wpainterw

After an extensive period of sobriety I am more concerned about depression during the holiday season. Depression of course can lead to drinking; almost always makes it far worse. Holidays, now seemingly highjacked by commercial interests (Santa now wears a Bluetooth and keeps in touch by iPhone while delivering all his iStuff) seems rather contrived, along with radio admonitions that “tis the Season to be Jolly!”. Although I am not an agnostic or atheist I happened to attend an Agnostics AA group shortly before Christmas and they started to “share” about how it was all a myth and to say mean and unacceptable things about the “Virgin Mary”. I left the meeting immediately after “sharing” to them that for the life of me I couldn’t understand how this had anything to do with sobriety. Gifts maybe (the Wise Men brought Jesus Frankincense, Myrrh and Gold- what’s a kid going to do with gold bars? But with all those animals around some Frankincense and Myrrh (although the latter is said to have a “bitter perfume and breathe a life of gathering doom”) might come in handy.
So what to do when anger or depression (often both) appear? Maybe it’s a bad idea to give Santa a “hot foot” by lighting a fire in the open hearth. What about reaching out to someone else who’s feeling angry and depressed? Serving at a soup kitchen may help. I once got scolded or “dissed” by a confused street person at a soup kitchen. I should have taken it in my stride, said something like “I sense what you’re feeling and it’s O.K. Have some stew!” “Eat up”-Not “Merry Christmas!”.

W.

thomas11

Thanks Bill. I agree with you that the monetization of Christmas has gotten out of control and is off-putting.

My wife and I volunteer every year at Feed My Starving Children. We find it gratifying.

Depression....that subject is above my pay grade. But I feel for those who chronically suffer from it.

D122y

Wpaint,

I totally relate. I was single and alone for many xmas.s. I drank through them all.

I had no idea what booze would eventually do to my body and mind.

Now I know.

I can't offer any advice as I still get depressed on every holidays. Every holiday...not just xmas.

I have my son and wife now, but I still get sad. I feel alone even when they are near sometimes.

My strength lies in God now. I pray for the strength to get through each day and try to cherish the good times.

It is easy to forget how blessed we are being able to see, hear, walk etc etc. We are blessed in so many ways yet we manage to suffer menatally sometimes.

It is good we have each other here on SR to help our addict minds cope.

Thanks.

MythOfSisyphus

I am not a theist at all, more towards the other end. Yet I still enjoy Xmas. My opinion is that people are basically good, but that we can't be 'good' all the time. We need to have things to observe that serve as focal points for our spirits/empathy and to remind us of our shared humanity and community. Weirdly I too am somewhat irritated by the commercialization of the holidays. Xmas is of course a religious holiday but it was set up to coincide with winter holidays already in practice at the time. Supposedly families celebrated together at the onset of winter because it was a time of hardship and death; they knew that some of them wouldn't still be alive come spring. So they basked in the glow of love and family in case it was the last time.

For all of us eventually an Xmas will be our last. So I like to spend mine in reflection and contemplation, with my family if I can but remembering those no longer with us. This will be the 4th or 5th without my Dad and it probably still won't seem "right" yet.

Ironically back when I drank the holidays were much more depressing than they are now. Booze set me apart from my family, isolated me. This was true every day but a person that's inherently isolated and lonely is doubly so on big holidays.

I hope yours is a good one, W. You have so much innate goodness in your. You have a unique perspective on so many things.

Dee74

I recommend this link for staying sober at Xmas

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...val-guide.html

I can also guarantee that there will be support here on SR right across the Festive Season - no one needs to do this alone

D

wpainterw

P.S. The "clinically depressed" King is said to have sung the following to the newborn babe:

"Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes of life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb"

Hardly reassuring! Had he been drinking something while out in the desert watching the Christmas Star? Should they have called 911 and had him hauled away to the Bethlehem ER? I'm sure if they'd had SoberRecovery that's what a lot of the folks would have suggested. No Prozac or Electroshock were available but maybe there was a shepard around who had some training in Cognitive Therapy.

