12 Tips for Staying Sober During the Holiday Season
November 22, 2011 by Mark 'accessed from 'Project Turnabout'

How to Stay Sober Over the Holidays: 9 Tips From People in Recovery

It’s the season for parties, family dinners, holiday open houses, and 24/7 socializing. It's also the season — from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day — of special challenges for those in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction.

"The holidays are periods of time where we consolidate our past, present, and future lives," says Richard Soper, MD, JD, an addiction medicine specialist and chief medical officer of the Center for Behavioral Wellness in Nashville, Tennessee. Typically, the holidays involve seeing old friends and family (not all of whom you get along with), and rituals that may have involved drinking or using drugs in the past.

It all adds up to potential holiday triggers to go back to old ways, Dr. Soper says.

Every holiday season can bring challenges, whether this is your first sober year or your 40th, but the first few years in recovery are often the roughest, experts agree. Here are tips and wisdom on how to get through the holidays feeling cheerful and staying sober, from those who know — Soper and three people in recovery.

1. Rewrite Your Recovery Vocabulary
People in recovery often say things like “I have to stay strong,” says Soper. But that implies that if you aren't strong, you're weak, he notes, so he tries not to use words that stigmatize or imply value judgments.

Instead of vowing to stay strong, he recommends, vow to stay in the present, focused on today, or in touch with the goal of your recovery.

He also suggests using ''recurrence'' versus ''relapse'' in case you have a drink or use a drug while you’re in recovery. When you use recurrence, he says, ''It's a health issue, not a character issue."

2. Stay Connected With People Who Support Your Recovery
This can be your best friend, your neighbor, your coworker, or a family member, says Matt Canuteson, 37, a behavioral health field consultant in upstate New York in recovery from alcohol, cocaine, and heroin addiction who has been sober for 13 years. "Around the holidays there are a number of different reasons that it's a dangerous time," he says. "One is that there are a whole bunch of holiday parties."
At these events, you’ll expect to see people drinking and having a good time. Having a friend with you for support is especially crucial now, Canuteson says.

"Whatever support system is working for you during the non-holiday time is important to stay connected to during holiday time," says Julie Dostal, PhD, executive director of LEAF Council on Alcoholism and Addiction in Oneanta, New York, who got sober at age 30 and is now 53.

3. Make a List of Holiday Joys That Have Nothing to Do With Drugs or Alcohol
Early in her recovery, Ruth Bowles went to holiday parties and began to focus on non-drinking activities. Now 64, she’s been free of alcohol and drugs for 27 years.

"I was able to participate in things like baking and decorating the tree," she says. She learned to put herself more in the spirit. "I started focusing in on the joy of a holiday instead of drinking in excess to the point where it would turn out to be a catastrophe."

These days, says Bowles, of Nanuet, New York, her holiday joy list includes baking, trimming the tree, making decorations, enjoying the snow, and ''hanging with like-minded people."

4. Rethink Your Holiday Obligations
Do you have to go to the office party? Do you have to endure a family dinner with the aunt who triggers your wish to drink or use drugs?

"Too many times, people feel obligated to put themselves in situations that may not be good for them," says Canuteson. "The reality is, you are not obligated to do any of those things."

5. Pick Your Events Wisely — and Plan Your Exit
When Dostal goes to a holiday function, she goes with someone who supports her sobriety. For her, this means someone ''who would be willing to give me a nudge if I was behaving in a way that was of concern or had the opportunity to become a trigger."

She invites a friend who will say to her, ''Hey, want to go out and stand on the deck?" when things are turning bad.

You may want to follow Dostal's example, or go solo to parties. At least have your own car available so you can leave anytime, Bowles suggests.

6. Rehearse Your Script to Manage Pushy People
You are bound to be offered a drink or a drug at some point. And when you politely decline, people can push and prod.

"You can say, 'I don't drink for health reasons,''' Bowles says. If they still push ("Oh, one won't hurt!") just repeat the sentence, she says. If they persist? "If they continue, I just walk away," she says. You owe no explanation.

7. ‘Bookend’ Your Support System
Suppose you’re headed to your family holiday dinner where everyone but you will drink too much, but no one is in recovery. "If you attend a support meeting, such as a 12-step, bookend them," Dostal advises. Go to a meeting ahead of the event, tell people there where you’re headed and that you’ll be back to report in right after the event.

If two meetings are logistically impossible, she says, build in the same kind of bookend support with planned telephone calls to a supportive friend.

