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

Venus I saw someone with purple eyebrows yesterday - think i'll try that (obv not really but I did like it on a 16 yr Old)

I have had a bottle of wine - prob not good but I am pleased that I take it easy,chat and think I don't want anymore. Compared to previously chucking it down my neck and waking in the morning exhausted with no memory of coming to bed

Hi everyone, and welcome newbies! You've come to the right place! Please tell us more about yourselves, when you feel able. We'd love to get to know you better.

Glad to hear everyone's good news. Tomorrow I will have been two weeks sober, and it's feeling good. Have lost some weight, my cheekbones have reappeared and I'm doing much better workouts at the gym. We now just need to cure DS1 of his unfortunate recent habit of screaming at 2am until we go to him...otherwise I'm sleeping alright atm, but that does put rather a crimp in things...

Have another challenge coming up - going to visit my parents, alone, in a couple of weeks. Possibly staying in a hotel, as my mum has been unwell and can't manage houseguests. Alone...unobserved...hotel bar downstairs...yes, that's going to be hard.

Day 37

Morning all. Sober you sound more positive, but you will need some serious planning to keep you on the straight and narrow. Keep those positives in mind, change into pjs early so you can't leave the room, and have supplies to hand.

Have a good day and stay strong all.

Morning babes, had two glasses of wine last night. Just wanted to write that down. No hangover, just very tired.

Waves to all babes.

Sweet to be honest, the bit I'm really struggling with is actually wanting to remain AF while I'm away. At the moment, I don't. I want to drink. The only things holding me back are not wanting to lie to DH about it, being utterly unable to be honest with him about it, and knowing I'll regret it the morning after when I can no longer honestly say I've been x weeks sober.

Morning all. Terrible period pain today and I feel knackered. Wish I could go to a spa and have loads of treatments - never done that but really fancy it

Also want my teeth whitening. Don't want much

Good morning, darling brave Babes!

I was so knackered last night. Left work early for an epic appointment at the police station regarding the Restraining Order.
Worked a bit at home and crashed; AF.
I really just want all this behind me. I want to be my happy easy going self again. So much came up yesterday that it floored me again. I feel so stupid for letting ex-WB play any part in my buying my house.
I know it will be ok one day and I won't be so skint and I can rent it out and get myself a lovely flat in the city.
And of course I would love to fall in love again.

Welcome fevv!

Sweet 37! OMG!!

Khalisi yesterdaysounds tough. Was the RO forWB? You're on the right road now, doing well and I'm sure you will find loveagain soon. I love your posts.

Can I just apologise for the loss of spaces between some words - my phone has a mind of it's own

Blurt……I’ve been lurking for a while, since I’m aware that I’m drinking way more than is good for anyone. This has been a gradual process, which feels like a bad habit that has gotten out of hand. I also feel that I’m waiting for some terrible event to occur as a result of my drinking (e.g. accident, illness, massive fallout with loved ones, or some such other catastrophe). My life at the moment can accommodate a large volume of alcohol because I have very few checks on my behaviour that, say, looking after young children or regular work would entail. I’ve recently completed a piece of work that involved graft and thought, and the increased “free” time is easily filled by opening a bottle.
I’m stuck in a situation/place that I’m not happy with and alcohol, to a certain extent, has allowed me to put up with it. Now however, I feel that drinking is contributing to my unhappiness and resultant lethargy. So I want to change that. I don’t know whether or not I’m an alcoholic. I don’t know if I need to give up drinking for ever, but I do know that I want to stop drinking for now.
Your collective posts have been helping me towards this decision. Still on the running boards, but intend to join you inside soon. Tomorrow..

Obviously, I want to apologise for being so self indulgent.

fevvers you have nothing to apologise for, and you're welcome aboard the bus any time you want

Thanks, Get (don't know how to do the bold) am away to brush my teeth and get my jim jams on.
Khalisi, I think you will get the house stuff sorted out and eventually fall in love again (hopefully with a nice bloke)

Oh, it's after 9pm here, just in case bedtime seemed a little odd...