Aellyce

Holidays have never presented an elevated risk for unpleasant moods or relapse for me but I do experiences intense mood swings at times. As far as dealing with depression and anger in general, depends on the cause (if there is any). I find engaging in rewarding activities and interactions a good antidote in general, whatever activity, does not need to have anything to do with the "season". I also find not beating up myself for being depressed, angry or anxious helpful - they are mood states not reliable measures of my self worth or morality. All emotions are normal parts of being human and normal reactions to external reality also, I think the important thing is how we react to our momentary emotions. Sometimes not reacting at all is the best, I find.

PurpleKnight

It can be a difficult time if you're on your own, I try to focus on others as much as I can, that seems to break the rut we can get into.

This year I put took part in a shoebox appeal, where you fill a shoe box for either a boy or girl within a certain age range with gifts, then as always I'll be going round all the relatives.

I used to drink Xmas away, and even now I'm not the biggest fan, so focusing outwards rather than inwards helps a lot.

Plus for anyone needing extra support, SR is always here!!

CAPTAINZING2000

It's not so much the Christmas season that depresses me as much the shorter days of sunlight and the doom and gloom of cloudy, cold and winter chills.

I even signed up to usher at our midnight candle service at church for the calming effect it has on me. The bulk of the congregation will attend the early service to watch the children's service.

We were overwhelmed by the political commercials and now it's an over abundance of the Christmas commercials. The stress many families place on themselves by maxing out their cards, takes away what this season is all about.

I am glad for our AA Christmas party to be with friends this year.

I'd stress this to everyone over the holidays to not spend it alone. Reach out to other people, it's the best way to avoid depression and loneliness.

NewRomanMan

I hear you. I feel the same way. I'm just going to put my head down and grit my teeth and plow thru it. I hate Christmas since my divorce. I'm happy I'm sober and that's enough. As long as I can get to the other side of the holidays sober I'll be happy.

HTown

This^^is me as well. I bought one of those SAD lights last year, and I really think it helps me. It seems to wake me up in the morning, I drink coffee sitting next to it. Of course, not drinking the depressant alcohol is probably the greatest positive thing I have done.

I agree that being close to friends and family is what the holidays are all about, not the commercialism. I am just so blessed and thankful. And I feel so much better sober.

wpainterw

I always liked Texas, where you are! L.B.J. used to say stuff like "Why don't you just hunker down and chat awhile!" And I may be the only person on the planet who watched the entire original Dallas series from start to finish via Netflix DVD's. Naughty J.R.! Trying to hijack his wife to a rehab! But I would never go grouse shooting with Texas politicians!

Bill

Winslow

Was just thinking this morning about how I've always been sort of blue around Christmas, even as a kid,I dunno if it's like the others said about the winter doldrums, the anticipation then let down, reflecting on the year, could be a lot of things I guess

Gottalife

I'm not sure how such a benign life event as xmas can bring on the illness of depression, but I can understand how it might bring on a good sized bout of self pity, which does have a risk of drinking attached to it. Poor me poor me, pour me a drink kinda thing.

A lot of things happen at Christmas that I don't like, but it is part of life. Christmas is also the time when I had some of my biggest disasters. That probably applies to a lot of people as we seem to get an awful lot of newcomers at AA in January and February. My sobriety date is February 10.

Because it was the scene of my biggest disasters, Christmas is the time I am most grateful to be sober. This year I will again spend with my mother in law, ( my children's grandmother) my two nephews and their mother. We always have a lovely time and I so enjoy being part of the family.

wpainterw

Maybe it's Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer, The Singing Chipmunks, Dogs barking jingle bells, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit having to work late on Christmas Eve doing a financing for Scrooge- no coals for Bob's scuttle (what about that year end Christmas bonus?), red nosed Santa Clauses outside stores ringing a bell beside a bucket, some maybe with whiskey breath, Jack Horner sitting in a corner (Has he been bad?) eating his Christmas pie with his thumb (unsanitary), pulling out a plum and smugly bragging "What a good boy am I!" (He's lying, since why is he being made to sit in a corner?) Scrooge having panic attacks with insomnia because of sadistic ghosts wearing chains and cashboxes (Is Scrooge getting the DT's? Dial 911?). "I saw Mommie kissin' Santa Claus?" (Disgraceful conduct right there by the Christmas Tree! (Put up posters of him in Post Offices and Libraries everywhere in the New Year?)

