Brave Babes - Barging through 2017 in style

[SweetLathyrus]

Hello, I'm SweetLathyrus (Sweet for short), and I've been hopping on and off Gerald the Brave Babes Battle Bus for three years now because, like some many of us, I struggle with alcohol.

The Bus is a supportive community at all stages in their relationship with alcohol and with lots of different goals - for some, it's abstinence, for others it's moderation, for others, it's just about getting a bit of control and perspective.

So, if you think you'd like to join us, don't be shy, flag us down and jump on board and share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with; sometimes there will be silliness, but there will always be help and support.

If you would like to know how the Bus first rattled into action, here is the first ever thread

And if you would like to know where we have been more recently, here is the most recent thread

Just checking in. Have started craving a big glass of wine at 5 ish. Then gave myself a kick up the arse since I've never dunk at 5, I always wait until the archers theme tune, as is only right and proper. D'oh!

Have been on the flavoured spring water instead and all is fine now.

elba just keep posting lovely. Your pottering round evening sounds calm and good for the soul.

Ma happy birthday to ewe, happy birthday to ewe...
I loved your sea glass seahorse. What a wonderful gift!

My lovely ds has what is euphemistically referred to as 'challenging behaviours' and much as I love him, I am very worn down by how relentless it is. He is pretty awesome and is mega bright but by gum he's difficult. Today I've done my best to just say things to him without making snippy little remarks as well. Do you think the little sod appreciated it, did he bugger!!!!!! Gentle parenting MY ARSE.

And breathe.

Good night all you lovely babes. Hope you are well and safe wether you are sober or half way down a glass already. Any lurkers- please do join in : )

Just lost a really long post FFS fat fingers AAARRRRGH

Ma Happy Birthday to you I hope you're having a lovely day. LOVE the glass willy You are a selfless, kind, wonderful Babe and I'm so glad I boarded this bus and met you. Thank you for being you x

Love to you all - I'd NC so many of you, too I can't stand losing posts

Guggs - love it!. Over Christmas I would often listen to the Archers on podcast at around 10am and it's fair to say I started drinking on hearing the theme tune then too!

Mouse you there babe? We miss you.

Ha ha! Terrible Pavlovian response to the ' dum de dum, de dum de dem....' etc. How are you doing smallfox?

Checking in ......another sober Saturday

I'm ok, thanks Guggs. Bit bored with all this sober time on my hands but when I figure out what to do with it I'll be unstoppable (and if I can get over Pavlov, I've got 23 episodes of TA to catch up on in the interim!).

I am totally sure that your DS will appreciate your brilliant parenting - albeit in maybe 11 years' time . Just read an article in the Guardian about sideways listening to kids. Stating the bleeding obvious, frankly. We are all doing the best we can and I know that for my kids the absolute best thing I can do is try to stay sober - it's not about how I position my chair to listen to them, it is about being fully present and invested. I am a million times kinder a mum AF. But I can't beat myself up for all the less than sober times - I've been doing the best I can, I've loved them beyond imagining, drunk or sober, and they know that. Sorry, slight meander off topic there.

Hang in there - you sound like you're doing an astoundingly good job in challenging circumstances. How's the little one?

Evening everyone, went out, came back. Pub full of very drunk people and was far too hot for this middle aged mama.

Not keen on pubs anyway unless it's a foodie pub. Future socialising will be restaurants and café. I'm relieved to be home with my water.

Hope everyone is OK, and Elba you have a peaceful evening will catch up properly tomorrow. Head is pounding.

I managed to survive my sons 6th birthday party today without chucking booze down my neck..yayy go me!

25 kids in a church hall, a loud disco/DJ and stress levels through the roof. Beers and prosecco available for guests, and I managed to stay off it.

I am however totally exhausted. Got in the inlaws over at the moment too, who have just added an additional day onto their trip, so not leaving now until Monday. They are fine, but his mother does get on my tits so if I can again survive until Monday, I'll be really proud!

Off to bed..sleep well all babes x

dave bloody well done there, a hall full of excited shrieking and temptation laid right in your path? Takes a stout heart that!

LW This middle aged notmama is watching Twilight for the first time. I know what you mean, in my days I couldn't be arsed with eating if I was going out, it was all about the drinking and the dancing. Now it's not the same without good food. And to be fair, I can live without the dancing now as well.

spanna thank you so much for your daily sea views, they cheer me up no end. How's your day been my dear?

guggs I am ashamed to say I have never in my puff listened to the Archers. My soap of choice is Emmerdale. Is it worth a listen?

ma I hope you are kicking your heels up and having a rare old time at your party/sleepover!

elba wishing you a good night's rest, and hope that your evening has been what you needed it to be. Spill your beans darling, all of them, scrape off the ones that are stuck to the pot and spill those too. You need to let some stuff out to give your heart and your head a chance to breathe.

lala where are you chickadee? Are you okay? Check in if you can, xx

I've got a feeling I'm just not feeling the Twilightiness. Am I too old? Or am I in a mard?

