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Tips To Help You Stay Sober During The Holiday Season

Posted by Prabhjot7 jot7
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On September 8, 2021

If something comes up that makes you uncomfortable or proves to be too much of a temptation, that’s also a cue to head for the door. Leave knowing you were able to enjoy yourself and celebrate the holidays with friends – all while staying sober. If a certain family member tends to push your buttons, let a sober friend know that you’ll be interacting with that person at a party. Have that person check in, either by sending you a discrete text message or by taking you away for a few moments to speak on the phone. For the first few weeks of your sober holiday planning, track the times when you’re tempted to have a drink. In the future, when you come up against similar triggers, have a plan for how to respond to them.

  • From Byron to Patrick Melrose to Withnail in the tearoom to the Inbetweeners, British culture bulges with examples of drinking on trips away.
  • All of these disruptions can put serious stress on your sobriety.
  • It could be through one of the many outpatient programs offered through Emerald Isle that you find a person.
  • If you are early in your recovery, it may be wise to stick to family-oriented events and surround yourself with those who support your recovery.
  • At Emerald Isle I discovered a ton of tactics to help me survive the holidays and all of the drama, loneliness, and beauty while sober.

We offer group calls multiple times a week throughTempest Membershipwhere you can meet and talk about the current challenges you’re facing with other members. Plus, I’ll be hosting a series of Holiday Q&As on the big drinking days throughout the year. And if you experience Seasonal Affect Disorder when the weather gets bleak, acknowledge that fact.

Flying Is A Nightmare Right Now These 12 Tips Can Help Make It Easier

12-step meetings are an important part of your recovery program. During the holiday season, it is important to know where your local meetings are and at what times. If you are traveling, it would be wise to do a bit of research to find meetings in the areas you are traveling for the holidays. Allowing yourself support is one of the key take-aways of healthy sobriety. Do not hesitate to call a friend, sponsor or therapist if you feel your sobriety is at risk. Our extensive aftercare program can provide the extra support that may be necessary to maintain your sobriety this holiday season.

sober holidays

Christmas dinners, New Years Eve parties and even religious celebrations can seem to bombard someone who is trying to stay sober during the holiday season. You turn down a glass of red wine at a family dinner and deny yourself a champagne toast at the stroke of midnight to welcome the New Year. But while you’re enjoying yourself and your sober holiday lifestyle, it’s easy to feel alone. Some people drink alcohol throughout the holiday season to cope with stress, loneliness, or depression.

Living Your Best Life

Granted, there is hope for a better future, but it does not always come easily or quickly. Now, with Covid maybe your family gathering isn’t happening, but that doesn’t mean you can’t practice for future years. Maybe Uncle Jim had one too many and you recognize he needs a cup of coffee or a cookie to sober up. Maybe your cousin overindulged and will need a place to stay since she has a two-hour drive back home. My first holiday season in recovery I felt confident, until I stepped into the door at my parents’ house.

Virtual Outpatient Addiction Treatment Learn more about Hazelden Betty Ford’s multiple levels of virtual outpatient addiction treatment. When we aren’t posting here, we build programs sober holidays to help people quit drinking. When we aren’t posting here, we build programs to help people quit drinking. Stick to sober venues such as restaurants that do not serve alcohol.

Holiday Parties

The holidays can be a fun and exciting time of year, but also a stressful and emotional time as well. Here are 10 quick tips for maintaining your sobriety, and sanity, during the winter holidays and into the new year. Vacations are meant to help you reset and recalibrate. Learning to drink was part of becoming an adult, but learning not to is part of it, too. It’s a pity it took me 15 years to work that out. I’m going back to Portugal for a fortnight next month, Covid-willing, and I won’t be drinking. After the past couple of years, we have all earned a break from ourselves.

sober holidays

Bringing someone who understands your sobriety and can help you hold yourself accountable can make you feel stronger and more supported. Seeing your family could also lead to you feeling guilty or ashamed about the effect your previous addictive behaviors 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.

Whats Your Holiday Truth?

Pyrex, a product boasting “thermal glass”, explodes like a car window over direct flame. And while Mom/I transferred the stuffing to a safer plastic bowl and began to pluck shards of glass out of the soggy croutons , the fire alarm went off with a whoop whoop. A well meaning dinner guest opened the oven, and was engulfed in smoke and shooting flames like a rookie fire fighter from the movie BACKDRAFT.

  • I pray for myself and for the people I’m going to see.
  • Learning to drink was part of becoming an adult, but learning not to is part of it, too.
  • If you can’t afford to buy each child the latest tech gadget, think of a Christmas experience you can manage within your budget.
  • It’s about the time “Mom”, with a bottle of chardonnay coursing through her system, put hot stuffing into a Pyrex bowl.
  • For many of the reasons mentioned earlier, substance abuse tends to ramp up over the holidays.

