Dry Holiday In A Wet World

 In this episode of Doc Jacques: Your Addiction Lifeguard, we talk about surviving the holidays sober in what can feel like a Hallmark movie sponsored by a liquor store. From the “just have one” uncle to the overconfident I got this voice in your own head, Doc lays out practical (and slightly sneaky) strategies for making an appearance, keeping your sanity, and knowing exactly when to Irish-exit with dignity. Because sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do during the holidays… is leave early and stay sober. 

Transcript

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Time again for Doc Shock, your Addiction Lifeguard Podcast. I am Dr. Jock D. Burkert, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help, try to get your life back together. Join me here at Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard, the Addiction Recovery Podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes, but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light, alright? Have a good time, learn something, and then get the real help that you need from a professional. Well, it's the holidays again, and so that means we're in some troubling territory for people sometimes. So if you're in recovery or you're trying to work on recovery, or you're a family member of somebody who's in recovery, this is going to be a relevant and um timely podcast for you if you're listening uh to the most recent edition of it. Um holidays. Dry holidays in a wet world. And what in the world do you do? So listen, uh, you can't make the world sober. Uh you your sobriety is not going to make the world sober. And but what can you do? You can make some wise choices about exposure or your expectations, and sometimes exiting when you need to during the holidays. And how do we do that? You know, people in recovery and for families trying to protect the person that's in recovery, that holidays can feel like being surrounded by a world of troubling, troubling water, where everywhere you turn, you're seeing alcohol, alcohol at parties, alcohol at dinner, alcohol as the solution to your stress and your discomfort, celebration, grief, I mean anything, right? So you're normalizing uh drinking, or you're in the world of normalized drinking, and it's everywhere, and that's a problem. So when you when you feel uncomfortable and you're around alcohol, that's a triggering event for you. So you gotta keep keep sight of that. So why are the holidays such an especially risky time? I mean, aside from the obvious. So alcohol is socially kind of mandatory at times, like you're gonna have a toast, or you know, we somebody buys a special bottle of something and you're supposed to be drinking it, and you're not the one that's drinking it because you can't, or you shouldn't. Um, so there's there's some issues. And the problem is what when I've I've noticed around the holidays, it's always somebody's, you know, you're trying to hold it together, right? But you run into these situations where you have been working on your sobriety and other people may not be aware of that. Or even the ones that are aware, a lot of times they're finding out, you know, in in that moment, perhaps, or maybe just days before. Um, so if you are in a position where you have to decline a drink from somebody who's trying to get you to drink something, that can raise suspicion, and you feel that. So your sobriety becomes very visible. So the pressure to disguise as just one, you know, it's disguised as just one. I'm just gonna have one. And you know where that goes. And we live in a culture where not drinking makes other people uncomfortable. That's that's kind of how they live their lives. That doesn't mean that's how you're living your life, but um, and you and and frankly, uh you'd never know why they're uncomfortable. You know, you're not drinking where before you were. Well, they drink and now they're feeling self-conscious about their drinking. Or maybe this is like a reminder of what it was like when they were growing up, like in my family, where drinking was a social event, and so during the holidays drinking was a regular thing. But you do not know why that person that you're refusing to drink from is feeling uncomfortable, but they might. Uh, they also might be supportive of you, uh, not drinking, and maybe you'd be surprised by that. But the shame that you can feel um by the fact that you're not drinking is something is going on inside of you and it's not necessarily seen around you. So the emotional load is a lot higher at these times. And that's when the old stuff can start coming out. Family wounds start to resurface, grief, grief gets gets louder, you know. Expectations of you're not drinking start colliding with the reality of of the situation of not drinking. And so there's a lot of emotionality around this time of year, and it's difficult to figure out how to navigate through that. Here's something that does happen to people. They start getting this sense of false confidence in their early recovery. They think they can go into this situation and they can handle it. Um, or perhaps because you're new to recovery, if you are new to recovery, you really had no idea that this was going to be a thing. You didn't even know what to look for. This is the first time you're running into it. Maybe you started working on sobriety, you know, in the last few months, and you had no idea what you were getting yourself into. You just kinda didn't really put much thought into it. Or you put too much thought into it, and you had this complete false sense of reality, and you said to yourself, Oh, I got this, I can do this. Um, and then you find out I ain't got this. That's kind of where it goes. You know, so you're kind of testing your limits too. Sometimes people do not know that they should be saying, I can't go to that, and maybe even just coming up with some excuse, like, I'm not feeling well, so I can't be there. It's really nobody's business as to why you're struggling with the idea of being at something, but you're testing your limits sometimes, and so you have this, you know, this over-inflated sense of confidence that you think, oh, I'm I'm gonna be fine, and you and you I can be in the presence of this and people pressuring me or peer