The Brave Babes Battle Bus - The Wheels On This Bus Go Around And Around, In Search Of Sobriety.

[Mouseface]

Hello, I'm Mouse

This is the brave babes bus, Gerald. He travels far and wide, to wherever he's needed to offer non judgemental support, advice and Opal Fruits!!

We can tell you about the kind of places that can help, your GP can be the first and easiest place to start, or you can look up you local community addiction centre, or even just come onto the thread and let it all out.

There are posters here who have been on the Bus from the start and those who have just joined us

It doesn't matter how long you've been here, the fact that you have taken that first amazing step in acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, things aren't quite right with your drinking is truly MASSIVE!!

This is a safe place for you to just be and to be as honest as you like, or just to talk.

We'll listen

And if you'd like to see our last thread, you can JUST HERE

Plus if you'd like to see where these threads all began, you can read all about that YOU CAN READ THIS VERY EMOTIONAL AND MOVING THREAD

See you soon,

Mouse xxx

WRY good to have you back chick.

Hi all

Wry wondered where you were, glad you're ok (ish).

Ma dress sounds lovely and Shirley Bassey is quite sexy . Idiot dh..

Happy to be back lasses, happy to be back.

Aaaaaah. It's like putting on flannel jammies and slidin yer feet into yer comfiest baffies. Bliss. Sheer bliss

Pjs, yes, that's what I need to do, get into jammies for Gogglebox!

Off to bed. Another day survived.

Just to let you know that I'll be away for a while - some with work, some on holiday, so it's unlikely that I'll be posting much over the next few weeks. I'll be reading when I can though to keep up with you all, and sending you hugs and strength from wherever I am.

Have a good 'un venus, have a great time on your holiday m'quine! See ye when ye get back,

Xx

Morning Dear Lush babes

Sorry I’m so scarce these days. I think I’m just trying to get on with my life as a ‘non-drinker’. I often think about you all and I’ll never quite be able to leave entirely. I hope you’re all trucking along ok.

I checked my day tracker and today is Day 287 AF. It’s awesome. I can’t tell you how good it is. And life just keeps getting better. It’s like I had to give up wine in the first instance and now I’m working through everything else and slowly but surely everything gets better and better. Everything around me is just getting lighter and more beautiful. Sounds ridiculous but not sure how else to put it.

Alcohol is an awful, insidious, drug that does far more damage than just give you a hangover.

Big hugs (bosies?) and smooches and love to you all. I am always grateful to the wonderful, funny, gorgeous babes on this bus.
Soc
Xx

Hi babes,

My darling wry I lost 2 of my dogs last year, a collie and a lab and the pain was wretched, both put to sleep due to old age and their suffering, one was 14, one 16. I also has to witness my beloved cocker spaniel killed instantly running onto the road and I actually contemplated moving, the memory was so terrible.

Nothing I say can ease your pain only that after the grief I am left with the wonderful memories and that despite the tears and deep sense of loss I'm now simply glad I had the chance to know them, walk them and love them. They gave me more than they took away, eventually.... You are so loved on here, it would be our great privilege to comfort you, huge bosies ma Quine xxxx

sober that post was beautiful, like you my dear friend. My drinking is soooo connected to my depression, I know my life is so much better sober, weekends are a revelation, full of experiences with my kids I could never have managed or wanted to have before. It's when my mood blackens and everything around me looks wrong and so dark that it gets me, not an excuse but I'm not even lucid when I reach for the bottle, I use it to sedate and punish myself, get away from my panicked head, it scares me every single day that that mood will return and I will try to destroy myself while worrying everyone to death with my self destructive behaviour. It is a fight I may always have to live with but your posts really surely help keep it real for me, thank you xxx

ma you will be a resplendent beautiful thistle, I can see you in my head all defiant and ravishing xx

Hugs to all, I sure does luffs you all xxx

Morning.

Soc, it's wonderful that you have got to a point where you are just getting on with life, and that life is its own reward.

Baby, I use alcohol to quiet my head too. It's horrible and hateful, and although I have dragged my sorry carcass through the last year, most of it has been wasted, dead time. I am facing having to retrain myself to concentrate, and to complete things (you know it has to be done when you realise you've seen this episode of Homes Under the Hammer before!), and to think.

I hate booze, I hate that I still think I want it and that it would be nice. It wouldn't.

I have the trauma of getting DS into town for new school shoes today, which means I will probably not be able to get into the garden. But as compensation, the city centre has really good street food stalls - DS and I have a particular favourite.

Have a good day Babes.

So, I've basically been drunk all week.

DH says he doesn't know who I am any more.

It'll sound stupidly dramatic but I'm thinking of killing myself and just getting it over with. It would be better than basically dying every day, like this.

Oh Sober what happened sweetie? You were doing so well.

Drinking yesterday does NOT mean you have to drink today (though it may feel like it). You've had a set back, but the all or nothing thinking is the booze, not the real you.

So come on, just for today (tomorrow we'll deal with when it gets here), today, Sober we will not drink.

I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know who I am. I can't see any point in trying to carry on.

The point is Sober, that the 'real' you is being sacrificed to booze. You have DC, DH, you have you, but you need to see that those precious things can no longer coexist with alcohol.

If you drink today, I guarantee, you'll feel just as bad, maybe worse, tomorrow. But if you don't, you'll begin to get back the clarity again. It won't solve everything, this isn't an instant fix, but it is the first ESSENTIAL step.

