Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

[daisy45]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hey all - well, glad to report I have done day 2. Not feeling very secure yet and was wary about posting yet - a bit iffy about tomorrow. I know for a fact that I will have temptation in my face right through the day. We have a massive parade in our town and we always go and meet so many people we know.
I wouldn't be posting right now only for reading back and seeing the lovely supportive messages since my last post - it really changed how I feel tonight. Thank you all for that - now to get from day 2 and through tomorrow to day 4!

[daisy45]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hey all - well, glad to report I have done day 2. Not feeling very secure yet and was wary about posting yet - a bit iffy about tomorrow. I know for a fact that I will have temptation in my face right through the day. We have a massive parade in our town and we always go and meet so many people we know.
I wouldn't be posting right now only for reading back and seeing the lovely supportive messages since my last post - it really changed how I feel tonight. Thank you all for that - now to get from day 2 and through tomorrow to day 4!

[Marylou123]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi Everyone,

I'm dog tired but wanted to catch up on today's posts and check in.

I'm finding it easier not to overthink day by day. That doesn't mean I don't dwell on things I probably shouldn't at times, but I am better able to deal in the present and not all the "but what if" machinations I used to dream up when I was drinking. Another plus of being AF.

Daisy -- just drink green tea in honor of the day. :H. In all seriousness, you've already succeeded with the first two toughest days. If you have a smart phone, can you bring it to the parade and post if your quit is threatened?

Time for me to get some sleep. I wish you all a wonderful, AF St Patty's Day/Evening.

[daisy45]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Marylou, After a visit to the Newbies Nest I am considering opting out of the celebrations tomorrow - do something different so I don't bump into anyone and even turn my phone off until it is over......

[Marylou123]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi Daisy - that sounds like THE best thing to do. Use the opportunity for some "you time." I'll be thinking about you.

[Pavati]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi, Loamers:

RE: selfish addicts - maybe it is me just being a Pollyanna, but I think of it as the substance/addiction being selfish, and once an addict is under its spell, the addict does its bidding to the exclusion of other important things. (Sort of like being possessed, which me think of the Exorcist, which scares the living daylights out of me). I have to believe that an alcoholic mother who leaves or loses her children because of that addiction is not really herself - she is not being selfish but the alcoholic brain is. That can spell co-dependency (she's not really herself, lets help), or it could lead to giving tough love (I'm going to starve the addicted brain). Frankly, I don't know how you do it at all, LB. I would go crazy from worry living with two users, and crazy from their (probable) dishonesty. You have shown great resolve in sticking by them - please take care of yourself, too! (and of course the doggies, too).

J-Vo - glad the banquet went well and that you didn't tell them how many days sober you were (the dead giveaway). Yes, two sons. The 9th grader went to his first High School party tonight (there is no school tomorrow). I counseled him about how to say no if someone brought something and offered it to him - he seems willing to do that, but who knows when/if the time comes. Actually, I know it is WHEN the time comes. Luckily he's an athlete, so he has that health defense to fall back on. Does your son go to parties? SL, yours? NS? LC? Ava? Anyone? Bueller?

And this leads me to my question for the day - when and what do I tell my kids about my not drinking. I think it is important to tell them that I don't drink because I lost control of the alcohol - I have peppered them with many stories of alcoholism in our family already, and I want them to know how close to home it came. On the other hand, I don't want to scare them or make too big a deal about it. Pretty much everyone else in the family drinks, so it is EVERYWHERE in their lives. I am sure they saw me tipsy several times, but I was fairly coherent in their presence (well, I may be lying to myself about that, too). What have you all decided to do about your kids? (adult or not)

LC - I get wanting to stay in Germany to be by your kids - I can't imagine living that far away from my kids (as your family does).

Daisy - glad the posting and listening helped.

SL - I hear you about those damn voices. It can be hard to visit threads where people are being so good at rationalizing their drinking, or where they are so low that you think "I was never like that." I think Molly put it it best in Moss's thread - the key word here is YET. You sound so strong and happy - lovely to hear.

G'night, peeps. Looking forward to my Monday morning version of the Ava Gazette.

Hope you all have great weeks. I have another doozie lined up, but it will be fun. My son's team won their championship today, and his other team plays this week for the title in another league.

xo
Pav

[narilly]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Just checking in. I will talk more tomorrow. I am really tired and am going to sleep.