You’re a strong person, and you have already accomplished a lot. If you steer the conversation in the direction you want it to go in, you won’t ever have to worry about people asking about the drink in your hand. Take a few minutes to think of helpful “aftercare” plans for yourself. List at least https://ecosoberhouse.com/ three ways you could refill yourself. Maybe this year the Christmas budget is slim because of the ravages of addiction. Instead of dwelling on the number of gifts under the tree, focus on the experiences you create. Research has proven that experiences are more valuable to children than objects.

If you are in a place where your drug cravings start to take over, have a plan to settle them. As much as you may want to spend time with a loved one during the holidays, your own feelings and self-care are the most important things to keep in mind, especially during early recovery. Parties don’t have to be off the market if you’re trying to stay sober.

Plan Your Answer To Inquiring Minds

The urges to use drugs and alcohol can strike at any moment. When those feelings strike, you need to contact your support people.

Recovery and sobriety are losing the stigma they once carried. Most people know someone who has battled addiction. Of course, it is your choice whether you want to talk about your journey, just know that you do not have to be afraid to do so. By being open about it, you will likely gain more encouragement and support than you would ever imagine from friends and family. This blog is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for medical advice.

With that in mind, it’s a good idea to think in advance about how you’ll navigate this, etiquette expert Elaine Swann tells Yahoo Life. You may be tempted to join the children’s table if your adult loved ones are in the “party” mood. And with your clarity of mind you will definitely win the Scrabble tournament.

The consensus is that coronavirus has had a polarising effect on British drinkers. While consumption in pubs and bars, which were closed, fell dramatically, drinking at home increased. Drinking alone went up, and 2020 was the worst year for alcohol-related deaths for 20 years; more than 7,000 were recorded. For some, however, the pandemic has spurred a health drive. Couple of years ago, before a two-week holiday to the Algarve, I decided I wouldn’t drink.

If You Need Treatment For Addiction To Alcohol Or Other Drugs, Consider Going To Rehab Over The Holidays

But if it’s your first sober holiday, it can be more of a challenge — remember to be selective with the events that you attend. It’s not bad to say no to a party that seems to have a heavy focus on alcohol, or where the hosts tend to be those who celebrate with booze. Stay hydrated, take baths or showers, keep your meditation practice (or if you don’t have one,start a meditation practice), set aside time to journal, eat good food, and relax. Decide what it is now, decide when you’ll do it, make the arrangements to carry it out, put it on your calendar, and do it. Though the risk of relapse runs high during the holidays, it is not inevitable.

Either way, most addiction recovery agencies, treatment centers, and domestic violence resources increase efforts during the holidays. You aren’t alone, and you don’t have to feel unsafe. Call a local treatment center like Into Action Recovery Centers or a local crisis line. Make this holiday the last unsafe holiday for you and your family. No matter how much they supported you not drinking in the past, that doesn’t mean that you are obligated to spend time with them now. Note this is written for people who plan to be around other people. If you’respending this holiday season alonedue to the pandemic this is a chance to do that deeply uncomfortable practice of getting together online.

A Message To Anyone Who Struggles To Stay Sober During The Holidays

If you’re trying to get through the holidays without drinking, I’ll share a few things that helped me. Emily Lynn Paulson gave up drinking five years ago, but she remembers the struggle around the holidays. All the same, I reached a point where I tired of coming back and uttering variations of “I think I need a holiday to get over the holiday”. After the stress, cost and hassle of arranging the break, I was grumpier, fatter and more tired than when I’d gone away.

It’s Ok To Tweak Your Holiday Traditions

If the office New Year’s party is really all about drinking or other drug use, make a brief appearance or don’t attend. It’s unrealistic in all of these scenarios to say, “I can soldier through it.” That’s what Step One of the Twelve Steps teaches us, right? So why put yourself in the position of having to “power through” an obstacle course of relapse triggers? Staying sober and safeguarding your recovery must always come first. From Halloween to New Year’s, it often feels as if all anyone wants to do is celebrate the season with a cocktail… or four. But since you’re not drinking, the holiday season can instead feel lonely and isolating if all you’re seeing is friends and family toasting with a big mug of eggnog .

“Having a support person lets you, A, not feel so awkward, and B, they can be like, ‘You’re not really supposed to drink,’” Kazachkova said. It also empowers a person with a substance use disorder to be active in their own recovery without adding extra stigmatization. The desire to return to “normalcy” or “belong” is a big theme of the holiday season and triggering for many in recovery. Letting people bring a plus-one to any event you organize gives them that belonging and support. Before I go anywhere as a sober person, I try to make sure that there will be non-alcoholic options.

I lost 2st, felt better and wondered why I hadn’t done it sooner. Then I missed drinking, took it up again, and have been enjoying the post-Covid 19 hospitality glasnost. If those thoughts begin to creep in—those rationalizations about your eminent capability to now handle your liquor—shut them down immediately. Your abstinence did not, in fact, teach you how to control your drinking, because abstinence didn’t rewire your brain to be non-addicted. Instead, talk it out with your sponsor or sober friends. A mistake is not a relapse, and it’s not going to land you in rehab, but those secrets might. Below, you’ll find all of our best tips and stories about staying sober for the holidays.

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