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

Just had a neighbour here who is in an abusive relationship (they are both alcoholics) and it totally stressed me out.
She needs to talk to someone, I get that, and I am supportive but I just realised its a trigger for me.
Still too close to home a few months after my split.

Good night, babes. It is only 9pm here but I'm finished with the day.

A variation on Venus's credit card idea, Ma, is that M&S has 0% on purchases for 19 months. So you avoid the transfer fee, but could still, do the same thing, spend on the card,but take out the cash, plus with the M&S card you get vouchers back - new start, new knickers?

Sorry, cross posted, ignore me, I don't want to seem insensitive.

Sleep well Khalisi

Get it sounds like you are on your last chance with your dh now. You have so much to lose and every reason to never, ever touch a drop again. It's probably not a good idea to start thinking about slipping up. Whilst it's fine here on the bus, it might cost you your marriage.

So, with regards to helping you and offering advice, I was wondering if you have read the very first thread that JWN posted? She was in a very similar position and the advice she got was absolutely brilliant. Put it on your reading list and commit to reading it for at least half an hour, longer if necessary, whenever you feel the urge to pick up x

Here is it

Ma any chance you could move in with your dad? You and dh might both be entitled to benefits if you separate. Reduction on council tax, that sort of thing?

We don't want to get into second guessing things for you ma but somewhere there WILL be an answer that works for you.

Ma it would be better for ds if you were moved and settled before he starts his gcse's. As long as you and dh are civil to each other, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to co-parent and successfully help ds through the change in circumstances with the minimum of distress. Do you think dh would do that for him?

ma please accept a massive hug from this sidecar babe for you.
Wish I had some wiser words for you today.

My main worry is dhs reaction. He has mental health issues and has had counselling in the past when I have threatens him with divorce if he didn't. He suffers from paranoia. I dont think he would be able to act sensibly. He would self-destruct. he couldn't cope with being apart from ds but if he had him, he wouldn't keep on top of laundry, keeping ds properly fed etc. He would stop going into work, stop being in control. And it would all be my fault!

It would not be your fault ma!! He is an adult and he will have to learn to cope. How much support did he give you when he saw you crying? How could he just ignore you and go and watch football

He only gets upset when it affects him. If he can't care for ds, he should be the one to move out.

Ma, Faire is right. I know it won't be easy to sleep tonight, but you should try and get your head down.

Night, night everyone.

Faire @ 2013

You hit the nail on the head so hard, you actually made my blood run cold reading it. I think you're exactly right. I'm on the thinnest ice I could possibly be on right now. And I cannot fail this time, I cannot. I cannot lose my husband and my children.

My trouble is - I know that good as I feel now, the dark times will come. I know that. Because they always do. So I want a) some strategies at hand to fight the darkness and b) some further strategies to keep in reserve for times when I'm eg away with work, at a hospitality dinner, and the free wine comes round. If I crack and have a glass (because I can never resist free stuff, and because DH's eyes are not immediately upon me) I need a way of stopping after that one glass. I need to NOT be thinking, at that point, "well I've fucked it now, so fuck it all". Because that will lead only to buying two bottles of wine on the way back to my hotel, staying up until 3am drinking it, then having to get up early the next day and work through a monster hangover and no sleep. Before going home to DH and not being able to look him in the eye when he asks what I've been doing.

Sorry, I feel I'm being a bit dramatic (which isn't like me, usually), but it seems sensible to at least think about it a little bit. But without, as I say, giving myself tacit permission to drink.

But you are undoubtedly right that the best goal for me now is to focus on being AF for a good stretch. Maybe I'm jumping too far ahead of myself. I'll go and read the thread you kindly linked right now. DH is snoring next to me. Would love to put the phone down and just cuddle him but I think that's all off the menu for a while yet.

toma and all other babes.

Hi babes, I've got so much I want to say to everyone but I'm really not well today, crohn's is back with a vengeance, it's a bummer (ironic)

Be back tomorrow to reiterate that every one of you are amazing and the friendship and compassion on our bus is palpable. It's actually giving me hope, I'm in such pain and it's my body attacking itself and attacks my insides in a horrid and rather excruciating manner and I could get very poor me, poor me but this old bus chugs along come what may even while empty and forgotten or full to the gunnels with babes, laughter and hope then so can I (some might say I'm built like a bus so the analogy works fine).

At this pain point wine becomes more justifiable to me as a tranquilliser if nothing else but not tonight coz as our fabulous Khalisi said of her argument with a friend, for this one it just ain't worth it !!!.

ma it's gonna be ok, there's always a way and we have venus so sit tight and think every possibility through xxxxx

I'm going to bed now so in bed and will say in my head what I often say to make me feel stronger "fuck off crohn's, is that the best you've got? You'll need to do better than that to take me down"

Crazy but it helps, might work for the WW too xxx

If I crack and have a glass (because I can never resist free stuff, and because DH's eyes are not immediately upon me) I need a way of stopping after that one glass. I need to NOT be thinking, at that point, "well I've fucked it now, so fuck it all". Because that will lead only to buying two bottles of wine on the way back to my hotel, staying up until 3am drinking it, then having to get up early the next day and work through a monster hangover and no sleep. Before going home to DH and not being able to look him in the eye when he asks what I've been doing.

