The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Posters, Lurkers, Old Or New, Come Take A Seat, This Bus Is For YOU!

[Mouseface]

Hello, I'm Mouse

A huge big welcome to the Brave Babes threads.

We're a varied group of posters, on this wonderfully supportive, non judgemental, gigantic Bus, and we are all heading in the same direction - towards Sobriety.

Some of us don't touch a drop of alcohol, some of us do. Some of us drink too much, openly admit it and are desperate to stop and some of us are trying to manage controlled drinking.

No matter what we're doing, we're just trying to do it One Day At A Time.

What ever you need, what ever your habit, chances are that there'll be another poster who is just like you or has been where you are now, already here, waiting to talk or just listen :)

Yes, some of us have been here for a longer time than others, some of us for just a few days but that's what makes this Bus so great imo, the variety of knowledge and understanding :)

This Bus has been whizzing along various roads now for almost four years thanks to the very desperate cry for help from THIS THREAD BY JWN

And if you'd like to read some of the other threads, maybe how we got to where we are today, then you can follow them back using the links RIGHT HERE

Hope to see you soon :)

Evening babes.

I have finally, finally done day 1. No booze and I am in bed now so no chance of any! It has been very hard resisting especially as I went to the shop earlier but I have managed.

Thank you for everyone who is posting as you are giving me hope and inspiration in different ways.

Tatty you could be me!

Full you sound so positive, you are doing great. Keep at it.

Venus we don't know each other but I am so sorry for your loss.

Thank you to all other babes who I hope to get to know better as time goes on.

Pink X

Yay well done Pink - here is to a healthier, happier, fitter and sober you :)
Have been for a lovely walk this evening - now drinking my raspberry and grapefruit juice :) - feel like I have cracked the WW habit as now look forward to my fruit juice of the evening :). - got lots of compliments today-feeling great.
Love to all, L xx

Well done Pink. I'm in bed, just had my medication (it really helps!) and finished day 2. Day 3 tomorrow. I've had a couple of Vitamin B complex as I've heard heavy drinking can deplete you of B.

Its weird going to bed and attempting sleep with no alcohol at all in one's system. But the sleep is much better quality.

I'm hoping my motivation will come back soon. I'm sure this lifestyle has made my get up and go get up and, well, go.

Did a nice big list of all the positive aspects of not drinking. There are lots but I worked out our average alcohol spend was £20 a day - that's £560 a month. I know a bloke who only earns that in a month! He's sort of part time and has to pay CSA or something but even so! Bloody hell.

You could have a new Mulberry handbag every month just for giving up at those levels!!! (I'm not really into that kind of thing but trying to find an analogy)

Anyway, cheers to that!

PS Thanks for everyone's welcomes x

Hi Tatty welcome to the bus and thanks for that thought provoking post. When I started cutting back I was surprised to find out that dh was a trigger for me. We would often share a bottle of wine and chat together in the evening when he got home. Sometimes in the garden or just in the kitchen cooking together. So, him walking through the door would actually make me crave a drink.

Nowadays I put the kettle on instead and it's not difficult. I used to drink almost every day. I used to do as you describe, waking up in the morning determined not to drink but trotting off to the shop at about 4pm. Now I don't do that, it is possible to change those habits.

I also thought I didn't have a sweet tooth but once I stopped getting shed loads of sugar from alcohol I did find that I craved sugar from other sources. Again, I had to find ways to fight the sugar addiction, once the alcohol was pretty much under control.

Full what is going on with you at the moment and what's your secret my friend, what has made your desire to drink disappear?

Well done Pink your happiness is shining through. You can do this!

A small icecream (like a mini magnum) is great for satisfying an evening sweet craving without tooooooo many calories.

Hi faire I will try and fully explain it soon in case it does help anyone here. I have completely lost any wish for wine and in fact have slight feeling of repugnance when think of it. After all the years of hurt and ww it is a real life enhancing way to be. Im not sure if I can explain it properly yet but will soon.

I've found a fruit yoghurt is good as well for when I want something sweet.

I've also started drinking iced tea in the evening, now that the nice weather is finally here.

Full I'd also like to hear how you manage it when you're ready please.

