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

[Mouseface]

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.....

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

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 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 x

My current bedroom couldn't be further removed from my dream :) it is cramped, painted brown and generally has my crap all over the place. We moved in the house last year and haven't got to upstairs yet. I'd decided to do all the other rooms first as no one sees our bedroom - even when it's decorated it will still be a tiny box but if I can afford it, I could get come nice bed linen and new PJS!

AJ I googled "dreaming of a white room" and all the dream interpretations are around a fresh start and clean slate which would fit in with your principal, maybe that's part of my fantasy.

Are you at home greeneyed can you go and make the bed up freshly and dig out your favourite pjs? For tonight.

Don't look forward to when it's redecorated, that might not happen for a while(our old bed was a 20 year old cheapest student version that had been mantelled and dismantelled so many times it creaked if you walked past it and the mattress looked like something out of a skid alley cartoon with springs poking out )

Do something to support your decision to not drink today now!

Thank you help, I'm not at home I'm in the office though I may as well be I'm doing bugger all! I've got a meeting tonight so no time for bedroom unfortunately. I'll do it tomorrow with my little boy, he can help me make it nice :) No wonder you were so happy with your new bed!

Absolutely greeneyed and my room sounds very similar to yours, down to the corniced ceiling and the billowing white drapes. My window opens onto a small balcony and onto a beautiful garden and I can hear the sound of water playing in the fountains....

Interesting point you make Miflaw about the proportion of illegal drug users who use their drugs "sensibly". I wonder how if differs to alcohol. Have set aside the afternoon to read the ebook I mentioned earlier and to find out about AA meetings. We have some lunch-time ones in my area which I liked going to before but won't be able to now because of work. But there's a candlelit one in a church on Friday nights which might be a good one to try. I really need to find one that suits me and stick to it - how many times a week do you AAers manage a meeting?

saf thanks for your support and advice about the meetings. I keep asking myself why I am so daunted by it.

I have a responsible, professional job where I have meetings with people all the time and that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I suppose it's because I am finally admitting that I can't control this thing and I feel a huge sense of failure. It's not a failure to do something positive to help myself out of this though is it?

Anyway Day 3 is going well. I have an invite to a friend's house for food later who originally said..stay over so we can have wine. I've now arranged to go over for food but to come home so I can avoid the wine. She did say in her response that at least I could have 1 glass ..arrrghhh! I'm not going to though...I've bought some nice soft drinks to take. I am not drinking today.

Thanks for the link to the Claude Steiner ebook soba I'll give that a read too. I see that you have been to meetings before and I'd be interested to know how you got on if you feel like sharing.

The candlelit meeting sounds great. I can't get to daytime ones either due to work but I think evening ones will be better for me because I only get cravings after work, never during the day (yet!!).

I'm planning on attending my first meeting on Friday night (if I get away from work in time) and if not then there is another on Monday night I can make.

Well done lelli, Soba, so it's not just me :)

lelli i find generally people don't give a shit about your not drinking so long as they feel allowed to drink themselves - so encourage her - say you go for it, don't let me stop you etc to really explicitly make her feel ok about drinking despite you not doing so. i find that that helps get away from the why don't you have one, oh go on business that is really about wanting to feel ok about having a drink themselves iyswim.

Leli have a good evening with your friend and stick to your decision not to drink. I'm sure she won't mind that you're not drinking but if she pushes you just be firm. It's quite easy for me now to simply say to friends something like "I'm not drinking tonight and I'll have a soft drink" and then go on to have a nice evening with food.

Do try to find an AA meeting that suits you. Overall my previous experience has been very positive although like you I was initially a bit nervous. I'm sure that as soon as you go along and hear other people speak, your anxiety will disappear. And you don't have to share at your first meeting (or ever if you don't want to) - just simply say "my name's Leli, I'm an alcoholic and I'll pass for tonight thanks." I always found admitting I'm an alcoholic very difficult because I didn't like to admit to myself that I was. But I've just read the first section of Claude Steiner's book (which is very well written BTW) and I've found this passage very useful because it demonstrates to me without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm an alcoholic:

Steiner asks prospective clients the following: "Do you suspect that you have lost control over your drinking? For instance, do you sometimes drink more than you want to, or do you sometimes drink at times when you don't want to drink? If the answer is yes, then you are an alcoholic. The second question is: Do you feel that your drinking is harming you in any way? At work? Financially? In your relationships? In any other way?? If so, you are an alcoholic. How severe an alcoholic depends on how out of control and damaging your drinking is, but if the answer is ?yes,? to either question then you are somewhere on the road from mild to severe alcoholism.

nb it's useful that Steiner talks about degrees of alcoholism, I haven't heard this mentioned before and find that all alcoholics are lumped together. I would say that on this spectrum I fall into the "mild" category but I can now accept that
I'm an alcoholic. And agree with Saf about encouraging your friend to have a drink - I always do this too and make sure they know I'm OK about it.

