The holiday season is upon us – a time of fun, frivolity, family togetherness, and lots and lots of triggers. Holidays have historically been the best reason I could ever think of to cut loose and get unapologetically wasted. Work is off the radar, the house has been deep cleaned, family and friends descend from near and far, and everyone’s counting on me to turn out a meal worthy of a 3-star Michelin rating. It’s a time of going and doing, moving and shaking, shucking and jiving, and being “on” for hours at a time – ‘tis the season to be jolly, after all. It’s high-energy, stressful, and exhausting, and when I’m hanging out at that altitude long enough, my central nervous system aches for a return to homeostasis. In times that have long since gone the way of the VHS tape, I found gentle relief in a respectable glass of bubbly – just a little sumpin-sumpin to soothe my jangly nerves, the way it looks in fancy liqueur commercials where the family is all chill, playing board games and humming a tune while the dog rests its head in your lap.
And that’s how easily I can get sucked back into the nostalgia of what liquor is supposed to do for us – what it does for a lot of people – smooth the sharp edges and promote a feeling of comfortable wellbeing. When taken as directed, I guess that’s what it does, but it took a lot of experimentation and trial and error to conclude that I am incapable of drinking in moderation. We’ll save the deep dive into the science of addiction for another post, but I’m grateful that I learned in recovery that my brain chemistry is so severely altered by the introduction of even the smallest quantity of alcohol that it kicks off a chain reaction over which I have absolutely no control. For me, trifling with the notion of a social glass of holiday cheer devolves quickly into burning dinner, telling inappropriate jokes to the kids, breaking out the karaoke machine, flirting with my uncles, disappearing into my closet for long pulls from hidden bottles, changing into an ill-fitting prom gown, crying, terrorizing everyone in sight, and passing out mid-sentence in a blackout. That’s no longer the way I choose to spend my holidays.
These days I plan my holiday celebrations around the notion of waking up sober the next day, and you can too. First and foremost, plan now to make your sobriety the number one priority for the days that lie ahead. We face a lot of expectations in the upcoming months which can make us feel a lot of things, not the least of which is the desire to escape. It’s easy to want to run and hide when you need to buy and wrap a zillion gifts, travel, decorate, entertain, and feel the burning disappointment of an overstimulated child who didn’t get the right Legos. So, decide ahead of time how to deal with feelings that might crop up, and fill your recovery toolbox like it's a Christmas stocking!