W.

bemyself

Oh, Bill, you're a breath of fresh air - such a great grim wit (especially post # 6, cracked me up).

Re the wintery side of Christmas affecting many of you - I hate to tell youse (as us less-civilised people say in Aus sometimes :-)), but we have Christmas in Summer. I can't speak for the other Southern Hemisphere countries, but Aussies and Christmas is most often a toxic mix of rampant commercialism (check); enormous financial pressures (check); loads of drinking (check) - and that's of course before, during, and shortly after, with NY's Eve; the strains of often-separated families, families with some members 'in' and others 'out', and / or blended families trying to juggle feeling they 'MUST' get together. All this, together with the generalised momentum of people just coming out and about more as the warm and sunny days blend eventually into really HOT ones. Combine that with a few but increasing thunderstorms, usually several series of serious bushfires and / or cyclones / flooding depending on where you live. Some people have lost their homes on or near Christmas Day. As if all the rest of it wasn't enough....

And that of course doesn't account for the many, many people - whether suffering from addictions, homelessness and abject poverty, mental illnesses, grief, debilitating chronic illnesses, or indeed - as Myth beautifully alluded to above: they're on their last legs, literally. One of my neighbours two doors up is in the latter category - she's barely into her mid-40s, I believe, and is now in palliative care with a return of virulent cancer. Weeks to go, if that.

I'm also rather haunted by - for example - how some families (whether close or not) must be feeling amidst it all: only 2 weeks ago, a bizarre and rare phenomenon called 'thunderstorm asthma' caused a massive health emergency services crisis here in the city of Melbourne. 8 people have died, either on the day, or in the ensuing days. Most were quite young - a couple were a Muslim guy who'd just finished his final high school exams; a gorgeous young law student, barely into her twenties....and so on. Most were not diagnosed asthmatics; this came seemingly out of the blue for them and their families. It's people like these I must remember when I feel really miserable, along with those simply struggling to survive day by day in war-torn countries, asylum seekers and refugees stuck in camps, and all the others who are still suffering - or just beginning to really suffer- from all the circumstances of lack or grief.

Myself, I both hope and intend to be sober on Christmas Day [been in a bit of an on / off pattern in the last couple of weeks]. For me, the struggle for sober living ('Living Sober' springs to mind, that really quite practical little old book from AA) continues apace. The best I try to do is to remember, in the final analysis, that Christmas Day is 'just another day'. This helps me - even a bit - to cut out a lot of the surrounding noise. Heaven knows, I have enough noise in my own being to contend with

I often remember the story told to me by a couple of young police officers at my local station. This was several years ago, before I seriously tried for sobriety, and when I still lived in a large country town. I'd been drinking, pretty heavily, on Christmas Eve (also my friggin' birthday), and was supposed to be driving from there to the city (2 hour drive each way) for a Christmas Day lunch thing with the family whoever was going to be there. A big part of me (which I know now, applies even when sober) felt great resistance to the whole idea of going. So, under the very realistic guise - and practical reason - of fearing being breath-tested on the highway or once I was in the city, I walked down from home to the local cop shop. Christmas morning, about 9-ish or thereabouts. Explained the scenario, and asked if they'd breath test me so I knew if I was safe to drive, after the night before. For some odd but probably sound legal reason, they said terribly sorry, but no, we can't do that here in the station (!).

