Surviving the Holidays While Staying Sober: A Personal Perspective

• Thiago Eleocadio
• 27 de novembro de 2023
• Sober living
• 0 Comments

Make your recovery meetings a priority, find time with friends who enrich you, and surround yourself with those who make you feel known and loved. The holidays can be a very lonely time for many. Depression spikes and relapses escalate during this season. Maintaining our connections to others is part of staying present and accountable for our recovery. The holidays are a time of socializing, work parties, excessive amounts of food, celebration and inevitably drinking. Being sober can often lead these individuals to feel left out or it may be a painful reminder them of the good ole’ days.

National Recovery + Wellness Month

During this time, try to stick to as many of these new behaviors as you can. For example, we easily throw good sleep habits out the window when we are vacationing. Our sleep habits are foundational to most of our other habits. If I go to bed late, I’ll likely wake up late.

Have a non-alcoholic drink in your hand.

We also started to make more time for our shared value of community involvement. Additionally, these four tips will help you navigate any holiday party. If you have friends or family that know what you are going through, enlist their help. Ask someone if you can “bookend” with them, which means calling or texting them right before and after an event. You can also take breaks throughout your event to check in with them. Use your support system and let them know you need help.

Hatch a holiday escape plan, and plan to protect your sobriety

Head to AA or NA meetings, as many and as often as you see fit. Check with members and the community at large to sober holidays find a New Year’s Eve sober event. This could be a private party with like people in recovery. Or it could be a public gathering advertised as a sober event. When done properly, anxiety diminishes, the focus of our thinking changes, and best of all, we can look at the life we’ve been given in a way that recognizes its worth. Give yourself a healthy dose of perspective while helping people who are less fortunate.

Don’t Let Guilt or Stress Get The Best of You

If you or someone you know and love is struggling to get or stay sober, contact Kembali Recovery Center today to learn about our recovery programs. Volunteer, serve at an event for underserved people, and make an intentional effort to express gratitude by sharing time and effort that benefits others. Engaging in service work is far more beneficial for our sobriety than simply writing end-of-the-year checks to our favorite charities. Sacrificing for others is the fastest way to take our focus off ourselves and shift it to the world around us.

My Loved One Needs Help

• All this changes during the roughly five-week between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Eve.
• We also started to make more time for our shared value of community involvement.
• You don’t want to start thinking about your drinking or using days.

While it may seem strange to invite someone your family does not know during the holidays, having them help you maintain your sobriety should be your number one concern at this moment. This could be someone who is in your support system of friends or even your sponsor. I think that it is vital that this be an individual who has had a sustained period of recovery of a minimum of at least two years of continuous sobriety. If you take someone who is new to recovery themselves, then this could prove to be dangerous for both yourself and your friend. Sober Holidays Tip #12  Don’t romance the drink or drug. If everyone starts talking about the “good old days,” leave the room.

• Tell family you’re listening to a game or podcast.
• Listen and politely smile – not a dumb smile, a genuinely pleasant smile; sometimes smiling on the outside does wonders for your psyche.
• Packed airports, tight schedules, liquid lunch for Aunt Sally.
• Blinking or just shifting in your chair can remind you that you are o.k.
• Your abstinence did not, in fact, teach you how to control your drinking, because abstinence didn’t rewire your brain to be non-addicted.

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. The damage is done, and there’s no going back. 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. Take time to take inventory of all your resentments.

Tips for Holiday Sobriety

Maybe going to some meetings while you’re celebrating the holiday season isn’t asking too much. For people in recovery, the struggle is all too real. That’s why we put together this helpful blog post (complete with a cool free download below) that goes through all the ins and outs of being a person in recovery during the holiday season.

Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During The Holidays

• Next, try asking people questions and focus on really staying present.
• Or it could be a public gathering advertised as a sober event.
• Practicing new tools head of time will make it more likely that you will use them under pressure.
• For people in recovery, the struggle is all too real.
• Proper nutrition, gentle exercise and restorative sleep can do wonders for your well-being.
• It also helps break up the time, so if need be, make multiple disappearing acts throughout the night.

This could be anything from a mocktail, your favorite soda, or even just water. If your family and friends are drinking, it will help you feel a bit more comfortable. With a glass in hand, you can mitigate the temptation to drink and avoid relapse. Instead of focusing on the fact that you’re not drinking when other people are, you’ll be able to better enjoy having fun conversations with https://ecosoberhouse.com/ them. The holidays are already stressful enough, but when you are in a relationship with an addict, the stress level increases significantly. Read this article and watch our video about tips and strategies for taking care of yourself this holiday season.