Also wondering where lala is. Hope your ok xx

dubh thank you. Never got the Twilight thing either. Hope the terrorist is behaving herself tonight.

lux pubs full of drunk people are just noisy and irritating to me unless I'm one of them! Well done for staying af

dave huge well done for resisting in those circumstances!

guggs can't imagine how stressful it must be to deal with challenging behaviour day in day out.

Didn't drink tonight, although for a while was thinking why not just carry on as I'd started this morning. Have however taken some zopiclone which is starting to kick in so apologies for not name checking all you lovely people who have been so kind to me.

Have had a bath and have clean sheets and getting nicely sleepy so hoping for a decent night and a chance to reset things a bit.

Hope everyone's ok- think tonight must make it two weeks for some of you which is absolutely amazing!

Ok.dryjanuary has gone out of the window tonight and Is going to pay a horrible price tomorrow, but I have had a lovely birthday. Thank you for all your kind wishes my friends.
I'll get back on it....Promise!

Just back from dinner. Didn't drink. There were 6 of us over at my neighbour's house and I explained I was doing DJ which just added to my reputation as the British weirdo as they're all Spanish so they all drink like normal people so would have no need to do DJ. But I am happy and had a good time and am looking forward to a non-hungover Sunday. Night babes.

Sorry Ma, cross-posted, don't worry about it, tomorrow (or actually today) is a new day. Glad you've had a great birthday.

Morning All.

Ma, you've done your longest af run since being on the bus, serious kudos. Your birthday has special dispensation, just don't be tempted to treat your hangover with a hair of the dog. Two days would easily slip into daily. How about adding Feb 1st to Jan, then just taking it ODaaT?

Margie Seriously well done - my parent live in France and the difference between local drinking culture and 'ex-pat' (hate that word) drinking is shocking.

Dave when DS was small, our local softly facility had a bar - they knew their customer base .

Dubh, Twighlight passed me by too, I wouldn't worry!

Are the Archers pavlovian response - fine if you're a 7pm listener, less so if you're a 2pm-er, or a 10am omnibus listener, but I tend to hear them all because the radio is always on ! And now I have to be careful if Small is 23 episodes behind. Rob, you absolute excuse for a human being!

Lux at least you will wake up with a clear head this morning.

I've woken up full of beans despite the rain. I am getting so much more done at the moment - I'm not quite firing on all cylinders yet, because I have months of lazy habits to break, but I'm getting there. I've also started to lose weight. I put 3lbs on gorging on sugar, but I have now lost 1lb, and maintained it for two days (weighing daily on the wii fit, always at the same time, in the same clothes, before I eat or drink in the morning).

Today for me is prep for the start of semester, lots of washing, checking all my materials for next week are sorted out and online, then Sherlock and bed.

Morning all
ma glad you had a nice birthday.
Just thought that I would share something with you. Last night my DH said to me " Sober you have been an absolute delight to be with since the New Year " Now nothing has changed in my life and like others on the bus I am dealing with stuff I can't change however the only difference is now I am dealing with it sober.
I was a bit taken aback because I haven't noticed that I was acting any different and also a bit
As I said my problems are still there but I must be dealing with them a bit better.
Hope you all have a sober Sunday and will check in later

Wow Tis, that is pretty amazing. I bet we're all nicer people sober but for someone to recognize it after only 2 weeks...makes me wonder yet again why I insist on doing something that has absolutely no benefits for my life, only drawbacks.

Hi Sweet, I also hate the term ex-pat but there is definitely a huge difference here between how the Spanish drink and how the Brits drink. An American friend of mine was in a bar before Christmas with a group of Spanish friends and they'd all had one or two drinks and were happily dancing away when the door opened and a group of "ex-pats" fell into the place totally off their faces and proceeded to get even drunker. As someone said much earlier up the thread, alcohol seems to be an especially big problem for Brits for whatever reason.

Has anyone else noticed other people's drinking habits since you've been sober enough to do so? When I get pissed I always assume everyone else is way more sober than me, but now I see other people around me who drink more than I thought they did.

Morning all.My first fuzzy head of 2017 and will be back on Dry January, just a day behind! I don't regret it because I had a lovely evening. The test now is moving on and being AF again, without it being the start of a downwards slide.

Morning all,

I'm glad you had a lovely time ma - we will all be tested at some point I guess. There will always be birthdays and weddings and Christmas etc.

You've done brilliantly so far, had a good birthday and today is brand new

Last night in the pub (I only went for 2 hours) I was pleased that nobody questioned my not drinking (I am known as a drinker) maybe it's because it's an older crowd, or maybe dry January is not an unusual thing to do, but anyway, nobody pressed me to have a drink which I was relieved about.