I skimmed your posts and will read them more carefully tomorrow. They are awesome.

Xo

[little beagle]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Daisy I agree. Protecting your quit is the first priorty. Sticking close to a place you feel safe and posting helps me SO much.
LC it sounds beautiful where you are. I too have lived in AZ and NM. I understand about the beauty of the open spaces.
I really like teading about everyone's experiences with their kids. It sounds fun and normal. Bad grades, athletics, clothes shopping. Its the experiences that make being sober worthwhile. Really being connected.
Yeah, I hate dishonesty. Lots of lies involved with addiction. I didn't begin to win this battle until I owned my own actions and quit lying to myself and others.
Thanks for being here.

[lifechange]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Good Morning Ladies!
It's Monday, isn't it? I guess that means I can't sit around for 2 hours drinking coffee and reading/replying to posts... I will check in this afternoon.

Daisy, I am happy to see you here again and Great going on Day 2-now Day 3! I think I would skip out of the parade at this point, too, if I were you.It is so difficult to get in the right mindset-- and if you're there, don't risk putting yourself back at square 1, is what I would say. Just my 2 cents..

Pav, great question about telling the kids. I have also been thinking a lot about that. They know my Mom is a recovered (ing)--what does one say if its been such a long time?--alcoholic and how much we suffered as a family due to it. And they have certainly had many episodes with me where they might not have put one and one together, but where they can definitely tell that I'm somehow a different person.

Hi LB!, Nar, J-vo, NS, Marylou, Ava-- where the heck is the Gazette? Anyway, I'll be able to read in luxury this afternoon. Poor Ava, are you feeling the pressure??

[available]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi loamers, ok off we go, you guys were busy on a sunday whilst i was busy "slaving my arse off". This is why no Ava Gazette especially on a Monday for me but now you are all tucked up in bed i can waffle on and i have two pages to reply to.

LC i have found that i am not as dependent on MWO as i used to be in the early days but i still check in daily and i still have it permanently open at work to make sure everyone (myself included) is being strong and if not i will post a reply if i think it will help. I feel i am able to help now which is a good happy place to be, i still also get it that newbies etc think it was a "piece of cake" for ones that have done "the time" but we know that is so not true but it also keeps me grounded and so many posts that keep me thinking that sobriety is something to nurture daily.

SL now did you get your "kini" on or just frolic naked ha ha. damn i wish i had the body of a 20 year old. I find if the weather is nice the hankering is there but so is a nice cold non al drink. tonight my daughter came over and i sat and had a coffee with her and she is still amazed that i dont have a wine in hand but it feels "normal" to have a coffee now. She came to pick up her scarf and loves it, i think i have found an interest i enjoy and its nice to be appreciated for what i can do now. Not that i could not do it before but gees i was too busy drinking to be bothered. Your daughters sound gorgeous and isnt it a warm mushy feeling when we just look at them and love them so much. Do you have lots of animals? my children grew up with everything and are all animal lovers and i think that makes for a better person if they are kind to animals. I would love to help out in an animal shelter or something but i do so like me time and after working all week i really have no energy, my excuse haha. I find it easier now to rationalise why i cant drink again which is a nice place to be. There is the i am an alcoholic aspect but also how happier i am, content and how my family dynamics are where i want them to be. I dont miss anything about al at all but sometimes i do miss just not being in the now daily, its hard sometimes but i dont regret not pouring al down my throat. But i totally get where you at as now i take one day at a time, i dont worry as much about the tomorrows in my life and focus on the today.

Pav i am petrified if i drank to post it here, i would hate the sympathy for starters and would expect the "god you are a fark wit" but that would hurt my feelings so better off not to drink. I am actually looking forward to going on this holiday and i know i will not drink. You know you could never offend me Pav, maybe in the early days when we were all over the place. I am very proud of Liam, i just wish he would have the confidence now to get a job, that is my next mission with him. Crack has left him with awful anxiety though he is still going to his counsellor and is going to do a course in horticulture shortly. The thing i totally regret is when he came home i was still drinking like a lunatic and here was my son in the depths of despair with an addiction that he admitted to. Me well i didnt have a problem, well maybe a bit but god not as bad as crack, now that was bad. al was nothing compared to crack. My opinion! I remember i took him to a counsellor praying that liam would not say anything about my drinking, which he didnt, but i was scared as maybe i would have had to face up to my addiction and i was not ready. I always feel that he was better and stronger than me that he at least admitted it and asked for help and here i was still in denial, still living the life i was used to, not wanting to change, not even for him. That makes me sad. What makes me happy is that i now realise that my addiction was and is just as bad as his and he is just as proud of me as i am with him. You never want your child to go through what he did but i am sure he never wanted me to go through my addiction either. Waffling again! Congrats to your son and his basketball wins, i used to love going to watch the children play soccer, i miss that now they are grown up peoples.

