Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hey Girls!!! I'm back.. Had a fab time in the Shakey Isles although the weather was dismal but I didn't care as I live in the heat all year round..
Well, the first week I was sober, went out lots and didn't drink a thing.. was so pleased. However, The second week I did drink.. not to excess except probably my last night and I know I must have had a bit because i woke with a hangover. Yuk!!
But I'm back on my mission.. not doing anything tonight, too jet lagged. Well done to all you girls who have been fighting the good fight.. I'm back in my corner, gloves on and ready!
xx
Patrice

[available]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Oh Pat, hello hello my friend, i have missed you. Gets lonely at night here. Glad you had such a good time and good thing you did not stay any longer is all i will say lol. Good to see you back on here and starting off again. You have lots of reading to catch up on anyways so that will amuse you for a bit.

Day 31 here so i am doing well. Having a quiet night with me and my dogs, kids gone out and god it is great. I never have me time. Hope your xmas was a good one.

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Fantastic on 31 days.. well done you!!! You must feel great..Yes it was good I didn't stay longer.. now i need to flex those AF muscles again... It was interesting that a lot of my friends ( who are all about 50) were all talking about cutting down or stopping drinking next year ( well in a few hours time!) and they don't even drink that much.. I was surprised.When I told them that had been my mission for a while and will be for next year, they didn't even blink, just said .. yeah, me too.
I'm also having a quiet night.. hoping to watch some kind of fireworks or something on TV.. not sure I will make it till midnight.. x

[available]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Maybe they do drink more than you think or maybe they are not fishes like us. A couple of slips on here but love the honesty and i think that makes us more determined to not drink, being honest that is. Yes i feel good and proud of myself i must say. Busy cleaning the house and has turned into a massive job, well of course, since it has not had a decent clean in years.

My daughter just texted me and told me how proud she is of me not drinking. That means so damn much to me, bought tears to my eyes. I like being AF.

I will prob be awake at midnight, sleep pattern all over the place still but thats ok. Glad to have you back though.

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Thanks Ava.. it's good to be back and accountable again.. it made a huge difference not being accountable and not having this support network..
How fab your daughter texted.. you are just doing amazingly and you deserve to be loud and proud!!
Oh Far out.. I arrived back super late last night to an ant attack.. so gross, the apartment was extra clean but they found their way in anyway.. spent the day trying to get rid of them.. I hate using those spray things but no choice.. think i have poisoned myself.. feel like laying down amongst those dying creatures on the tiles ( must be jet lag.. the journey home was a whopping 14+ hours!)
Hey cool, we will be able to keep each other company while the rest of the gang sleep!!

[available]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Its hard to do it on our own at this stage. I know if i wasnt on here for a period of time i would give into the "yes of course i can mod thoughts". Found a great thread that one of the girls posted "You know you're an alcoholic when". Sad to see that I did a lot of those things drunk but so damn hilarious too. This has been keeping me immensely amused when i cant sleep.

Ants are worse than cockroaches i think. My mum has a plague of ants atm in Qld and she got some stuff from Aldi and said it got rid of them. Not sure if you have Aldi or not.

14 hours, no wonder you want to lay with the dead but problem is you get overtired also. So what did u get for xmas????? I got a juicer and blender so now rearranging kitchen so they can stay out and not gather dust in the cupboard.

[patrice]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Well spur me on.. I have a juicer and a blender and they gathered dust all of 2013, as did my cross trainer.. madness... No, no Aldi here but the Chinese market does a good Ant Killer, those guys really know how to kill insects.. it's some powder, instructions all written in Mandarin, costs about 20 cents and wow they are dead.. ( check up on me tomorrow to check me and my boy are still alive!!) I lived in BrisVegas for a few years and the ants were disgusting..
Well I got not much for Chrissy but my son was so so happy to see his Cuzzies and Grandma and he cried when we left.. So wish we could go back there and live but not ATM.. I would be unemployed and poverty isn't pretty ..Mum gave me some petrol vouchers which came in so handy.. I could not believe the price of petrol in NZ, out of control! Here it's a quarter of the price

[available]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Dot sent me some links for juice recipes so will forward them to you. i dont eat very well so need to get something into me. I think my body is just too used to eating grapes for years and years. Good on the home made ant killer, probably has something nuclear in it so will check on you tomorrow lol. I cant stand QLD, too humid for me and hot and blah. How old is your son? Wish someone would give me petrol vouchers. It is like $1.50 over here atm, so expensive. Funny how the price rises when it is holiday time. I dont go back to work till Monday so i am cheering. Will miss being home and doing what i want

[DreamThinkDo]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Humble, couldn't give you a hug on the Blipfoto site - so have one here instead :l:l:l:l

[j-vo]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

MAE LOAMS!

It's already the new year for Patrice and Avail, so Happy New Year Ladies!

Patrice, welcome back! So glad you had a great time in NZ and glad you're back with us fighting the beast. Look at you two just chit-chattin away while we slept!

Ava, your son - isn't it lovely when they test? That's LOVE. And your daughter, too. Wow, that has to feel incredible.

The comparison of myself to others is something I do, and not good. I know that recovering from AL is our first step in this journey. Next, it's working on ourselves and reprogramming the pathways in our brains to reveal the truth about ourselves. We are "enough." Ok, I got that from that site that NS posted. I didn't make that up! It sounds so good, though. We are enough. And this...Perfectionism is a mirage. It'll always disappear just before you arrive.

Have a good day LOAMS.

[Starfish1]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Welcome back, Pat and S.L. :l

Congratulations on 30 days, Pav!:goodjob:

:heartsnflowers: Thanks for all the words of wisdom and encouragement all you dinkin' LOAMs!

