The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Braving The Wine Witch & Her Alcohol Free Autumn

[Mouseface]

Hello

I’m Mouse one of the Brave Babes who ride on this wonderful Bus, called Gerald, along with all the Opal Fruits wrappers and of course Barry The squid.

We all have a wise variety of life experiences and experiences with alcohol too. We’re not admirers of hang overs and we certainly don’t do judgey pants!

We’re here to ride along with you, when life is pants but also when it’s not as well and you my want to celebrate that bit too much!

So find a seat and come take a ride. I’ll link the previous and also the very first link and the reason we’re all here.

*Mouse

So I had a bit of a "last hurrah" today. Met a friend for lunch and shared a bottle of wine and then a large glass each. This probably sums up my drinking. I don't really drink huge amounts but it's every bloody day and the cumulative effects are starting to show.

2018 has to be it - the year of me stopping drinking every night at home.

Now I just want to drink tea and snooze on the sofa......

I'm with you rothbury - I am not totally in the shit drinking wise but I want to knock it on the head from a cumulative perspective right now. I am also having a last hurrah tonight to use up my beers. Tomorrow I'm on rooibus tea and an early night with my book for NYE (I hate NYE).

Last, I love a good kitchen gadget, I had a circular potato peeler that had three different blades, regular, slightly rippled for really crunchy roadies, and julienne strips. My favourite chopping boards (yep, I live a rock n roll life) are the flexible ones from Ikea.

Wine for me tonight as got only one really nice bottle left from Xmas and then NYE party tomorrow with some drinker friends (but not really big drinkers - I’m the biggest quaffer in that group). And then it will come the attempt to free myself! Not sure how to prepare myself mentally - persuade myself it’ll be not too bad or accept I’m going to find it really hard. On my own with two kids most of the time so really difficult to police myself and not give in to temptation.

Hit post too soon - Last that book sounds brilliant, I'm going to put it on my Easter reading list (From now until them I only have time to read undergraduate essays and Scholarly Journals).

Roth, go with what you want, tea and snooze sounds great.

Welcome Bernie, Original and Twattage. Lovely to see the bus so full and busy. Original, try not to think too far ahead, it will probably only freak you out. One day at a time is a bit of a cliché, but I think it’s effective.

Interesting to read the link to Claire Pooley’s book, she is the creator of the Sober Mummy blog, which is a great read if you need a distraction.

Sweet, great to catch up with your news although you’ve obviously been through the ringer in the last few years my love, glad things are looking up now. Sweet Dog is gorgeous!

My brother is arriving tonight to stay for a week - to say I’m not looking forward to it is an understatement. He came over last year for Christmas and after that I swore I’d never have him in my house again. I won’t go into it but suffice to say that he is one of life’s champion wankers. Anyway, the anxiety is building so I’ve got lots of nice soft drinks in just in case that little voice tries to convince me that drinking is a good idea. To those wondering what to replace wine with, at the beginning I just made sure there was always a huge selection of soft drinks in my fridge and teas in my cupboards. Tonight I will probably have tonic in a wine glass with loads of ice and lime.

Let’s make the end of 2017 as good as we can, and get ready for 2018 with heads held high, tits out, gym memberships renewed and smiles on our faces. It’s going to be great (except when it isn’t, which is when we look after each other).

Day 134. Today I will not be drinking.

PS. Just got this in my inbox from Belle, who runs the Tired of thinking about drinking website and is a sober goddess:

“even when you can't see where you're going. even when the next step isn't clear. all you have to do is today, and then when it's tomorrow, you do today. the only time you can do this is right now. today. this moment. Do the thing. you'll feel better if you're sober. you never wake up wishing you'd drank the night before.”

Amazing Margie32. Agree with you on finding good soft drinks. My two favorites are San Pellegrino with a big chunk of lime and rooibos. It annoys me when I go out and it is difficult to find anything decent to drink - am hoping options have improved since 2013/14.

Evening Brave Babes
Good to see all our newcomers
Hopefully attached is my Rocktails packaging. Using MN app and I can't get my head around attaching stuff My lovely friend bought me a case with 3 AF mock tails I've just had the Coco Colada, it's delicious I can highly recommend it, they come in a packet that you put in the freezer for 5 hours or more. Snip it open and voila - lush yummy drink!
I'll be back later fat fingers on phone syndrome

Bloody cat just brought a mouse in, meowed to tell the dog, then let it go under my bed.

I have locked the dog in downstairs and told the little cow of a feline she needs to sort it out before bedtime. HONESTLY!

Grown-up slushy, Spanna, looks ace (I bought some proper handmade margarita glasses in Mexico that would be just the job for that!)

Cat has disappeared, so I have sent the dog in. He says he can tell where it's been, but it's not in there any more!

I hope he's right.

I've been reading this thread for a while, and have finally found the courage to say "Hi". I've had a bit of a problem with wine drinking over the past few years, and have decided to kick my habit for good. I did a month alcohol free earlier in the year, but fell off during an extremely stressful event that was occurring in my life. I also did about a month alcohol free in November to mid-December, but ended up going on a boozy school mums night out and gave in. We've not long moved to the area, so I kind of felt like I had to join in, in order to start making some friends.

I've got a couple of bottles in the fridge that I will celebrate with tomorrow night, then over the few nights after that I'll cut down by half every night (bit worried about just stopping suddenly), and then no more. When I gave up before I drank Lime and Ginger cordial with soda water, so I've stocked up on that, and will look out for a couple of other drinks when I next go to the supermarket. I've been watching Kevin O'Hara's video's, which I really like, so I'll start those again from the beginning for a bit of inspiration. I remember how fantastic I felt when I stopped drinking last month (after a few days of feeling anxious), so I can look forwards to that again.

