Brave Babes are boinging into Spring..Join us here!

[dementedma]

We are a bus load of Babes all battling alcohol and trying to resist, reduce and get our lives back under control. Whatever you have to say, we will have heard it before and no-one will judge you. This is a warm, friendly,supportive place with tough love when needed ( slap round the face with a wet squid called Barrie). Join us here.

Can't go wrong with a black cardi!

Hi Wishtobefree us crazy lot keep you sane? hop on whenever you can.

I'm going to sleep now, night all. Back with more waffle soon.

And of course I should have added how sorry I am about your husband.
Your life must be in turmoil. Sorry, I'm in bed quickly skimming through, I should have read more closely

And of course I should have added how sorry I am about your husband.
Your life must be in turmoil. Sorry, I'm in bed quickly skimming through, I should have read more closely

Hello wishtobefree I'm so sorry about your husband, don't worry about us, just pop on as and when you wish

Is time for me to say goodnight babes am quite tired so off to bed now, without the help of any tablets I hope

Dearie me I haven't managed an af night in ages. Rubbish sleep. Today I will not be drinking. I have got a crap craft project and am going to watch the sexy vikings instead of downing red wine.
I have been slightly stressed but can't keep using that as an excuse. I am very disappointed with me 😎

Happy st Patrick's to you all. I shall celebrate by wearing something green not by drinking.
Think I'd better keep checking in today.

Hey Gugg good to see you, an evening with sexy Vikings huh?
Just start again, any AF day when you want to be AF got to be good right?

For me it's facepack Friday! Bit of pampering this evening I think.

Hope everyone is well today, hope you slept made

Just popping in to say hello. Had some ups and downs this week but haven't wanted to self-medicate with alcohol, which is great. Just riding the waves of my feelings rather than pushing them away with alcohol or sugar as I would do normally. It's all most peculiar - but strangely freeing.

One thing I love about not drinking is that I used to always be slightly (or very) on edge. I was tense and anxious pretty much all the time, unless I was drunk. I realise now that that familiar sensation was in fact alcohol withdrawal. I still have so much going on in my life and a lot of very "triggering" people but I'm just not as all-the-time stressed, if that makes sense. I have a sense of peace - mostly!

I got very weepy a couple of times this week... which was scary but also liberating... nothing "bad" happened. I was listened to and comforted. Fancy that!

Still got a long long way to go but am so grateful every day that I wake up without that sick feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I was saving my examples of this for my blog, but as I haven't started one yet (!) here's one choice memory (if that's not an oxymoron, given it's a blackout incident)... the aftermath of one episode of binge eating when drunk.

Waking up, dry mouth, familiar sore head, gin breath, aching body. The same old panic mantra - "what happened? what did I do? what did I say?"... then realising I've got an excruciatingly sore throat... and a slight taste of blood in my mouth. It's Tuesday FFS. I have to get to work! Flu? Cold? What happened? What is this? No fever, apart from the usual alcohol sweats. What the hell happened?

Moments appear in my mind, brightly lit, sudden, disconnected. Standing by the sink, choking, struggling to come to from blackout stupor - a bone stuck right down in my throat, unable to breathe. Shaking with fear, trying to calm myself enough to gasp in some air...

Have a fabulous AF day, everyone!

Sexy vikings?!!

Is that the programme with George Blagden in it? I have a bit of a thing for him... mmm

It's the last kingdom. Do look up Uthred the Viking. It's all good 😎

elf keep posting please, I really need to keep thinking about what happens when we drink. Thank you.

Anyone hear the interview with Marion Keyes on the radio this am? Was inspirational.

Guggenheim - what station was the Marion Keyes interview on please?

Thanks made! I do love her. Obviously as her mum I think she's the best girl ever made

Hi wish, I too am sorry to hear about your husband. I hope you'll feel able to post more here.

I'm laughing at the sexy vikings

Someone upthread talked about the Wine Witch telling them they were so much more fun drunk, and all their friends preferred it (was it you kiki?) It prompted a memory that I thought I'd share, not as a put-down but as a reminder that our memories of how fun we are drunk aren't necessarily true.

Our friend group recently lost someone to cancer. The process was horrendous for her, her family and her husband. At our first meet-up after the funeral feelings were really raw and very sad. Still, we talked a bit about her and about lots of other things, and tried to surround her husband with support and friendship.