Morning babes! A good, sober day here. Hope you all have a good one as well! x

Good morning babes, Full so pleased things are looking better for you, you seem much happier, pink well done getting day one over, I have learned in the last few weeks it's as much about habit as it is about the effect of the wine, lonnika your awesome, a brilliant example to us all, tatty your financial example really made me think!!! I'm always skint but never go out and always wondered where all the money went, a very insightful and helpful post, minty what can I say mini magnums, purely medicinal, love it!!! Just to share some knowledge up til Saturday there i hadn't touched a drop for 2 weeks and was sure I was ready to moderate, I drank on Sat then Sunday then Monday, I'm not sure I can ever moderate!!! clutter you said something that really stick in my head, sometimes being a mum and housewife is thankless and mundane and the wine just brightens up a fraction of the evening, I totally agree, I'm trying to fill up the mundane with little moments of pleasure and keep thinking of myself slim with dewy skin and swishy hair which I hope is achievable when I get all this poison out of my system once and for all!!! I'm off to the park to enjoy the little moments with my very cute dd, good day to all my friends x x x

Morning babes

babyj same as me, I can't moderate! Thought that I was doing so well last weekend - didn't have anything on Friday night at PIL; had a couple of glasses on Saturday but didn't want any more - felt very smug and pleased with my self-control. Sunday I went to finish the bottle and really craved some more!

It's as though having even a small amount awakens the desire - not so bad the next day, but if I have any 2 days in a row I can feel it stirring...

alias the thing that worries me most is that the day after I have wine i am craving wine earlier and earlier so I can actually see how 7 becomes 6 becomes 5 etc. I love that first glass feeling but kinda fed up of the time, energy, money, wrinkles and wine waist I have to sacrifice to have that "buzz" I look at all my dd's friends mums and they don't look like they're "net curtain drinkers" then again maybe I don't to them!!' I've got an app with the integrated alcohol services team next week and thinking a few months of antabuse might just seal the deal, will see what they advise!! Last night cuddling my daughters I wondered why the hell I feel the need to chase fuzzy wine feelings when I am blessed with all I have here, that thought just made me feel more self loathing. Sooooo here we go again ODAAT xxxx

Morning, tis me, Mouse

Hello to all of the lovely new Babes who have joined and I've not 'met' yet. Well done on posting, and admitting that you need to be on the Bus :)

Full - you seem so much brighter :)

Baby and Joey - moderation is bloody hard work! No doubt. The only way I can do it is by not having more than I plan to drink in the house in the first place. Which is sometimes really shit when you get strong cravings.

venus - thinking of you xxx

Lonni - you're doing so well!! :)

Clutter - how's you? Work? Life?

Sorry not to NC everyone, I have a little boy with horrid Glue Ear again so I'm on catch up with sleep, life, paperwork etc.... SENCO review next Friday and I'm desperately trying to find tiny school trousers for my tiny boy.

Be back later, sorry I've not caught up properly.

Morning all, Day 3, down to 5mg of my medication 3 times today. Alcohol will all be out my system by now. Down to 2 tomorrow then 1 the next day and perhaps the day after I think then that's it.

Looking ahead though, to Friday night where I have a Quiz at my son's school which is BYO drinks. I know I can bring my own soft drink of course but that might make me too tempted to have a glass of someone elses wine if they offer and I'm not ready to do that yet, so I'm going to bring a bottle from this website - anyone tried it? I'm sure its nowhere near as good as the real thing, and indeed I tried supermarket brands of dealcoholed wine when I was pregnant which were crap, however this website will take it back free of charge and refund you if you hate it, and also they are quite adamant that these wines are far superior to the ones you can buy in supermarkets. So I will bring a bottle of that, nobody will know, and even if its a bit shit its better than nothing and it will stop me being tempted to have someone else's wine hopefully.

Worried about a girls night out that is planned for the following week. I either go and say I'm on medication or something and do soft drink, or I cry sick at the last minute. Don't really want to do either, wish it just wasn't happening. Perhaps I can find a totally different excuse. Don't really want to say "I'm not drinking at the mo" because I'll get pregnancy rumours or pressure. Need to ponder that one.

Does anyone find if they are trying to give up and have things coming up that its really easy to wait till after that thing has been and gone and then try, then it comes, it goes, and you still haven't given up and then there is another thing on the horizon? That's been part my problem actually. So I'm trying to plan ahead and not let something like that trip me up.

Another thing I've done - this is a bit weird/sad of me but I really like drinking coffee out of takeaway coffee cups with the sippy lids. Its not the same in a mug. I like the cup and lid. There's something about it. Lol. I have a nespresso coffee machine (kick me for funding Nestle lol) and it makes a Starbucks/Costa style coffee very well. So I've bought 500 takeaway coffee cups from a catering website, so I can have a lovely sippy cup of coffee whenever I feel like a "comforting" drink. Weird? Probably, but whatever works!