Regardless, I still recall vividly that one of the cops, when we got chatting, remarked how hideous it was to be one of those who were rostered on for Christmas Day. I asked why, expecting of course the reply that 'we're missing out on spending the day with our own families' and the like. No, it wasn't that. It was that, overall, it was deadly dull, very quiet for those cops for a few hours in the morning....but as the day wore on, into the witching hour around lunchtime and beyond, all the family pressures boiled over. They'd then be called out to stabbings and various forms of domestic violence, verbal or physical. And later on, as people were weaving their way home, car accidents, etc. Followed by more madness sometime later in the evening. Was drink always involved? Not necessarily, but the whole scenario struck me as what I'd already come to realise was a pressure cooker of multiple factors.

Why wouldn't we want to have some peace, on that day of all days? I now believe one has to contrive one's own peace for Christmas, and if it means (for me, mostly) staying quiet and alone, treating it like 'just another day' as best one can, then So Be It. It shouldn't have to be a test of endurance. Only I can refuse to make it so.

bemyself

BTW Bill - I know I always take forever to get to the point....but I do want to say: 'yes, bloody Christmas can indeed by downright depressing. If you feel it so, and especially given you've lived a long enough life to have so many memories.....[I only have about 20 years of memories less than your good self, but I still know how poignant memories are, they're very very powerful, which I believe times like Christmas evoke]: then, perhaps just sit with it for a bit. And then shake yourself, as our dogs do...they do it so comprehensively, don't they, eh?

I advocate spending Christmas with our dog/s. Not kidding! Indeed, despite and because of your baleful experience with 'an' agnostic AA meeting, I just read this morning a terrific corrective by one such a member online; and this, on a thread explicitly about 'alcoholism and depression'.

He said : 'What about animals? Dogs (particularly effective), cats, horses, birds. I confess myself a dogaholic and it works! See the late Caroline Knapp’s wonderful book “Pack of Two” about how, after recovering from alcoholism, she became addicted to her dog. So it is with me. Four English Setters and now one English Cocker. The latter I refer to as “fur covered Prozac” and he (my “higher [lower?] power”)is a particularly effective psychiatric counselor. Consider forming an AA group consisting of a room full of dogs with a dog leading each meeting.

I also share an enthusiasm with Daoism and Buddhism. Many cliches of AA

were known to the ancients (“one step at a time”, “persons, places and things [cf. Daoism’s “Ten Thousand Things”] The list goes on an on.

Bottom line. Get a dog and read the Tao Te Ching,etc.

I was laughing most of the morning after the notion of 'a room full of dogs with a dog leading each meeting'. Hope you do too, dear Bill.

PennyLane76

Bill, you have outdone yourself! I'm cracking up! I always thought Jack Horner was a creepy brat myself. And what about that grandma who had a run in with a reindeer?You would think Rudolph was under the influence before the collision but it was that darn granny chugging eggnog and messing with meds.

wpainterw

Pennylane76: Let's get to the really important stuff: What breed of dog do you have? Did the Brits hunt the Tasmanians with dogs? I had an ancestor who advocated exterminating all the "Indians" by hunting them with dogs and he was concerned only by what breed of dog would be most useful. Miles Standish was also blood thirsty. A real killer. Probably opted out of Thanksgiving Dinner to go hunting.
As for Rudolph. He had a red nose and was probably drunk as a skunk. He was certainly a wimp, nerdy reindeer, easily frightened and cowardly. and deserved all the teasing he got in the shower room after delivering the goodies. No way should he have been allowed to join in any reindeer "games", whatever they were in or out of rutting season. A recent U.S. President Elect, despite his well known draft exemptions due to "bunions", would say Rudolph was a "loser" and unqualified even for the National Zoo (as well as an undocumented immigrant from the North Pole,a well known terrorist haven with suspicious "elves" (little people with disabilities, real "losers", probably Arabic speaking, busily packing bombs in Christmas wrappings to be given to white, "lower class" kids, (wannabe "losers"). Ayn Rand said, only the rich deserve the goodies!

W.

terall

I have one of those SAD lights, we get so little daylight in the winter it is unreal! The light helps me immensely. I have had SAD all of my life, and just because I stopped drinking, didn't mean it went away, as I can't afford to move with the sun around the world all year, that light is the next best thing!