If you’re facing a holiday schedule full of parties and events, just remember that you don’t have to attend any of them. It’s not your job to make sure everyone has a perfect Christmas, despite what you may feel due to loved ones’ and friends’ expectations. Your health and sobriety is more important than making other people happy by attending every event you’re invited to. Those who have never suffered from addiction may have difficulty understanding why the scenarios outlined above can be fear-inducing for some in the recovery community. Viewing addiction as a form of avoidant behavior can help clarify some of these questions. During active use, most individuals struggle with relationships and keep themselves isolated due to unresolved conflicts, shame, and other unprocessed issues.

• • We encourage you to be supportive and proactive about your family member’s recovery.
• Responses to the holidays are as varied as the number of individuals who experience them.
• The self-care app, Shine, also talks about reframing “your reference point for success”.
• Read Kali’s story, Alone on Christmas, for strategies on how to cope when spending the holidays alone.

Spending time with family members and friends can make you feel uncomfortable, stressed, and almost on-the-edge. Your friends and family at Lighthouse Recovery Institute will be here to help you navigate these stressful days. If you feel that you don’t have the strength to navigate the holidays by yourself, you don’t have to.

Create New Traditions

The stigma of addiction may have isolated family members from seeking help. Family members may be taking care of their loved one’s financial debt, unmet childcare needs, depression, and shock from legal involvement. When the family is already overwhelmed, the idea of investing MORE support may feel difficult to embrace. Treatment takes time, and the realities of hardships while a loved one recovers from physical, financial, and emotional consequences require endurance.

However, if they are successful at breaking the rules, they will never experience the negative consequences of their addiction. For those in early recovery, holidays can create anxiety that may override new skills to manage cravings or urges. Healthy boundaries are physical and emotional limits that people set for themselves to safeguard their wellbeing. Unhealthy boundaries are thoughts and behaviors that can lead to manipulative and controlling relationships. The goal is to personalize your family’s boundaries so that they are not “too strict” or “too loose.” Seek a balance between reconnection with others and respect for the needs of everyone present.

How to Regain Trust in a Relationship After Addiction

However, individuals in recovery can benefit from realizing that they still deserve to feel holly and jolly this season, regardless of their decision to remain sober. By utilizing a healthy framework for staying sober, individuals can learn to enjoy the holidays while keeping their recovery as the highest priority in their life. In addition, if you are having trouble with your recovery, a support group meeting can help ensure you are on track to staying sober. To reduce stress, consider making holiday travel plans in advance or opting out of last-minute plans that involve a lot of traveling. Although it can be difficult to be apart from loved ones during the holiday season, maintaining your sobriety is what’s most important right now. Major changes to your normal routine and schedule is a common trigger for relapse.

Take a walk, go to a movie with a friend, or do something else you enjoy. Sober living homes and support groups are some reliable extensions of addiction recovery programs. Support groups are tailored for members of the community to share their truth, specified by the substance or behavior that needs to be changed. Sober living homes are great for those transitioning from an inpatient residential program for substance abuse. Sober living homes usually require someone to have a job and can receive support.

Common Holiday Addiction Triggers

Over 11 percent of U.S. adults (29.2 million) report that they have ever had a problem with substances (SAMHSA, 2021). Thus, in addition to those in recovery, it is likely that most Americans know someone who struggles with https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/reframing-holidays-in-early-recovery/ their use of alcohol or other drugs. If you or a loved one is struggling with drugs or alcohol, call Recovery Centers of America at RECOVERY. If you think about it, this distorted way of thinking takes root in our biology.

Addiction is complex, as unique as the individual, and more often than not, traumatic for families in terms of the horrific loss of control while you see a loved one suffer. Recovery is a parallel process that is not linear – relapse is often part of recovery, and gains made can be eclipsed in the process. When individuals in recovery place this type of pressure on themselves around the holidays, they face a greater risk of relapse.

Individuals need support from their families, and families need support and self-compassion to help them understand how their loved one’s addiction affects them. No matter how the family members were affected, they may need healing as well. Look into local meetings and support groups and find ways to support the family in the process of understanding addiction https://ecosoberhouse.com/ as a disease, and in learning that no situation is too difficult to overcome. Setting boundaries with a loved one can be very difficult at the holidays when you want to make sure everyone has the best possible celebration. Addictive behaviors include pushing boundaries and breaking rules, and your loved one is likely to know how to manipulate you.

In order to recover, we learn tools to keep ourselves centered, such as humility, compassion, listening skills, and mindfulness. We learn to ask for help, and not try to internalize and fix all of our problems on our own. The holidays present a perfect opportunity to reach into your recovery toolbox and use any and all of these tools.

Preparing for Holiday Challenges in Early Addiction Recovery

Everyone deals with holiday stress, but for people in recovery trying to stay sober, the holiday season places unprecedented challenges. It might seem silly at first, but writing down our triggers, responses, and plans in advance can help us be better prepared for difficult situations. Take some time this holiday season to print out our holiday and recovery worksheet to help you create your plan to stay on your recovery path this season.

Holiday festivities are a big part of what makes the holiday season so fun. However, these events often feature alcohol as a main event, making them difficult for newly sober people to enjoy. For individuals in recovery, it is not enough to enter the holiday season without having any preparations in place for staying sober. In other words, it is vital for individuals to create a framework that identifies guidelines and expectations that they can use to protect their sobriety. Chris and Danny discuss multiple ways families can get help for their loved ones, some of which are outside traditional norms and expectations.