I had a lightbulb moment on waking today. I often read the threads where people discuss their grocery bill, and I wonder how people manage to only spend £40 or £60 a week, I realised all at once that my food bill almost doubles with the amount of booze I used to put in the trolley - double an incentive if ever there was one.

Morning all.
Glad you had a lovely birthday Ma
Well what a Saturday that was! I love the seahorse made of glass. It's beautiful.
I had two AF Koppaberg last night. Himself got hammered, threw a really nasty tantrum at me which resulted in him calling me a cunt, throwing my laptop at me and storming off to bed. Of course this morning he can't/ won't remember it or believe he did it so things are decidly frosty. This was all because we are rural and our Internet at night is shite so he couldn't get a film to load.
I'm so pleased I didn't give in after that and drink.
I went to the gym yesterday and did a boxing class followed by a body balance class. I then had the great idea of going to Sports Direct spending money on running gear to start the C25k today.
I seem to have stopped drink for a fitness obsession. I need to be careful as I had an eating disorder when I was younger and I don't want to go down that route again.
I am currently cooking a full Scottish. It's not legal to put arsenic in it is it? 😂

Go for the arsenic. He called you a cunt and threw your laptop at you???? Kill the bastard.

Morning all,

I do like waking up without a hangover- just need to remember this tonight. Back to day 1 thanks to yesterday morning, but glad I didn't drink last night. There's just over two weeks left of January and I really, really want to try and stay dry- that would be a record for me and something I would never of contemplated a year ago.

mint so sorry you had to go through that last night. I do hope it's not a regular occurrence. I get the fitness obsession when not drinking, and have to be careful for similar reasons. Obviously we are all different, but I actually find my eating improves when I'm excercising lots as I'm quite competitive with myself and find it easier to think of food as fuel.

sweet it's amazing how much more gets done when not drinking isn't it? I'm hoping for a productive couple of days too- today I might actually brave starting to sort the load of crap that lurks under my bed

ma hope the heads ok and glad you had a good time.

margie it's quite scary the amount Brits can put away, but must be a bit eye opening seeing it in the context of a different drinking culture. I love alcohol, and so wish I could approach it in a different way.

Minor disaster today in that the posh new moisturiser I got for Christmas and covered myself in last night and this morning turns out to be a self tanning one, and i neither put it on evenly or washed my hands. So have a slightly orange, streaky look going on. Need to exfoliate the fuck out of my legs later

Anyway I'm off to try and be productive, at least for a few hours! Have the day to myself, but having lunch with a friend tomorrow and then see the very hot physio so hopefully enough incentive to not drink tonight.

Elba84
I'm sorry but I did laugh at the tanning incident. I've never done that myself ever on my face HONEST.

Himself gave up drinking for ten years because he was nasty. When I met him he barely drunk. I try my best to keep him off Whisky but our frenemies friends think it's hilarious to buy it for him.

Sweet I hear you. I've been so full on energy this morning!

LuxuryWoman2017 Yes on the money side. I did all the grocery shopping yesterday and total bill was almost £40 cheaper.

Dave You have great strength there. Large amounts of confined kids fill me with horror!

Sorry for not NC all of you. I'm on my mobile and I can only see a few posts at a time.

Spanna Your search view is lovely. Ditto to whoever had the pool. Not jealous

Blimey mint, I hope your OH makes up for being so vile to you. Booze is no excuse to speak to anyone, let alone your partner like that. Well done on staying off the booze yourself though

Day 15 here for me, and actually I think I am over the worst cravings. I figure the kids party was a big test, and actually I was so busy rushing about making sure everyone else was catered for, I actually didn't really think of drinking (or pigging out on all the party food!)

Went for a yucky, soggy run this morning with OH too. Got drenched but did a couple of brutal hills, so feel slightly less guilty about the large amounts of leftover birthday cake I have been consuming throughout the day!

My OH is thankfully doing Dry Jan with me. I don't think I would be able to last if I was on my own, so well done to all those doing this solo. My OH can be a knobber when he's had too much too (particularly whisky), so it's quite nice that I don't have to worry about that at the moment, just usual man-annoyingness

My OH is also on board with Dry Jan.
Oh Mint what a way to speak to someone, arsenic? for sure, the judge would understand at that level of provocation.

Well done Dave on the party.

Elba our orange friend.

Sorry if I've missed anyone out, I do read everyone's updates.

I hear reports of lots of sore heads from the pub. Feeling just a teensy bit smug. I must try not to get ahead of myself though, although I am confident my wine habit was a bad habit rather than an actual addiction. A habit I must break nevertheless as who knows where I could be in a few years time.

Skin is smoother and I'm beginning to feel much more in control, helped by channelling my alter ego and some other women I admire. The old 'Act as if' trick.

Have a good afternoon.

I spent my birthday money on being a luxury woman. I bought new foundation - had no bloody idea what to get until a nice lady in Boots did a skin tone thingy and helped me out. And I bought exfoliating pads and a serum so will be very gorgeous on due course.