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Millions of people each year are able to maintain sobriety and still enjoy a fantastic holiday with friends, family and loved ones. Though it may not always be easy, following these steps can help you to better enjoy the most wonderful time of the year. On top of this, holiday parties are often flowing with alcohol , which cancreate a triggering situationfor people in recovery. Stress levels also tend to run high during the holidays. All of these factors can make it hard for people to maintain sobriety.
For those that have been in recovery from substance use disorder for a while, some of the greatest joy and inner freedom has come to you from staying clean and sober. It’s important to protect yourself from relapse during this holiday season where the alcohol, excitement, and emotions flow more readily than usual. Whenever you feel like you could use more support this holiday season, you can reach out to a helpline. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has a hotline that is available 24/7 every day of the year which is free for anyone to use. They offer treatment referral and information services for those facing substance use disorders and their family members. If your holidays used to revolve around boozy get-togethers, change things up.
If You Or Someone You Love Is Struggling With Substance Abuse
If you haven’t been invited, do the inviting yourself. Follow old family traditions or start some of your own. Make plansnowfor how you’ll occupy your time while there, so you don’t find yourself with time to kill and fleeting thoughts of visiting the people who are still drinking or using. If everyone is gathering for the holiday, including your brother who drinks like a fish, plan on an overlap of just a day or two. If he arrives on Christmas Day and stays a week, you can arrive a couple of days before Christmas, help your hosts prepare, enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve, and leave the next day.
This can lead to feelings of shame, guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, anger and depression. The holidays don’t have to be “perfect” and just like previous years. Saying yes when you should say no can leave you feeling resentful and overwhelmed.
A message to anyone who struggles to stay sober during the holidays
The holidays are not a time to hold on to resentment. Don’t allow someone you dislike or have a hard time seeing get in your head.
Financial stress can really put people over the edge and cause them to reach for a drink to cope. Also, many who are newly sober have lost jobs, spent savings, and don’t have much money as it is.
The Ultimate Guide to Get Through the Holidays Sober
Find your holiday spirit in the joy of being with others. If being with your family brings more stress than good cheer, that’s okay; you can limit time spent with people who erode your calm and spend more time with people who support you. If you don’t have a strong support network, don’t let loneliness break your resolve — spend your free time volunteering and going to meetings. Eventually, you can build relationships with people who help you refill your cup, and together, you can create new holiday traditions. Getting through the holidays sober can be a challenge, particularly for those in early addiction recovery.
14 Useful Tips For Navigating The Holidays When You’re Not Drinking – HuffPost
14 Useful Tips For Navigating The Holidays When You’re Not Drinking.
Posted: Tue, 27 Nov 2018 08:00:00 GMT [source]
This might mean hosting a sober, festive gathering with friends in recovery. It may mean volunteering to serve at local 12-Step support groups.
How To Stay Sober During The Holidays
But while you’re enjoying yourself and your sober holiday lifestyle, it’s easy to feel alone. Another important part of your plan should be to call a sober friend if you are struggling at the event or just need some extra support. Sober friends you’ve met in rehab or 12-Step or other recovery meetings are a great source. They too, are trying to stay sober and can relate to and support you. Having this lined up ahead of time will help to ease anxiety about the event. Tell your friend ahead of time that you may be calling them so they can be available, and have a backup if possible. While most often a merry time, many people still experience stress during the holidays.
External triggers that make you want to reach for the bottle during the holiday season can be all around you – even more so during large celebrations. Sometimes those triggers are people in your life, certain times of day or even familiar places. The holidays tend to bombard us with images of what should be – https://ecosoberhouse.com/ the perfect family, immaculate gifts, happy people celebrating life together, etc. Just because your life isn’t always like that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. These powerful images can give us a false sense of failure, making use feel like we aren’t meeting the standard of what the holidays should be.
Hosting a holiday celebration is a lot of work and when you are new to sobriety this may not be the best choice. Don’t feel obligated to make up for past mistakes by overextending yourself. This kind of stress is what can cause a relapse during the holidays. If you relapse, you won’t be able to make up for any wrongs you’ve done or harms you’ve caused.
- A simple yet firm “no, thank you” is often enough, especially since long explanations and vague excuses can give you more opportunity to give in.
- If you find yourself traveling during the holidays, it might be helpful to find a local support group that you can attend to talk about how things went.
- When you get there, remember to serve yourself so someone doesn’t accidentally give you a spiked drink that you didn’t intend on taking.
- If the icy temperatures of the outdoors don’t suit your fancy, try joining a new gym.
- In our society, we have often come to expect presents and gifts as ways to repair the damage.
Some families might consider the holidays an inappropriate time to help a loved one get into addiction treatment when, in fact, it sober holidays could be an ideal opportunity. For many of the reasons mentioned earlier, substance abuse tends to ramp up over the holidays.
Coping With Financial Stress in a Relationship
“Families have baggage and history. But it’s possible to rise above it all and try and have an enjoyable time. Know that you’re not the only person struggling through the holidays.” McIntosh said the pressure to not disappoint family members during the holiday season is strong, but taking care of yourself is more important.
- Being honest and explaining this to loved ones is important.
- Remind yourself that just one drink usually leads to more.
- It’s okay to say no whenever you need to and put yourself first this holiday season.
- And, when it comes to being new to sobriety, you may feel even more pressure to get the perfect gifts.
- Many people who have a drinking or drug problem have mismanaged their finances.
- Setting boundaries can be uncomfortable and challenging, especially for people in recovery.
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