The holiday season is meant to be a joyous occasion that brings family and friends together. But even in the midst of all the excitement, there are often moments of stress and anxiety. If you are recovering from alcohol addiction, this broad spectrum of holiday emotions can challenge even your best intentions for recovery.
Though the risk of relapse runs high during the holidays, it is not inevitable. If you are in recovery from alcohol addiction, there are steps you can take to stay healthy and safe. Becoming aware of potentially triggering situations and knowing how to prepare for them can help minimize your risk of relapse and allow you to truly enjoy your holiday season.
Common Holiday Triggers
The holiday season can be a triggering time for many reasons. Knowing your potential holiday relapse triggers is of utmost importance in any stage of recovery.
Changes to Your Routine
People get time off of work, travel to see their families, spend time preparing for the holidays, and often don’t adhere to their typical routines during the holiday season. Your exercise routine, healthy eating patterns, and even your Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting attendance may fall by the wayside. All of these disruptions can put serious stress on your sobriety.
Holiday Parties
The holiday season is a time of celebration and gatherings are typically overloaded with alcohol. The sheer amount of alcohol present at some holiday get-togethers can be overwhelming, especially if you’re new to recovery.
Family Stress
The holiday season is often about spending time with family members. If you have a strained relationship with your family, spending a significant amount of time with them could cause stress and even symptoms of depression or anxiety.
Seeing your family could also lead to you feeling guilty or ashamed about the effect your previous addictive behaviours had on your loved ones. All of these emotions can be triggering, especially if you used alcohol or drugs to escape them in the past.
Tips for Avoiding Holiday Relapse
The holidays can be challenging, but they don’t have to end in relapse. Here are some tips to prepare for stressful holiday situations and give yourself the best gift this holiday season: Continued sobriety!
Have a Pre-Planned Response
The holidays can be especially stressful for those recovering from an alcohol use disorder because alcohol is such a central part of many celebrations. If you expect to be offered a drink, think about how you will respond. 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.1
Additionally, you can:
- Keep it simple: “I’m not drinking tonight” or “I have to get an early start to my day tomorrow.”
- Don’t say a word: Keep a non-alcoholic drink with you during the party. This way, whenever someone tries to offer you alcohol, you can simply hold up your beverage, indicating that you’re not ready for another drink.
- Say yes: “I would love a drink! Can I get water with lemon or a Coca-Cola?” Very few people will press anything alcoholic on you, but if they do, simply say, “Not right now, thank you, but a Coke would really hit the spot.”
- Try humor: Remember, you don’t need to announce your sobriety unless you want to. Depending on how comfortable you feel about the subject, you may decide to just tell your truth and be done with it. “No thanks—even the top shelf booze isn’t tempting enough to make me throw away my sobriety!”
Bring a Friend
If you can’t get out of a party or other get-together that you’re worried about attending, ask a close friend or your sponsor to accompany you. Discuss your concerns ahead of time and make concrete plans for how you will both respond if you find yourself slipping. Bringing someone who understands your sobriety and can help you hold yourself accountable can make you feel stronger and more supported.
If you are traveling for the holidays, reach out to people you are close to and explain to them that you may need extra support during the holidays. Ask them if it would be OK to contact them every now and then. You can even ask them to check on you.
Create an Exit Strategy
You can’t always predict how a situation will play out or how you will feel. Having an exit strategy for potentially stressful holiday situations is essential.
Maybe your babysitter needs to get home, you have to wake up at the crack of dawn for an appointment, or nobody made it home to walk the dogs. You can even arrange for a friend to call during the event to add some credence to your “out.” Having a Plan B ready allows you to be able to gracefully bow out if needed.
You can also exit with an “Irish goodbye,” when you sneak out without telling anyone. While this may seem rude, it might be necessary if you feel as if your sobriety is in jeopardy.
Look Up Meetings in Your Area
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the holiday season. Confiding in others who are also in recovery can help you relieve some of that stress. During the holidays, AA continues to hold meetings. In fact, many groups have seasonal parties where food and fellowship abound and speakers talk of gratitude and of the real spirit of giving that is outlined in Step 12.
If you’re traveling, plan to attend a meeting wherever you will be and plan in advance. Try to find a local meeting long before you arrive and build it into your holiday schedule.
Original post can be found here.
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