Woah there- I've read the linked claudesteiner thread and I can't see anything there that will help anyone struggling not to drink today. It's not that it's not interesting, I don't strongly disagree with anything in particular, but if you're struggling with alcohol and the desire to drink today it's a bit like reading a manual on the history of lifeboat design when the ship's sinking.

BBs- concentrate on what you need to do for yourself to not drink today.

green thanks. I love the idea of doing what you can right now to make your room special.

saf good advice. I know what you mean about people wanting to feel ok about drinking. She can do as she pleases as long as she doesn't try and nick my ginger beer!!

soba I will have a good evening thanks. I'm really looking forward to seeing her as we don't get the chance often so it will be a great catch up. And I'm looking forward to rememering it all tomorrow!

I will remember what you said about finding the AA meeting that suits me. I do have a few choices around me on different nights so may well try them all and see.

I just read the first chapter of the Steiner book too and that same section stood out for me. And straight afterwards the thing MIFLAW (I think) said about the "yet" thing came to mind. Is that seeing the story through to the end??

I believe that I am an alcoholic and I believe the idea of the spectrum. I also believe that if I am at the milder end right now and don't stop I could easily slide into the severe section and fall off the end. I used to think I'll never get that bad, that I drank heavily at times but I could control it. Now I'm seeing that it's not that easy. That one bottle of wine limit has been blown away, that remembering everything that happened thing is completely out of the window, that at least I'm not a falling over drunk is no longer real (I once fell down two flights of stairs and broke my ribs after drinking).

I could still tell myself that I never drink in the mornings or during the day at work but I'm running out of those excuses and if I do one of those tests that's often the only one I don't answer yes to.

So ..for me acceptance is the name of the game. And realising that life is good without alcohol..I'm not losing anything, I'm gaining everything. Just gotta believe all that and put into practice..simples!

Sorry for rambling on there

You don't even have to say you're an alcoholic. You can stay completely silent if you want.

no, the "yets" is not the same as watchnig the film through to the end. Watching the film through to the end is more about the "agains" - if I do that then I'll drink a second - again; then a third - again; then I'll start getting tearful/boring/abusive - again; then I'll storm off in a huff - again; minicab home - again; wake up broke and hung over - again.

The yets are things you haven't done yet, but there's no reason why you couldn't once you're out of control. I've never hit my wife - yet. I've never murdered anyone - yet. i've never abandoned or forgotten about my children - yet. I've never been homeless - yet. I've never wet myself at work - yet.

Of course, one (wo)man's yets are another (wo)man's agains.

e.g. breaking two ribs - my "yet", your "again".

Ahh yes I see that MIFLAW and it terrifies me when my yets become my agains. When I fell down the stairs I was mortified, not to say in agony and at a very low ebb. I remember thinking I MUST cut this out now. That was 2 years ago.......

I'm so confused by all these posts about what is and is not alcoholism.

I drink half a bottle of wine or less at a time. Rarely any more than that. I used to drink every night to 'unwind' when I was in a particularly stressful situation at work but now I have no real problems cutting down to two or three nights a week. The wine witch pays me an occasional visit but it's not that troublesome tbh. At the moment I am well under national guidelines each week (and no, I'm not deluding myself). I don't drink crap wine, I care about what I drink. Once a year on average I go out and binge, normally on white wine in a difficult social situation. This has never escalated, in fact it has become a much rarer occurrence over the years.

However I still consider myself to be some kind of alcoholic, at the very least a problem drinker. Because actually half a bottle of wine is too much for me. Physically I can only cope with about 250 ml before I become hazy, and half a bottle makes me feel rough in the morning. Yet I still continue to drink that much if I have wine in. I know I should stop at two tiny glasses, but I want the bigger glasses, I want the haze. Ditto I can't keep a (nice) bottle of wine in the house and not drink it straight away (although I have bottles of vodka and rum in the house and I'm not remotely tempted by them, beer can sit in the fridge for Weeks).