Right got to go to "work" so more later. Hope you are all achieving your aims and enjoying this improved weather x

tatty that's not sad just practical, what's sad is putting wine in a mug and pretending its coffee (oh the shame of it) tie way sounds much better x x x

Morning babes sorry, haven't been around or read back will try to catch up over next couple of days. Some sad stuff going on I can't post on here more for someone else than me but I am needed elsewhere. Day 1 for me today . Love to all

tatty you seem awfully concerned with what other people think if you're not drinking? Surely real friends will be understanding - and who cares what anyone else thinks. Your health is more important than the opinion of someone you just say hello to at the school gate! If people do have a problem with you not drinking, it makes you wonder why - is it because it makes them question themselves ?

Most people are far too busy filling up their own glasses to notice what others do anyway. Why not just say you'll get a wine later, but you're really thirsty now and want a soft drink...?

I think we become obsessed with alcohol, without realising that most other people just don't care.

I think joey has a point, and I see what she's saying. However, I will admit I am not one of those noble people who's out as an alcoholic to everyone, and I agonise too. I quite often either say it's part of my healthy diet (no one wants to hear details of your diet, so they usually shut up quite happily), or I say I'm having a month off for my health - for some reason putting a limit on it seems not to bother people the way it does if you say 'I don't drink' or 'I've stopped drinking'. Alternatively, I drive or claim I've got to pick DH up from a late trip.

Not suggesting you should do what I do and make excuses, but FWIW, those are the ones that work for me. They also actually help me not to drink, because if I have taken the car I know I can't drink, and if I focus on not drinking as part of being healthy it feels better than if I only associate it with 'not' doing something.

green - hope you are ok. Will be thinking of you - and I hope you're able to come back soon.

Afternoon all. Day 5 here and struggling a bit. I've got a deadline to meet on a tricky project that's due in tomorrow and under normal circumstances I would be thinking - get it done this afternoon then tonight have a nice bottle of wine as a reward. And I'm STILL thinking that until I catch myself and say NO.

Anyway - I won't drink, I just wish my brain wouldn't keep playing tricks on me.

Tatty - I totally identified with your post about trying to 'hide' the fact you're not drinking from people in social situations. However I was also v impressed with your first ever post in which you said (roughly!) 'I'm not name-changing, I am who I am.' Can you bring some of that 'stuff-it' attitude to social situations. No explanations, no excuses. 'I'm not drinking tonight.' End of. I am who I am.

I'm the number one person for making excuses and justifications but as I get older I'm adopting the mn philosophy of 'no is a complete sentence' and it's v liberating. :)

Just marking my seat in the side car. x

Hey Greeny - hope you're as okay as you can be xxx

Thanks all! This is all very interesting and revealing. Definitely something I will explore in the counselling side of things when I get my phonecall from NEEDAS (my PCT's drug and alcohol service)

Wow that's so hardcore rock and roll baby

I'm the number one person for making excuses and justifications but as I get older I'm adopting the mn philosophy of 'no is a complete sentence' and it's v liberating

I like that. I like that a lot, also the bit you posted to Tatty about not NC to hide as such.

See, my own personal experience, at the beginning, when I first came here was one of those do I NC or not, do I tell the truth or not. Do I be honest about how much I drink or not, do I just tell some of what's going on.....

I went with honest. It's not for everyone, it's a hard thing for some to let out.

I admire anyone who can let any amount of honest out, I really do. x

I have gone from drinking every single night, mostly alone, to only three nights in the past two weeks and always with other people. Can someone please tell me that drinking tonight will not make my day from hell any better? My default mechanism is plenty of wine to soothe the crap away.

The only thing that drinking tonight will enable you to do, Scooter, is to forget about having had a crap day for an hour or two, until you wake up tomorrow and all the crap is still there, except now you've got to tackle it with a hangover and a sense of shame as well.

What else can you do to distract yourself? Go for a walk or a run? Buy yourself a new book? Get a crappy film and go to bed early?

No scoot it won't make it better and you'll feel guilty and horrible tomorrow cos you are doing so well. If the bad day is work related read this blog post tiredofthinkingaboutdrinking.wordpress.com/?s=anus and repeat the mantra ?I?m certainly not drinking because of YOU. You are a gigantic anus.? I did it yesterday and it worked for me :) If it's not work related can you apply the same logic - if someone has been getting at you then hurting yourself further with drink only allows them to get at you further - if you see what I mean. If it's not that kind of bad day - just a sad day or a tiring day - then plan a different treat for yourself - something nice to eat or just a lovely long bath. Hang in there.

It's a variety of small things which are combining to make me all RAAAARRRRRR. DH does the kind of job where they go away to sandy places with guns and we found out today it'll be for nine months, not your usual six. The washing machine is broken and some complete fucker has hacked into my email and changed my password. Clearly wine will not help. Thanks for the help x