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

Hi babes, will post properly tomorrow, it's been a strange few days but still sober and less bothered with each passing day.

Just wanted to say that inside, I can't believe you could possibly think your post was in the least indulgent, your are the antithesis of that. You have carried yourself with a poignant grace, reflective calmness and immense courage and strength. Your mum did a real good with you my lovely friend, your recent amazing strength has allowed you to carry out your duties in such a selfless way, I have no doubt you have made your Mum very very proud, hell I'm proud of you and honoured to be your friend. Xxxx

ma I hope tomorrow gives you some sunshine amid the clouds of your life but be careful you don't put his PowerPoint into your socket!!!! (Baby wanders off snorting to herself at the innuendo's us filthy mares can so easily come up with) We are a disgrace but I love it xx

Back tomorrow to check in with everyone else xxx

You lot are just jealous! Pilates class was pretty rubbish actually and didn't enjoy it at all. Meh. Might find something else....
Day 14 out of 15 AF.
Fingers crossed that meeting goes ahead tomorrow. Will be a nice end to the week....

Ma, enjoy your 'meeting' (hmm) tomorrow, Baby that's a really lovely post (well, the middle paragraph is, I lose track of what you could possibly mean, later on ).

Surprisingly easy evening for me - went to the theatre and sat staring down from the balcony at a bottle of 'wine' on the set, directly below me, a few feet down. It stayed in the same place throughout the (very dull) play. It looked all chilled and inviting. Plainly it wasn't wine and plainly I couldn't have had any anyway, but it was very interesting just contemplating the bottle, how I felt about drinking etc, throughout all the tedious monologues. And I concluded that there was an emotional distance between me and it, just as much as there was a physical distance. And that was a revelation - the first time I have felt that for years and years. And then I ignored the free bar after, watched my friend have a few drinks, and we just chatted - no anxious wondering whether the wine would have run out before my next trip to the bar, no frustration that he was drinking so slowly and thus would show me up if I trotted off for another refill.

It was lovely. I hope this feeling lasts. I am treasuring it.

So, on that cheery note, I hope you are all doing well, and goodnight all

Sorry for not posting much. I'm only on my phone so can't look back. Won't lie, (can't spell denie lol) it's tough but had a few realisations lately. If I drink....I will die...my mum did, why not me

Morning Babes, running a bit late this morning, and have a busy day ahead, teaching, marking, preping for next week and tidying house for BIL and SIL's first visit - cue BIL asking us how our long Christmas holiday was - one day I will slap him!

Have a good day all, stay strong, and keep on hitting WW where it hurts. (Bloody hell, day 16!)

Morning babes, stupid small print on phone last night so couldn't read or post.

Hope all babes are ok today?

Morning again, Obrigada, Jingle, Small, Ma, Baby, Ruby, Thurso, Pop, Isinde, Soc, Soupey, 70, Mouse, Beaches, Spanna, Joey, Rural, Sharp, JWIM, and of course, the Venerable Venus

Who else? Have I missed anyone?

I think I've been an' got a bit of boing! Got LOADS done already this morning. Hope everyone else's day is free of stress.

Oh Sweet how I envy you your boing, I was late waking this morning and just feel groggy today.

Hey babes!
Been a very, very late week!
I miss you lot so much I finally cracked and logged in at work!
Have read up on everything and will write a longer post tonight.

Happy belated ma and Mouse !

Later, babes!
xxx

Morning all.

Sweet loving your boing! Glad you are managing your day. Oh and ignore BIL.

Small loved your post. Resonated with me when you said there was no frustration about someone drinking slowly

Obrigada feeling groggy means you need to be kind to yourself (in my opinion)

Jingle hope you ok with your realisation? Big stuff there

Today I will not be drinking

Hi Khalis x posted. Look forward to hearing from you later

Khalisi, I forgot Khalisi (ok I only went on names from the current page. Extra big wave to you Babe, you are also on the list (there's a badly paraphrased Dad's Army joke in there somewhere).

Hello all, day 16 here too.

I found last night particularly hard for some reason, just wanted a rest from being good

Grumbled my way through the evening and woke up this morning with NO regrets

Spanna lovely friend, come back! And see if you can scoop up Why with you.

Sweet boing, boing! Even finding Dad's Army jokes - most impressive!

Jingle I am so sorry you lost your Mum to drink, I think sometimes seeing a parent (for me it was my dad) go this way brings our own relationship with alcohol into very sharp focus. We have to be extra vigilant.

A huge happy wave to everyone on Sweet's list Special Friday combat gear at the ready xx

jingle - I get where you are coming from - and it's a scary realisation. but I used negate those thoughts (all too often) by thinking 'well I'm doing all right so far', and carry right on drinking. However, the big thing for me, is not whether drinking might cause me to die, but how well I can live if I don't drink.