And when I go on these rare binges, well I have no idea what the hell I'm playing at there. I would imagine that someone who has delusions and hallucinations when they've been drinking to excess, and does it more than once in their lifetime, would be considered to be at least an abuser of alcohol. And to be fair, it might only take one more binge to kill me, even if it is in 2 years time or whatever.

I don't fit the templates. But I still think I'm an alcoholic.

I worry that some of the recent posts about alcoholism could scare off people who have real problems with drinking that don't fit into the categories that are being described here. Seems like if you're not on a downward spiral to destroying your entire life then you don't have a problem, and I don't think that's true.

Please don't think I'm trying to be difficult, just wanted to bring a different set of experiences to the discussion.

Oh and I over analyse my drinking, which also suggests it's an issue

I don't think it really matters whether I call myself an alcoholic, or a problem drinker, or a binge drinker, or someone who just drinks a bit too much and/or too often, or someone who has to try hard to control drinking . . .

They are all labels for individual circumstances, conditions, opinions and no-one can really define what makes an alcoholic.

We share many similar traits, thought processes, reactions to alcohol, early experiences, etc. but we are all also completely different to each other from totally different backgrounds and living in diverse circumstances.

It's interesting to think about and chat about but I personally don't think it's that important to sobriety.

Just my contribution there, for what it's worth

it's always made clear in the thread openings that all types are welcome - alcoholics, problem drinkers, those just trying to cut down a bit etc etc. would be unfortunate if alcoholic weren't allowed to talk about and get support for their alcoholism for fear it might scare non alcoholics off

I worry that some of the recent posts about alcoholism could scare off people who have real problems with drinking that don't fit into the categories that are being described here

I see what you are saying here Ellie but I do think it's difficult to define 'real problems'.

I agree that there are degrees of alcoholism. It's been compared to being a lift that only goes down. The longer you are in the lift the further into alcoholism you sink. But, the good news, is that you can get out of the lift at any time.

Even though we are all in different 'categories', we are also all in the same lift.

Evening, tis me, mouse

Saf is right, this Bus has ALWAYS been about every kind of drinker. Those who know they are alcoholics (not that they wear a badge or have a label stuck to their foreheads), those who know they drink too much and aren't sure what to call themselves...... those who binge drink, those who take it OneDayAtATime each and every day, or even hour.

There are those who are 'controlled/in control' drinkers (like I used to be described by others and sometimes myself, but I agree with MIF - there's no such thing, you either drink too much all of the time or you drink a couple of glasses now and then.... take it or leave it.....)

There are those who have held on so very tight with every ounce of their being with the hardest of grips to their sobriety for a minute at a time, knowing that if they take that first sip, a tiny little sip, that is it. One glass, two glasses three glasses four........................

This Bus is for you if you drink or not. This Bus is for you if you know someone you're worried about. Or you used to drink and want to help, give your thoughts, share your experiences.... talk. Simply talk to us about your journey.

There are no rules. Just let it out, be honest. Stay. Sit. Lurk. Post. Whatever, there's no judgy knickers (or shorts just for MIF) on this ride.

One hell of a day here, Nemo's tube came out at school so I've had to replace it tonight and we had little sleep last night so I'm taking my furry butt to bed.

Be Brave Babes, you're here for a reason. Everyone is welcome here. Stay xx

ellie you sound exactly like me! I drink (well, 5 weeks ago) under the national limit, and felt in control of it.

I've no idea whether to label myself a 'problem drinker' or not (surely not alcoholic - that was my father) all I know is I didn't enjoy drinking - but couldn't give it up - and obsess about it constantly.

If it helps to be on here or go to AA then just do it, but don't worry about your label! It's not required information on the census...

Helpyourself said
"Woah there- I've read the linked claudesteiner thread and I can't see anything there that will help anyone struggling not to drink today. It's not that it's not interesting, I don't strongly disagree with anything in particular, but if you're struggling with alcohol and the desire to drink today it's a bit like reading a manual on the history of lifeboat design when the ship's sinking.
BBs- concentrate on what you need to do for yourself to not drink today."

What so we're not allowed to share /discuss issues around drinking/alcoholism that don't fall into your remit of what is deemed immediately helpful? How odd.

You bus-goers are amazing! I fell off the bus into the sidecar last weekend but because of your inclusiveness I am still here. Tomorrow is another day. I think I drink out of boredom, which I realise sounds lame. I think if I distract myself at home I wont feel tempted. Does that sound likely? Jesus, this honesty thing is hard!