Sorry, not been around much today. I finally made it to the Doctor, sat and cried whilst he wrote a prescription, referred me for CBT but almost panicked and ran when he suggested he sign me off. I refused but think in retrospect, that may have been a mistake. I'll discuss it with DH over the weekend.

Sober, I was afraid that might be how you were thinking - because that is exactly what I would would have thought too. But, you would be cheating yourself, DH and DC, and the trust that you are only just beginning to build up with DH would be lost - that is just too much to risk. You are worth far more than that (and you're Mum doesn't need you hung over and stinky breathed either). (Oh and we have a strict NO APOLOGISING rule (I made it up myself).

Khalisi it's the end of the week and you had a difficult day yesterday, be kind to yourself, have you anything nice planned for the weekend?

Fevvers, it's so easy to let that habit crept up. If you feel it is a problem, and you want to do something to change it, - then, it is a problem and you can change it! Doesn't matter what label you slap on it

Welcome fevvers you can do a bold by putting an asterisk in front of and behind the word you want to bold.
I ride mostly in the sidecar but keep trying.

Eeek! forgot Mouse

Thanks

Squeeeeek - must never forget Mouse. How is lovely Mouse??

Hope all babes doing well this evening. Fridays are often quite tricky, I find, in terms of triggers and internal dialogue re drink etc.

Quite a quiet bus thus far tonight. I'm a tired Fox, been away with work and was up til 1.30am with colleagues but - drum roll of amazingness (please allow small self-congratulatory pat on back) I did not drink, I did not want to drink and extraordinarily I did not even think about drinking, throughout a whole long dinner and the post-dinner chat. Given how I was 37 short days ago, sneaking vodka into cans of diet coke of a morning an afternoon, before necking a bottle or two of wine, this is just revelatory. I noticed how my (lovely) colleagues drank gently and companionably for around seven hours, weren't conspicuously pissed but were pleasantly happy together (and not hungover this morning). If I had been drinking, I would have spent the whole evening angsting over why they weren't drinking more quickly and how to conceal my own far more desperate levels of consumption. It was a relief and so liberating not to have that chatter going on in my head all night.

So, that's a positive feeling to take into the weekend. But I am very tired! Will have my customary Becks Blue (I am such a creature of habit and DP is v amused by my BB ritual - but i really do feel like I need it) and then potter off to bed, I think. Hugs and waves to all.

2 glasses of wine here and am done. It is creeping back in since January but still a lot less than it was.
Am very tired.

I cannot keep my eyes open. Finishing my mint tea, warming the heat pads and off to bed. Night, night.

Just lost a long post and too tired to write it again.

Had small glass of vino tonight

Night babes

Morning All.

DPs are back from their winter holiday today, and staying for a couple of days before heading back across the channel, so I need to get my serious cleaning pants on.

I will be starting the ADs today, stupidly, it is worrying me, it's been ten years sunce last time, but I still remember how woozy they made me feel in the beginning. And last time, I didn't stop drinking (although I wasn't drinking as heavily or relentlessness back then), this time, I will be doing it properly. I will just be able to say vaguely to people that I am on medication so I can't drink.

Have a good day, whether you are on board or in the sidecar. Today (38) I will not be drinking.

Checking in. Nothing much to report. Done the shopping and recycling, made soup and a cake, visited dad, got a wash on. Routine Saturday. Watching rugby.

Afternoon all. Just back from work and knackered! Wash on too!

Hey Ma, Ruby, pretty quiet on the bus today.

I'm onto the drying!DS has made cinnamon bread, yup he has a real thing about cinnamon! And this morning I painted two fence panels it will be more difficult to reach when the greenhouse arrives.
No desire to drink, DH asked me if I was ever going to drink again, I said I didn't know.