Around halfway through this, one of the group (who'd been out on the lash with her girlfriends so was a bit late to the meet) turned up very, very drunk. She started talking to our friend's husband about his dead wife in the most toe-curling way, saying things like 'Still, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' and suggesting ludicrous things he could do to get over his grief, then badgering him when he said he didn't want to do them. Every so often she'd forget what she'd been talking about and start the whole thing over again.

It was absolutely horrendous, like watching a car crash in slow-mo. The next morning I thought she might be embarrassed but she wasn't. She really thought she'd been great fun. That's how she saw herself, as a crazy party girl who gets smashed but it's all a good laugh. Perhaps she even thought we preferred her drunk, and it made her more entertaining.

I'm not talking about my friend to judge her or to say no-one's fun when they're drunk; just that the Witch is lying if she says being drunk always makes you more fun or better at socialising. God knows I've done some very un-fun things when drunk.

Oh yes Flora I'm sure at some points we've all been the wittiest, wisest, sexiest, most fun woman out there haven't we?

Hope everyone is ok this afternoon, sounds like we're in for a wet and gloomy weekend.

Yeah. I dread to think how I really looked half the time I was being super fun and crazy.

Where I live St Patrick's Day is a big thing. I've been out shopping today and my home town is a very effective warning against binge drinking. The streets are paved with vomit and roamed by groups of intimidating drunk men, some of whom shouted some hilarious remark at me The sirens will be screaming up and down the main road later on. I cannot wait for the calm of tomorrow. Gloomy or not!

I have done some truely truely really bad things when drunk before. I try not to think about them because they make me feel so bad.
I used to go out with a friend who never intervened when she saw me getting that way, but the next day would make me feel ashamed. It was such a toxic friendship where I think she liked my wine witch because it made her look normal, and she got up to all kinds of deceit while I was the centre of attention - almost like a distraction.

I cannot even put my embarrassing moments into a particular order, but one that I will always cherish is at a party, drinking for hours and hours and hours (in my 30's, not a teen): physically and sexually harrassing a poor bloke into going out with me (again, because he had dumped me) by crying and clinging on to him. He agreed then tried to leg it when I wasn't looking. I ran out down the street after him with no shoes on (December) crying and screaming and holding onto his legs while everyone from the party laughed at me.

Also the time when I fell over on the way to a party, as was already wasted, got absolutely filthy dirty and still turned up at party. Carried on all muddy and bloody and torn without one care in the world

Kiki I've done similar. My 'favourite' is to tell people exactly where they're going wrong in life...for hours, and hours, (yawn) I must have been so boring. I felt like I became some kind of wise sage, of course I was the bore of the century.
I'm also quick with a one loner and can make people laugh when sober, so when drunk, if I said something witty and people laughed, I thought it was my cue to carry on 'being funny' which I expect really meant not letting anyone else get a word in edgeways.
Plus far to many sordid tales of random men in my younger days (well, I was some kind of sex goddess wasn't I?)

Still, that's all in the past, the future is ours.

I

one liner

It's actually kind of good to recall all the awful things, I've upset my family too with my drunk self as they don't like it. It helps me stay focused.
Luckily it was only once or twice with family but it actually caused a fracture in our relationships, they won't socialise with me like that anymore.

I can be a bore too. It's not always fun. Another ex once told me some of the absolutely dreadful things I had said to him once, I have no recollection of it (it wasn't abusive rather it was me just being a twat) it doesn't sound like things I would say. But I probably did say them. I also once broke up with someone by telling him I fancied his best friend then I was sick on the kitchen floor so he had to stay look after me.

Argh

I thought I might struggle this evening as I really want to have a nice glass of wine, no kids etc but the booze shame has def helped

I went from thinking I became the outgoing, chatty person of my dreams when drunk to slowly hating all the embarrassing things I did. So I just stuck to drinking alone for the last couple of years. Not the greatest tactic eh. There's been times when something someone said or photos have really brought home just how different my recollection and the reality was and I still look back at those moments and cringe. Nobody gives a damn except me but I can hold onto shame and self-loathing like my life depends on it!

Yes to drinkng alone. Hadn't thought of that being the reason 😳

Oh yeah, the me party.