The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Starting the New Year in Fine Style

[venusandmars]

Hello, I'm Venus, and standing in for Mouse (who usually starts all our threads)

This is a safe and welcoming place for anyone who is facing up to a problem with alcohol. It may be something you’ve known for years, or it may be that struggling with dry January has made you re-think your relationship with drink.
Anyway, welcome old and new, lurkers and posters. It can be a weird thread at times – travelling on a bus called Gerald.... he takes us up and down and this wondrous land, searching high and low for Babes in need of some support, a warm place to sit and chat, and to have someone to listen to them.

So, grab a seat as we swing by your way. There's lots of hot drinks, food and fleeces, places to just be and places to sit around and chat if that's what you want.

We don't judge, because we've all been in your shoes, be they stilettos, wellies or crocs!...

We're just us, we're just honest and we just do what we can to help, if we can, when we can. If you find all the banter off-putting just jump in with a cry for help.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR xxx

Here is the very first, emotional thread if you would like to see where this all started

Our most recent thread, if you want to catch up

welcome sober
Hugh Bonneville with a beard you say? oh yes. in fact, pretty much anyone with a beard.
thanks spanna. I will take this weekend to regroup and have a good think and then need to get back on track.
venus got your pm. will reply.

Beaches, I'm only intimidating if you are a mysogynist male student, and I have my red DMs on .

Joey , you are lucky to still be with us!

Ma DH has a beard, but it's all mine! Does distracted chap have one?

Sitting waiting for music lesson to start, and wondering what to do for dinner? Sometimes my life is just one big adventure. Right now is not one of those times!

Thanks again, everyone.

I have done quite a lot of stupid things while drunk. One recent highlight was going to bed and feeling some heartburn coming on. I drunkenly grabbed the Gaviscon out of the cupboard and took a couple of swigs. Took it to my beside table in case I needed any more. Woke up a couple of hours later surprised that the heartburn hadn't yet improved at all - Gaviscon usually kills it stone dead for me. So I took quite a bit more.

I think we can all see where this is going, can't we?

If any of you have ever been prescribed lactulose, you'll know the bottle is about the same shape and size as...

...a bottle of Gaviscon.

Shortly afterwards, I had some of most uncomfortable hours I've ever had in my life. The motto is ALWAYS put the light on when getting things out of the bathroom cabinet. And better still, don't be a massive pisshead. I am working on that bit.

'...alcohol makes us feel worse about ourselves. So we think of ourselves as lazy or shallow or unmotivated or boring or stupid. So we drink to mask those things, and we drink rather than examining them. The more we hate ourselves, the more we feel that we can’t put ourselves first. We’re too crap for that; why should we, lazy boring we, be able to turn down a party invitation or pass up a date with a stranger? So we keep saying yes when we need to say no, and we drink to ease the conflict between that yes and that no.'

This is from that blog yesterday. Basically it's illustrating how important self care is. If we say no to taking on extra work or giving up our precious time to help or relieve someone else, if we don't take on others' burdens to help ease their load, or look after someone because there is no-one else to do it, we can actually look after ourselves first and then be in a better position to help others.

But how hard is it to do that. How can we turn people away or take action that seems, on the surface, selfish? I think the more we can do this, the more we will realise that it's not selfish to put yourself first. In fact, we will be in a much better position to help others if we have our own needs met first.

If we meet those needs with alcohol, all we do is fail to care for ourselves and then the knock on effect is that, eventually, we will let everyone else down too.

I like the example of putting on your own oxygen mask first. It's a simple way of thinking of it and does show that, without it, we will soon be of no use to anyone.

Imagine if there were two oxygen masks - one was a bit fiddly and took a bit longer to get on but would keep you fully alert and able to save yourself and others - the other was really quick and easy, gave a very quick burst of oxygen, but would never last and would also poison your body causing all sorts of niggling symptoms and even possibly lead to death.

Which mask would you choose?

Have a great sober Friday evening babes, what is everyone up to?

Oooh! Sober, nooooooo!

Hear, hear, Faire! My weekend involves reminding DS that he has promised to bake me gooey orange and ginger cookies , and levelling the ground for the greenhouse I've ordered.

Mmmm sounds delicious sweet. We have introduced a new routine in our house called 'Friday Tidy' so we will be doing that in about half an hour when dh gets home. (He doesn't get out of doing his share ).

Anyway, the plan is to get everyone to put away anything they've left out and bring down their washing ready for tomorrow. Then I will light some candles and we will be all tidy and cosy and maybe watch a film together.

wry you're snuggled under your downie! I haven't heard that for years ! Apparently the Scottish 'downie' may come from the Danish 'dyne' rather than, as I assumed, a contraction of eiderdown. There may also have been a trademark of that name (every days a learning day)

No matter, it's just nice to hear/read it.

(Today I got Dunnottar Castle up as my screen page on computer - it's one of the standard pictures which came with the computer! Happy days )

No beard unfortunately.
Beautiful blue eyes, enchanting smile, charm, intelligence, wit ,lean and toned rich.
Just an ordinary guy....sigh

rich, you say? and toned?