LC, what do you do when your child is addicted to something? I seen so many people walk away from family members etc (my mother did with my brother) and i swore i would not do that to any child i gave birth to. He was addicted to speed and coke before his foray into ice/crack. he got off the first for two years before he went for the totally hard stuff but i fought for him them and now and would again. He is mine and my responsibility and only a mother would fight tooth and nail for their child. I hope that you never have to go through it, i hope none of you lovelies do but i know you would all do exactly what I have done. We never give up, we are fighters! Loved you "eternity" comment, it feels like that at the beginning but you know what the prize is LC at the end, you have been there and will get there again and with us to keep you company all the way.

Daisy good woman for two days and so dont go to that irish celebration. That is like waving a red flag in front of a bull in your early days. I still dont put myself in situations where al could be extremely tempting and it is all about you, no one else, just you and your sobriety. The world will not end if you dont go.

Mary hello and nice to see you checking in and sounding strong. I have monday night exhaustion, the day started off well and then went downhill but its nice to do it sober.

Jvo how good is it to be strong and enjoy yourself sober. It sounds as if you had a ball and even planning for next year is so good to hear. Before i bet you would have been thinking way too much about the "why's, if's and what will be's" until you had worked yourself up into a mess and drank. When does hubs and son go away? Two weeks as of Wednesday till the big holiday. Oh i will be on here a lot believe me when i am away. You cant really shop all day as the humidity is a killer over there and i have done all the sightseeing in previous visits although there may be something mum wants to do so i will be reading, sleeping and on the computer with some swimming thrown in but i cant stay in the sun for long as i burn in 3.25 seconds. This is the break i need atm although i wont be in contact while flying the plane. God i will have to fly it, dont want to get lost although i am so not good with directions i will have my iphone maps ha ha. I just need to go to the drs for some valium for the flight and my ad's and a letter for the meds i am taking. not much to organise now except packing which i still have not done.

Interesting question Pav and when i stopped drinking i finally admitted to them i was an alcoholic. I think they had been waiting for me to admit this for such a long time. I was always a quite happy drunk but somewhere i lost that and just became a drunk and they seen it all really. God the stories they tell me are cringe worthy for me but give them a laugh. They know my brother died an alcoholic and they arent big drinkers but i children need to know about addiction albeit it al, coke, crack, speed, pot, cigarettes, that it can affect us all. That mum did realise she had a problem with drinking and decided to stop. My children are all adults but they seen me drinking when growing up and i wish i could take it all back but its the past, they accept me and my addiction and i think honesty is the best policy. They used to tell me i drank too much and of course i was extremely defensive about that one so they ended up not saying anything but god they dont shut up about it now. Here i want to forget and they keep making me remember!

Hey Nar good to see you checking in. SL is starting her own "insert" into the gazette so i think we deserve a "special Nar edition" shortly please, just to catch us up on your life, not that we are nosy at all.

LB i'm giving you hugs today and hope that hubs listened to you. I know my ex never did, he looked like he was all ears and then i would requestion him and he had nothing. God i used to get so frustrated. Only you can decide what to do at the end of the day and only you will feel what is right. You know we will support and love you for you and all the help you have given me is so much appreciated. I would even burn a good meal for you, i think that much of you!

Lol LC i could talk under water with a mouth full of marbles so typing a gazette is nothing and i am a typist so easy peasy. I just hope i have satisified the masses today.