8. Have an Exit Strategy for Events That May Turn Stressful
"It doesn't hurt to make plans for after the major part of the family activity" if you anticipate that it’s going to be stressful, Dostal says. You can tell the host, "I will be there, but I have something else I have to do later."

You could also ask a friend to call you at a specific time, Dostal says. Depending on how the event is going, you can tell your dinner companions that a friend needs help and you need to go, or just excuse yourself for a short talk, then rejoin the dinner if it's going well.

9. Address Your Potential Recurrence Triggers Ahead of Time
Holidays have many other triggers that can lead to excess. Perhaps you lost a loved one over the holidays, and you don't feel the same about the season since. Or you may have broken off a relationship close to the holidays, and you're feeling that loss.

Talk about that with a trusted loved one, Soper says. "Being able to share with them" can help, he says. Simply saying, "I lost my mom over Christmas week" may help you cope.

Keep in mind that, when it comes to recovery from active addiction, your life is at stake. Therefore, to consume alcohol is to risk your life. To do so simply because a special occasion crops up is to act as if your life is worth less than the nostalgia of the day. Instead, consider celebrating your life, sobriety and holistic recovery with an alcohol-free beverage of your choice, rather than risking all of the above for a brief head change. Create your own tradition or simply roll with the sparkling alcohol-free drinks. But, by all means, respect, honor and love yourself enough to stay sober. After all, your life is indeed more special than any occasion.

It’s the booziest time of the year.

The average American drinks twice as much as usual during the holiday season, according to a 2018 poll of 2,000 Americans by hangover helper Morning Recovery. And Alcohol.org, a resource for people who struggle with addiction, says that the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day sees some of “the most extreme cases of alcohol consumption” for Americans.

With all the gatherings and various stresses that spring up, it’s no wonder. But it can make the season more stressful than merry for nondrinkers.

“Especially around the holidays, it’s tempting to want to retreat into isolation or escapism through alcohol,” Lane Moore, author of “How To Be Alone: If You Want To And Even If You Don’t,” tells The Post.

The sober comedian, who runs the popular Brooklyn comedy show Tinder Live, says that “this time of year” can be triggering for problem drinkers, who turn to alcohol to mask “what’s really bothering” them.

Her fellow Brooklynite, Simone Becker, agrees.

“Everyone has their own complicated lives and their own complicated relationships with family and if alcohol helps, I get that,” says the 24-year-old, who’s been sober for 7 years. “Everyone has their coping mechanism. But drinking during the holidays isn’t for everyone.”

That doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on the festivities, though. Psychologist Amy Kaplan, of telemedicine service PlusCare, says that there are a number of strategies sober folks can use to power through holiday parties.

First, be choosy about where you’ll make an appearance. “Write down the events, dinners and get-togethers on your calendar and prioritize,” says Kaplan. “It’s OK to edit out some of the things you may have done in the past.”

At an actual party, “hold a non-alcoholic drink, like a soda or coffee,” she says. “It helps you feel like you fit in . . . and also reduces the likelihood of someone offering you another drink.”

She also recommends finding a hang-out area “away from the bar or kitchen,” so you don’t get triggered watching people pour drinks.

For Becker, the thing that’s worked the best is bringing a plus-one who is clued-in to her sobriety. She has “a lot of sober friends,” but also likes going to parties with her boyfriend of four years, who drinks without getting too drunk.

“He still has the ability to take care of me if I feel anxious [because] there’s alcohol around,” says Becker.

Either way, she says it helps to have a companion who understands why she’s not imbibing, so “they don’t put pressure” on her. With the right company, she’s “totally happy” to just hang out “and have a soda or whatever.”

Finally — although it sounds cheesy — it helps to remember what the holidays are really about, says Ghan Patel.

At first, “it sucks,” says the Portland, Ore., musician, who took an eight-month break from drinking in 2015 and 2016 when he was training for the NYC Marathon. “You’re going to get bored, and you’re going to feel tired.”

So he tried to channel his inner child on Christmas morning — and surprisingly, everything started looking a little more merry and bright.

“It helps to remember what it was like to be a kid,” he says.

Kaplan recommends starting your own, sober traditions.

“Host a hot cocoa night, a friendly game of football or a movie night,” she says. “Create an event that fits around your needs, because remember, your needs are just as important as others’.”

https://nypost.com/2019/11/27/how-to...n-youre-sober/