I want to change lots of things in 2018, but ditching the alcohol is my number one priority.

Welcome Cats, I'm sure if you can manage the alcohol, lots of the rest will fall into place - or at least seem easier.

Just out of curiosity, how many cats do you have (this evening I am very much of the opinion that one is more than enough!)

Haha Sweet I see you have been having some cat trouble this evening!
We have not enough cats in my opinion, and way too many in my DP's! Luckily he humours me. We have four cats at the moment. Thankfully, two of them don't hunt at all, one hunts only flies, and the other is a willing but ineffective hunter, catching only one shrew in the last four months.

Cats our sweet, nervous looking little tortoise shell is a killing machine. I know that we locally have three species of mice, two types of shrews, voles, rats (some of them almost as big as her), and moles - how the bloody hell did she get a mole (mind you, I was secretly pleased, the little bastard destroyed my garden), frogs, slow worms . . . and I'm embarrassed about the birds - two wrens this week, but the fledgling rook and fully grown wood pigeon were pretty impressive.

Love the little mare to bits .

I’ve got got two (cats) ... one brings the spoils in, usually alive, and they both chase it around then let whatever it is escape under a toy box, big heavy settee etc thus resulting in a rescue effort lasting far too long. Have had mice, all kinds, birds big and small, butterflies and moths, and a rabbit and twice a big rat, luckily both times left outside. Funny thing is that my tomcat is tiny, the rabbit was as big as him.... well here’s to the last day of 2017 tomorrow. Hope it’s going to be momentous, or at least not quite as disastrous

I love hearing about cat adventures!

We've just moved here from overseas, and where we used to live we had to keep the cats inside. They are just getting used to being outside. The shrew catcher goes off for hours. The fly catcher goes off for twenty minute spells, then sits on the window ledge whinging to come in. The lazy two sit outside the back door for a few minutes and then come back in.

We had cats before we moved overseas who used to catch rats, mice and voles. We've never had a bird catcher.

I'd like to join the bus please. I've been lurking on&off for quite a while now. I used to be a daily drinker (not loads - about 3 cans or 3 gins a night). I tried dry January last year but failed to do the whole month. For a while I was just having 2 drinks Friday&Saturday nights which suited me but through December my intake has gone right up.

I don't like it. I'm SO anxious about everything. I'm sure it's a mix of drinking and stopping swimming. My work trousers are tight too which will be all the lager and snacking.

I'm not sure what I'm after. I'd like to control my drinking but I'm starting to think my only option is to be dry. What I really want is for the anxiety to stop and I know my lifestyle choices impact that.

I've got 2 cans left for tonight and then I'm going AF for a while from tomorrow. Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year baking and welcome! Lovely to have you on board.

Morning all and cats and cupcakes...I also have a cat (a very naughty ginger tom). More about him another time...

So I finished off my beer supply last night - I maybe had 10 over the course of the whole of yesterday. Which is a lot but my numbers have been escalating recently as I'm tolerant of it.

Woke up at 4.30am really really anxious and nervous...just horrible. But also a sense of relief as today is my day 1 and therefore I am not going out to buy more or to drink any. Going to have a v quiet day at home today - will get something to cook for lunch and have a book to finish and the Sunday Times to read.

Early to bed tonight with a rooibus and tomorrow I will hopefully feel much better (although experience tells me that I may not sleep well tonight).

I have downloaded an app called 'I am sober' so it is logging my days and also estimates how much money I will be saving...I put down £5 a day as it probably averaged out that way when I was drinking in my old pattern before the recent escalation.

Morning All.

Got up to a smear of blood and half a pair of lungs in the hallway
< nom not envy. Why do we let the evil beasts into our homes?

Welcome Baking The more the merrier.

Twattage, I had a horrible night too, drinking really screws with my sleep. I'm looking forward to deep, sober sleep. There are so many things that are good about sobriety - sleep, energy, motivation, clear skin, less bloating, weight loss, and those are just the visible things. Why do we do it?

Anyway, I've promised SweetDog a long walk before it starts raining again. Have a good day.

'nom'? definitely not! 'vom'.

Yep - I was about to make a list of things that I know will be better Sweet:

• Skin - my skin after 6 months of no drinking looked amazing - currently my skin is all dry and flaky and red (horrible)
• Tummy - I gain weight on my tummy so it will go down - I'd like to get it back to around 30 inches max along with loosing weight
• Positivity - I remember I leaped out of bed every morning after the first week or so of transitioning off the wine
• Weight - I had been maintaining at around 10'7 (my goal is 9'13) since the end of 2013, but it's crept up recently for one reason only (beer) and I want it off finally (when I first gave up the wine in 2013 i was 13 stone 7 - it is so much easier to diet without the booze)
• Energy - I haven't managed to improve my 5k time at all this year (despite running 3 times a week over the summer) - I am putting this down to the booze as it dehydrates me
• Eyes - I have lovely blue eyes but they're mostly blood-shot at the moment.

I could go on! Am so looking forward to seeing what improvements come now I'm on the road again.

Hello I’ve not been joining in but I have been doing one or more AF nights per week which feels nice. I’ve been on the delicious Seedlip and also alcohol free warsteiner!

When I don’t drink I ache like mad all evening physically I mean- does anyone think it’s related?