My day has been ok for a Monday. What starts out as being extremely organised can turn to crap working in a hospital. I want a patient and oh no MRI want him and of course they get priority. blah and then it began. One of my work colleagues is so overworked now that a staff member is only working one day a week that i have been lumbered with some of her work. not that i dont have farking enough to do, that did so not make me happy at all. I just think maybe if she gets to work at 8am when we start and not 9ish that that would give her an extra hour and i wont bitch about the coffee breaks! All two weeks before i go on holidays and i have a boss that will take me in for a chat about not keeping up to date in oh about a months time i think. Oh well not much i can do about it but i do know that i am strong now and i will give him my sober thoughts on how i should be treated and what i do. He tells me i am bitter and twisted and i just smile and think that is so petty coming from a so called office manager. Prick! But now i am fast forwarding what we dont want to do so i am going back to the here and now. He wont get to me today or tomorrow. NS made a comment about when i first started and said i would not drink AT him and now the thought does not even cross my mind, what crosses my mind is what i can say verbally even if not logical as i seem to lose that when i get angry.

Oh Mia is going to take maddy. she came over today to pick up her own knitted scarf courtesy of her mother, ME and loved it and said she had been talking to her boyfriend and they had agreed to take maddy so i would not worry about her. I was so relieved and i dont have to write out a list a mile long as she knows what to do and how much i love my mad dog.

that is all for today. Oh did you hear that they are going to get the aussies to look for the plane, well now i am off to look for it. Watch this space!

Love you all and hope the non posting for today loamers are doing well.
xxxx

[giraffe1234]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi all
Pavati, that is a dilemma. One kind of feels the need to warn them, but without being neurotic about it and in the process cause them to become fixated with alcohol and believing that they, too, will inevitably face alcoholism.
Coward that I am, I told my kids (23, 21 and 16) that I felt I needed more control over what I was eating and drinking and my general health; that I am not drinking FOR NOW, and that I'll decide if and when I might change my mind (I have no intention of changing my mind though). But in a way what I tell them is true, because we do take it one day at a time; and I am so grateful for every single day that I manage to keep it up.
Good luck; thinking of you, and thank you for your continued support and encouragement!

[little beagle]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Ava glad Maddie will be safe. That is worrysome when your doggies are in danger. At least in your mind.
Answering the question about telling your loved ones, I did tell my daughter about my problem. She kind of knew, but not the depth of the problem, she just thought I didn't want to be around her. I was isolating so much. The Shame of what I was doing was so bad that I couldn't really look anyone in the eye.
My daughter is my accountable person.
So hubby's daughter and I had a talk yesterday and I came clean about some of the things I am feeling. Inam always so afraid to offend her because she is a little tattle tale. She runs to him, but I told him that if she did, he needed to tell her to talk to me. I felt better. Holding resentments of other's actions is NOT good. And now we may have a better understanding. Hey I feel better. She said she is going to move in with her friend in a couple of weeks. A nice learning experience for her. Maybe then she will see how much it costs to support a house and so forth. And a break for me. We all see I am acting crazy. Not like you Ava. :H
Giraffe good to see you this morning.
I am off to a short day todsy, but I better get at it.

Intention of the day. Turn negative thoughts aside gently and think of something pleasant like my new herb garden.
Have a great day all.

[narilly]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Good morning loamers!

Pav, my son is 17 and daughter is 19. My son drinks and smokes pot. He started drinking probably when he was 15. He is doing well in school and has lots of friends, goes snowboarding, etc. For now, I don't think he has a problem...not saying he will never have one. My daughter, she drinks but not to excess. They both know that I struggle with alcohol and that I have quit drinking. I have talked to them about it quite a few times and now I just let it be.
If my son finds himself getting into trouble because of drinking or dope hopefully he will be able to figure it out before it 'hurts' him. For now he is ok. but I keep a close eye on him. I have to let him figure it out, it is his life.

Giraffe, I think that is good what you told your kids. 'for health reasons' . I am going to use that!

Ava, so glad that your daughter will take care of Maddy. Now you don't have to worry about the freezer! I am still waiting for MY scarf by the way!

LB, sounds like it will be good for your daughter to learn about the cost of living. Nice that you are both communicating and you feel better.
My daughter might go away for University in September (I am sad about that). I know it will be a great experience for her. She is a smart cookie and will probably be some kind of Doctor or something like that. What a kid!

Hey Life! Enjoy reading all the posts today. Glad you are doing well.

Daisy, good call on staying home from the celebrations. Enjoy a sober day hon.

XO

[j-vo]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi all,
I'm not going to be able to read much today. SO busy and a little anxious, but I just wanted to check in and say I'm fine and will talk to you tomorrow.

[j-vo]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi all,
I'm not going to be able to read much today. SO busy and a little anxious, but I just wanted to check in and say I'm fine and will talk to you tomorrow.