Hi all. Just checking in, no drink has passed my lips so pleased but also experiencing anxiety stomach ache from all the negative thoughts I'm having that I would normally drown in alcohol. Gonna read my book and distract myself.

Night all

Just realised I should be examining my thoughts re: Faire's post but that seems a bit too hard at the moment but hopefully one day

Hi Ruby. Well done on not drinking today. It sounds as if you are well in touch with how you're feeling, and why.

And thanks Faire for the post earlier. It rang an awful lot of bells. An AWFUL lot of bells. I'm currently writing in my journal, trying to make sense of a few things. It's going ok so far.

Hi Sober

Morning all, another sober weekend, day 24. DH asked lasting night if I would be carrying on after January. I said yes without even thinking. He was pleased. He also asked if I felt better for it? That one wasn't so easy.

I said, "I do, and I don't". We didn't discuss it any more, he said he understood, and I think he does. I definitely feel better physically, and I also know that I like feeling more ’present'. But I don't feel any better in my head, if anything it's worse, which upsets me because last January when I gave up I had more focus, more boing, more, me.

I have managed completely compartmentalise the good (home) and the bad (work), but I am failing utterly to deal with stuff at work, and I'm hiding from more and more of it that I know is going to come and bite me on the backside very soon. Bugger.

I have to go now and do something I forgot yesterday, not how I wanted to spend Saturday morning. Perhaps by the time I come back, I can be more cheery.

Morning all. Hope you will all wake up feeling refreshed.

Is there any reason Sweet that your work is harder to deal with this year compared to how you were last Jan? Maybe breaking it down may help? Different people, Job change?

Morning Ruby.

I lost a great deal of the joy in my job, but it's a bit chicken and egg - I don't know whether I'm not coping because I don't enjoy it or vice versa. This time last year I had a lot of hope that my career was moving forward after a period of stagnation; I had a temp promotion standing in for a colleague would was very insistent that it had to be me; I was sent on some very expensive CPD (continuing professional development); was involved in some important internal projects, and most importantly, had finally got around to working on and finishing an application to restart my PhD.

This year I have been shafted by my boss over some of the internal projects, and bumped by him from the committee I chaired as part of the promotion, but should have been on anyway as a departmental rep this year - except he didn't tell me, I only found out when I found the minutes online and realised I hadn't been invited. My workload is disproportionate and unbalanced compared to others working on my programme; and I had to shelve my research application because the direction in which the department moved (very suddenly) meant that I would have to take on an area of teaching (with all of the attendant reading, prep etc), which whilst interesting, isn't in the area of the research I wanted to do - and I just couldn't see enough hours in the day.

But most of all, I think I was falling into depression anyway - clinical rather than reactive. And it's my own fault, I've just not dealt with little stuff, so now I feel resentful and in a whole.

AND I'm a miserable bitch this morning. I'm going to stop. I need to get outside and start processing some Vitamin D.

I think I may be feeling like this because I have actually started to try and do some stuff. I have a lunch date on Monday with my friend and mentor who seems to have an irrational belief and confidence in me, and she is suggesting that we also get together with another senior female colleague to come up with a feasible research plan for me - she can see just how incapable I am at the moment. I should be a grown-up professional doing this stuff for myself, but I seem to have lost capacity .

Sorry, not what anyone needs or wants on a Saturday. I'm really, really going to shut up now.

And my typing and spelling is SHOCKING!

Morning babes . Sweet u r not incapable, think of it as the 3 of you brainstorming and figuring out how to get u back on track. Waves at other babes:)

Thanks Obrigada. Shutting up, moving on and thinking happy thoughts.

Good morning my lovely gals.

I'm off to gymnastics with dd2, I I used to dread it, infact I only enrolled her into this class to "block" my Friday night drinking but now it's a lovely opportunity to eat the best empire biscuit ever and a cappuccino in the little cafe.

Not so long ago I'd have been barfing into the toilet on a sat morning and ruining by weekend with nausea and guilt.

Those days are gone and good riddance,

Have a super duper day!!! Xxx

Sweet I have Internet connection powered by sleepy gnats at the moment so before it conks out again - big hug, hope you get out into the new day and have some time and space to give yourself much love. Sorry, in haste xx

How, lovely, Baby, enjoy that biscuit

Thank you, Small, I have come over all Oprah and am fakin' it 'till I feel it!

Sweet you've been through a lot and my confidence would have been knocked as a result. I too have had an arse of a boss which ended up with me moving from my qualified career to sommat else which does not require a brain, my boss however is amazing and this makes me feel better mentally. I will need to think about my career at some point but not now. I know that's not the same as your situation but bosses should be aware of their responsibilities as a manager; unfortunately a lot are not skilled or experienced enough for this or only think of themselves, this really gets on my nerves. There are certain professions that are particularly poor in management.

Ok rant over, hope all babes have a good day and try to believe in yourselves. Repeat after me 'I am strong, I can do this'. .

'Scuse typos