More money (wasted thousands every year on booze), more alert, more joyful, more relaxed, more calm, more productive, better memory. Each one was small and gradual, but together they add up to a much nicer life for me (and for those around me).

Day 16, have had a few fleeting thoughts about having a drink but nothing overwhelming. I am planning to drink again come February but I suspect moderating will be harder
Having on going battles with dd1 which definitely is a trigger, there's the temptation to give into her and let her have her own way, whilst I swallow my feelings with wine. I'm not saying she is the reason why I drink, I just recognise that it would be easier to let her do what she wants, the house would be calmer, and I could blot out my feelings of failing to parent her in a glass of wine. I'm sure I've done this far too often :(

day 15 today......
annie how old is DD. It is so much easier to take the path of least resistance when they are driving you nuts but it isn't the best in the long run.
No way are you a failed parent. Failed parents are ones who don't even see the battle, let alone be prepared to engage in it!

She's 8 ma but already carrying on like a stroppy teenager. I very much agree with you that it'd be easy to take the path of least resistance but it will only create bigger problems in the future. I'm concerned now that too many times I've done that and I can see it'll only get worse if I don't tackle it now. I was going to say I'm feeling guilty that she is unhappy I've said no to her but I'm really I'm more upset that she is upset, I don't think I've done the wrong thing. It's kind of rubbish feeling everything all the time though...

khalisi ! We just finished watching the end of Season 2 last night! Is it wrong that I actually fancy Jaime Lannister now?

Annie and Why, you are also on the list!

Annie, as Ma said, the bad parents are the ones who don't think about how they parent. You really have my sympathies, my DS is about to hit teens, and whilst he can do a mean impersonation of Harry Enfield's Kevin, he spends much more time being Perry ("Yes,Mrs Patterson"). But at 8, he was an absolute toad. In fact, most of my friends children went through a stage between about 8 and 10, that would give any teenager a run for their money. Hold firm, they do come through it.

Jingle, that is a very scary epiphany, but you are making good choices {hugs}.

Ma, come on, spill, how was your day? Matters arising?

Beaches, my Friday night combat gear is tangerine and something fizz from M & S to go with Indian takeaway (well it's in a fancy bottle), and I know Bil won't drink because he is driving, so that makes things easier. I have put a bottle of very good Sanserre in the fridge for Sil, and although I know it is excellent, because it's the one I had on Christmas Day, I am feeling very strong. DM can finish it off on Sunday, when she and DF are back for two days before jetting off for some winter sun.

Feeling good today, although did revert to being a bit of a sugar monster at lunch and downed two malteezer bunnies without even thinking, think the diet coke triggered it, must stay away from that stuff.

Joey, it is not wrong, and it will get harder to resist !! Oh, but, Oberyn Martell, season four . . .

Hi my darling Babes!

I wrote this long post after having noted down all the names and what I wanted to say (at the office today) and then I closed the window instead of minimising!

Sorry, babes! To exhaused to re-do.

Day 16. WW got into the car with me when I left work and only just left. Am so exhausted I can't think straight.

Missed you!

Hi all. I was all confident then WW snuck up behind me and offered me a lovely bottle of red. I considered the offer and then thought about what would happen next (which wouldn't be pleasant) ..so I turned round and hit her with a big stick . Stuff you WW.

Hope all babes are ok tonight

Yay - way to go Ruby! Show the WW what's what - proud of you!

Feeling cautiously ok here too. Am finding that if I have two bottles of Becks Blue straight away when I get in from work (my trigger time) then I am (a) full thereafter and (b) no longer (very) interested in alcohol for the rest of the evening.

DP is very puzzled tho, largely cos I managed to conceal from him my desperation to drink wine immediately on arrival home (anyone else do the old wine-in-coffee-mug-no-one'll-notice trick? Ah, the things we do - or rather, did), but am not trying to conceal the Becks Blue consumption. So he doesn't really get why I shoot through the door and straight to the fridge for a bottle, and just looks at me a bit nervously.

Bit concerned I've just replaced one habit with another without addressing the real issue, but hey, I think I will worry about that in the future, when I've put a safer distance between me and alcohol.

Anyone else read that stupid article in the Independent saying that drinking a bottle of wine a day isn't necessarily bad for you (sorry if you've discussed this upthread and I've missed it)? How unhelpful is that? (and how predictable that a tiny bit of my brain clutched out desperately at that ludicrous straw and thought hurrah, that's ok then, I can just revert to downing a bottle or two a day. Grrrr..

Good luck tonight, all. Let's kick that WW into touch

Haven't read whole thread, but wanted to ask if the lovely Mouse is ok?

Best of luck to all the babes.

Hey all
sigh