:h Star

[j-vo]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

:yay::wd:Pav!!! Congratulations, fellow LOAMER! You are such an inspiration to me! Your posts are incredibly helpful, and always make me reflect on my life and how i can accept myself. You're a gem, lady loamer!

[narilly]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Loamers!

Lady Loamers! Lol!! That is hilarious!
Patrice, Ava, great convo. you gals had last night. What a great thing that you two are in the same time zone. I quite enjoyed the conversation!

Ava- love that your kids are so supportive. That is really great about your daughter texting you.
Pat- funny how ladies in their 50's finally figure out that maybe drinking isn't so great!

J-Vo- you are perfect, we ALL are! ha ha! Actually, I do compare myself to others but I don't really have a drive for perfectionism I don't think.

Oh, gotta go and meet my friend for coffee. I will be back!

xoxoxo:h

Oh, Pav! way to go on your 30 days, yahoo!!!:goodjob:

[NoSugar]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Pavati, Great work on 30 days of Real Living ! You're going at this with such energy and determination and learning everything you can -- just keep doing what you're doing!

Happy New Year to Ava, DTD, Mr. G, and Pat. How cool is it that you have already succeeded before the rest of us are even challenged! That is a pretty good deal for those that the sun gets to later - we are strengthened by your success! Pav and HR have it made - I think they live the farthest west. (Or are you out there, also, Narilly? My knowledge of Canadian geography is pathetic ).

What are you up to HR? We haven't heard from you in a couple days. Hope you are out enjoying the beautiful area you live in. It is good to have you back SL and Pat and even better that you're ready to renew The Mission .

Narilly, you are fortunate that you don't have that millstone of perfectionism around your neck! Like you said, Pav, we age out of much of the superficial perfectionist stuff -- thank goodness! But I'm pretty sure that for me, that need to be approved of is key to all of this. Plus, like Un posted, there are constant societal pressures to be thin and eternally young looking and acting.

I think I grew up with too much praise rather than too much criticism. Maybe those seeds get planted very early, and maybe some of it is inborn because no one around me pressured me to 'be the best' - I put it all on myself. But then --- I got the praise I apparently needed from others and at some point, "best" became "minimum requirement" so I didn't risk failure, or loss of control, or let people see me sweat or struggle or cry. I didn't even let anyone see me drink too much! Although I wasn't, to others I appeared to be in control of that, too.

The Brene Brown books and talks have gotten closest to what I think my issues are. Last night I dinked around in the Momastery.com blog -- she also touches on many of these things which sadly, seem to be so common. BB calls perfectionism "The 20-ton shield" and I think that pretty much sums it up.

J-vo, you wrote that you want to figure out everything that made you drink in the first place. I agree that digging deep is important for us to be truly free (sober, not just AF) but I don't think you have to do everything at once. Frankly, it's only been for the last couple months that I've felt like doing that work and facing what I find. For quite awhile, I was pretty happy just not drinking.

Being "real" on MWO has helped a lot. I've revealed more of what I've always considered flaws, faults, and weaknesses here than at anytime in my life. (I'm trying to view these things in a more positive light -- they are just "characteristics" ). It is such a relief to have friends here who know about them and it is ok. I think that is why some relationships here are in many ways more intimate than those in real life. But taking the risks here have helped me reveal more of myself to my family and friends and to express love and support and talk about fears and insecurities more openly and freely. I'm thinking my 20-ton shield has lost some weight :H!!

Anyway, if any of you are wondering if perfectionism is part of your problem, these distinctions helped make it clear to me. I had considered myself a high-achiever but now realize that the negative aspects of perfectionism were driving me.


Perfectionism

Setting standards beyond reach and reason
Never being satisfied by anything less than perfection
Becoming depressed when faced with failure or disappointment
Being preoccupied with fears of failure and disapproval
Seeing mistakes as evidence of unworthiness
Becoming overly defensive when criticized

Healthy Striving

Setting standards that are high but within reach
Enjoying process as well as outcome
Bouncing back quickly from failure or disappointment
Keeping normal anxiety and fear of failure within bounds
Seeing mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning
Reacting positively to helpful criticism


Here are some great quotes from The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Bren? Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection Quotes by Brené Brown

[Running4life]

Ladies on a Mission: The Official Site

Hi Ladies:
I am hoping you will welcome me back. I unfortunately fell back into my usual way of coping with stressors and I desperately need to find a way out.
The constant stress of watching my son battle cocaine, alcohol and gambling addiction along with financial worries and dealing with crazy In Laws leaving horrible messages on our answering machine left me looking for release in the bottom of a wine bottle. (I know this is crazy) Of course this is only temporary and the toll it is taking on my body is not good. To top it off our beautiful Golden Retriever passed a few days before Christmas from Leukemia. I was left heartbroken.
Sorry to bare my soul to you all but I need to get out of this hole I am in. Through it all I have continued to work out 3 to 4 days a week and that is keeping me somewhat sane. I plan to continue this in the New Year along with committing to run another Half Marathon and train for the Ride to Conquer Cancer in June. (250 kms over 2 days) I know that this is a lofty goal but I also know that it is achievable if I don't drink. I did both last year and it was satisfying to complete the ride especially knowing that the funds go to Cancer research. I lost my sister to colon cancer three years ago.
This year I will have another Angel on the ride with my, my dog Cindy.
I am hoping to stay strong with your help and am committing to posting daily. Your posts are so helpful to me and I am grateful for this thread. I have continued reading them but have not posted as I was feeling guilty about continuing to drink.
We are going out to celebrate New Years Eve tonight at some big bash. I am hoping to stay AF so I can start the New Year tomorrow with a run. Wish me luck as it will be difficult to do with all that booze in my face but I am committed to trying.
Hope you all have a wonderful AF New Year's Eve.
Talk to you tomorrow.
R4L