I do get what you're saying here Get and I can see why you're thinking like that. However, if you think that you will crack just because the drink is free or your dh is not there, you are really saying that you have no control. And if you have no control, trying to moderate will be really, really hard. That kind of thinking is the wine witch in your ear. She just wants you to have that one glass because then she knows she's got you. It will still lead to extra bottles either way.

Even if you did manage to just have one glass, is that what you really want? The saying goes 'one is too many and a bottle is not enough'. And how would your dh feel if you told him you just had one glass. After promising to give up?

It takes a lot of energy to moderate, to plan your drinking, to make bargains with yourself. It's much, much simpler to just focus all your energy on not picking up that first drink. That's the only one to worry about. Free or not.

In any case, it won't be free. You will pay for it big time.

All said with love. I got all this from these threads and general reading around. I was clueless when I first boarded the bus x

baby oh gosh, that sounds horrible. I knew someone with Crohn's so I have a small idea of what a thoroughly rotten, painful disease it is. It sounds as if you are several steps ahead of it tonight though!

I'm reading the thread Faire kindly linked earlier. Lots of bells ringing, a veritable choir's worth of bells in fact!

I forgot that I hadn't answered about whether DH could be encouraged to seek some support for himself. I have indeed strongly encouraged him to do so, but he's not keen. He seems to be coping, generally, kitchen crying notwithstanding - he's a very straightforward, well-balanced kind of guy. He has his odd irrational foibles, of course; he does, for instance, worry a tremendous amount about our plumbing...

We've talked about him either seeing a counsellor by himself to get some support (he is lucky enough to have an excellent, free one available through his work), or coming along with me to my own counsellor. He wouldn't consider the latter option for a single second, as he said that as it was "my" counsellor the session would inevitably amount to the counsellor and me "ganging up on him" no amount of reassurance about, erm, how counselling ACTUALLY works made any difference.

And he didn't like the idea of going by himself either, as he's generally so well-adjusted and happy - about everything except the sodding plumbing - that he was a bit worried that a counsellor might actually "break" him by disturbing the way he normally operates, if they go tinkering about under the hood IYSWIM.

So. There it is. I wish he'd go, but I can't make him.

Oh goddammit Faire stop being so fucking RIGHT all the time

Point taken. Thankyou so much for making it. And you're right - no, if I couldn't tell DH I'd had the first glass, I've no business whatsoever having it.

faire your soooo wise, I love "the first one is the only one to worry about" that's very very good way if putting it and makes the bigger picture much less scary.

sober I was in last chance saloon (irony again). Dh supported me through a mammoth nervous breakdown as did my parents but was told after many chances to clean up or id lose the kids, with support from my GP, councillor, phyciatrist and my amazing friends and family I'm a month sober, the light is seeping back into my soul and even though I'm ill as hell right now I can't and won't go back to the darkest days of my life, the stakes are simply to high for that elusive "first glass". It chills me to the bone, I drank so much at the end, to the point of being unconscious for dangerous periods of time, Losing days at a time and the withdrawal was too appalling to detail. You're not alone and life can be good again so stay close , post often and your doing great babe, really great xxx

Sweet you are an unsung hero on the bus, always supporting and listening. Honestly babe, you give wonderful responses and leave no man behind and I just wanted to give you a little appreciation.

I am still in the chain gang, day 26. Have found the last few days the hardest and am thinking about wine a lot. I have been emotional and hormonal which I know is a big trigger for me, the desire to medicate it all away for a bit. What is keeping me going is dry Jan, I have managed 26 days so I know I can keep going for a few more days. After that I am not feeling sure.

Sorry not to NC you all. for all of the babes feeling unsteady or facing difficult times. Xx

Morning All.

Arh, Beaches! What a lovely thing to say, and there are lots of cookies to go around.
[Grinn]
Another working week, but, it is the last week of January, onwards and upwards to Spring.

Day 26, 30 bottles not drunk, £300 not spent, and 18400, calories not swigged.

Have the best day you can, Babes.

Won't be around much today, busy teaching day, working lunch.

Hi guys. Just checking in. Still no drink. But just been working and sleeping really. Work nights so a;ways tired. Next week will be the test when i have a few days off...

Morning babes, alcohol free weekend completed. Text on phone was too small to read so haven't had chance to read back through thread. My plans to clean house didn't work out but hey ho I didn't have a drink

Waves to all babes, old and new x

A quick check in before lunch. Had a bit of a (potential) disaster this morning - my class was supposed to be doing some technical work, lead by one of our technicians - who wasn't able to do it due to illness. I was able to come up with a class that occupied them - and that they described as fun - with less than an hours notice. Could not have done that hung over - and I promise that I never usually 'wing' classes, but am dead chuffed that I can!