Are you at home at the moment? Can you make sure there's no alcohol in the house? And you need some support that isn't, DH, he is too close, and is dealing with his own pain at the moment. Have you considered AA?

I don't want to drink ever again. But I've been here so many times before. I don't know if I can fight any more.

Just been looking up AA meetings nearby, but they all seem to clash with DC bath and bedtime! Not that DH would mind covering, but I don't want to ask him for anything atm. Do AA do some kind of email support...?

sober it is the booze telling you all these things. It is a mind controlling drug, thats what it does. The fact it tastes so damn good and eases the pain of day to day life makes it hard to resist.
I can only relate, totally relate. Can you make a plan just to get through tonight AF. ( hypocrite central here, but dont really know what else to suggest)

I don't know about email, and what you need is immediate, not delayed support. Going to AA would be something that you should ask DH for. I know you're feeling worthless and hopeless at the moment but this is something that you really, really need, and you are worth it. You might miss a bath time or two now, but think of all the bath times in the future you will miss if you don't. Honestly, you know what is more important right now. Do it. Ask. {hugs}

Sober, Ma is right, this is the booze, talking, not you. Make a plan. I have to go out for a while, but I will keep checking back in. Stay with us, get day one under your belt.

Morning, Babes.

Oh, Sober, I'm devastated and crying for us, babes. It is breaking my heart because I feel your pain.
That nagging feeling when you're good that you're really just a fake and not worth anything and that everyone will wake up and see you as such and drop you like a hot potato.
But its not true, my lovely.
If only on this bus, and often it is the only place where I feel seen and felt, we matter.
Holding you tight, my buttercup. Stroking your little seven year old head and telling that little girl that in the end, everything will be ok. If it not ok, then it is not yet the end.
(I read that somewhere and I hold on to it for dear life).

I have to acknowledge that the loneliness is killing me. I am surrounded by people and I'm still so fucking lonely.
And this is so stupid but I'm still gutted about that man.
And did the stupid thing to allow the other to flirt with me to fill the space but that just made me realise I gave up so much, a filled beautiful life to move to the end of the world and that has left me so lonely.
So I want to drink.

And I hate people who use their insecurities to hurt me. A friend gave me a luke warm invitation for last night. The reason is that a handsome male friend of hers who has heard so much about me and wants to meet me apparently, is visiting and from the beginning I had a feeling she doesn't want us to meet. Fuck it, I don't give a shit about people I don't even know, right?!
Then the invitation. I declined. Came home. Made myself something to eat. Had one sip of bubly, decided its not worth it and went to bed.

Oh, life can suck.

Sorry, x-posted.

Sober, babes, if there is a meeting nearby go for it. DH won't hurt any less if you hung around and did bath time tonight. He might not hurt less tomorrow either, but at least he will know you took responsibility and went to a meeting.
Do it, my honey. Please.

I'll be ok without alcohol today. It's the rest of my life I'm not so sure about.

Thankyou all as always for your support. I'm so tired. So tired.

Sober, the truth is right now we only have now. None of us is guaranteed the next moment, let alone tomorrow or the next 50 years.
Its about right now, darling. Acknowledge that right now a darkness is washing over you. Washing OVER you, meaning it can stop any moment.
Take a deep breath.
If you need to chat, PM me and I'll ring you. Please. Don't feel like you have to face the next few hours alone.
You don't.

I've been looking up AA. Don't really like their approach tbh. I'm not one for the Higher Power business as a rule. Think Women In Sobriety might be a better choice for me. So am trying to sign up for their Web forums but can't. Keeps objecting that I have not entered a valid birth date. YOU DID NOT ASK ME FOR A BIRTH DATE. There is no field to enter a birth date. I can't deal with this sort of thing right now!

Get you have to make sobriety a priority because, let's face it, it is a priority. At the moment you have a choice. You can choose a life with your dh and dc or you can choose alcohol. At the moment you are choosing alcohol.

Who does that? The only person who would choose something that costs a fortune, makes them hate themselves and feel physically crap is a person who has an addiction.

You have done so well. You have come here for help and you stayed with us which makes you so very, very brave. There are people here who care about you and people with you who love you. Your dh loves you and he is with you despite the alcohol because he knows you and wants to be with you. He has choices too and he chooses you, my lovely.

Please don't risk everything. I know it seems like a massive mountain to climb but you are not alone. When I first stopped drinking I was so, so scared that I had to do this on my own. It frightened the life out of me. I was scared of living without alcohol and scared of living with it.

At AA you will meet very kind people who understand and know exactly how you feel and what you're going through. Just give them a ring. See if there is someone who will meet you outside and take you in for a meeting. If you don't like it you don't have to go back. Don't worry about the rest of your life, I promise it will get easier and what seemed a terrible sacrifice will become the best decision you ever made.

Just read Soc's post above. She, like me and many others, was no different to you, held in the grip of alcohol. And we are loving life without it, I'm not scared any more, I'm free x

Khalisi you are so great at putting how you feel into words and you are right, acknowledging them is the best way to get through them. Well done on putting the bubbly away. Sounds like you might be a bit down today but you can always come and chat with us. Remember, heads down, bums up, time to moon the world x

Just been reading about the physical component of addiction. How it messes with your dopamine and stuff. It makes sense. Explains a bit of why it's so damn hard to leave the wretched stuff alone.

Thanks for the offer of a phone call, I really really appreciate it. I'm not sure I want to talk to someone I know, though, even if "only" online. Have found a helpline number, will call them when they open at 11.