don't think it is ideal for them but it had to be. It has made me appreciate them so much as I have to spend so much time without them. When they are with me I make every second count.

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 03/10/2012 11:12

DD will be her own person. She may be like you now but she will have a different set of experiences growing up and you have time to help her manage her emotions and her self confidence so that she doesn't end up needing to abuse alcohol.

MIFLAW · 03/10/2012 11:15

Nono, you've probably done the right thing. But, more importantly, you haven't done the WRONG thing, which is to drink. Stay strong and keep it in the day, and talk to someone who understands your problem in real life if you have such a person.

Thanks for advice and support re break up. It's all been very clam to be honest - we both knew things had got rubbish between us, but I assumed we could work through it (kids nearly 5 and nearly 2, so rough patch to be expected, I'd have thought) - but, when I broached the subject, she told me that she didn't love me any more, so didn't see the point of trying. So, because we were at such a low point already, breaking up doesn't actually seem such a bad idea, since she's unwilling to try again.

People survive worse, don't they? And, to quote the favourite saying I have heard in AA, "If life was fair, I'd be dead."