pressure, or just you know, I'm gonna feel comfortable in a crowd when I normally know I can't feel comfortable. I I'm gonna test that. Overestimating your resilience. Maybe you thought that um that whole thing about like I got this, maybe that that spread into the thinking of um I'm stronger than this. You know, I'm stronger than my my addiction. And that kind of breaks the whole, that breaks the tenets of the AA idea of this addiction is more powerful than I am. Because, you know, the reality is not just an AA thing, but the reality is this addiction, man, it was taking you out at the knees. And if you were stronger than the addiction, you would have just been able to say, Oh, okay, I'm done drinking, and you would have stopped. And if it's, you know, if it's drugs, same thing. I don't, you know, weed is a particularly troubling thing now. And oh God, the president wants to reclassify marijuana. I, you know, I it's gonna happen, I know that, but people underestimate the effect of weed and that it's actually so devastating to people and uh very addictive. Um, but your confidence comes back faster than the capacity does, and that's an issue. Uh the confidence is an issue. Overconfidence, false confidence. I'm overly confident. It's the arrogance thing I talk about all the time. In addiction, arrogance is the thing that is the biggest, most powerful weapon that addicts carry around to keep people away and to push away the the uh the recovery. So that's from the addict side. What families sometimes get wrong, and they often get wrong, assuming that exposure builds strength. Now, sometimes addicts believe this too. Like, I'm gonna desensitize myself to the pressures of getting in situations where there's alcohol. Uh, it's part of the I got this syndrome. But assuming exposure will build strength, and you know what? If you're listening to this and you have a loved one who's an addict, exposure does not build strength. Recovery is not exposure therapy, it's that's not the issue. It's not that they're fearful of it, like somebody who's got uh panic disorder. Early sobriety requires protection and got you know uh boundaries around addiction. I tell my clients all the time, especially this time of year, if you are going to be in a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, and uncomfortable in this case would be something that's like shame, self- you know, self-um uh insecurities, too much uh self-awareness, too much self-consciousness, you you really you're feeling uneasy about it, even though you haven't even gone, maybe it's a week ahead and you're already thinking about it. Listen, do not go. And for family members who um are are you know thinking that, oh, well, you know, I'll help them be the guardrails around this. You know, it's like listen, you have no idea what the addict is going through in their head, but trust me, it's a lot worse than you think. So the shaming is the issue. You you you can't alloy like if a family member is saying, like, you can't avoid life forever, you gotta get in there, you gotta, you gotta be able to do this. Listen, trust me, there's not an addict who's telling another addict that. It just doesn't happen because we know that's not true. Um, we don't try to pressure other addicts into being exposed to this, not saying things like, yeah, you're gonna you can't avoid this forever. You you have to learn to deal with it. That's statements made by non-addicts to somebody who's trying to work on recovery. And that's a shaming that you go through. When you do when you make those statements to somebody, you're shaming them. They're weak. And what you're focusing on is that failure of willpower, nonsense. So don't do that to your loved ones. You yourself, if you're saying that to yourself, and I've and I've had people come in here and say this who are working on recovery, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to learn how to deal with this. Well, this is not the time. You know, if you're early in your recovery, this is not the time. Two years from now, yeah, you're gonna be able to deal with it. Trust me, you will you will know. And you'll also be smart enough and wise enough and have enough knowledge that you'll know when it's time to duck out of something because I'm not feeling it today. I do not know, I do not need to be around this. You'll know, but right now, if you're early in recovery, you have no idea. Your little your little arrogance meter is still going off. And you know, so saying to yourself those same things, like you can't avoid life forever, you gotta you gotta do something, you're gonna have to deal with this in the future, you know. I'm sure you you could be saying that to yourself. Just stop. Stop it. So it's the what does this say about you? So the appearance, prioritizing the appearance over safety. You're putting something in front of your recovery. And as we all know in recovery, the most important thing in your life is your being clean and sober. That is the most important thing. Keeping traditions intact of being around family at all cost puts that in front of your sobriety, avoiding discomfort instead of danger. You're putting your discomfort in front of your sobriety. Well, guess what? When you put things in front of your sobriety, that means sobriety second. My wanting to avoid discomfort by not showing up at something that's a family event or a corporate event or whatever. That's you're well, guess what? You're gonna you're gonna probably relapse or you're gonna have an accident, keeping traditions intact, you know. We always go to grandma's house or the party, yeah. Well, grandma's grandma's house always is full of alcohol, and you're not in that place right now. So you're putting that in front of your sobriety. Well, you guess what? You're gonna lose your sobriety. So the idea of teaching somebody something is one thing, but the rules about engagement are really dependent upon you following guidelines. Being around alcohol early in sobriety is not a good idea. Being around friends who are using weed all the time is not a good idea. If you're trying to stop, you cannot be around it. Your arrogance will tell you you can, reality will tell you in the end, you can't. So there's some rules for a dry holiday, and I I would like to go over those rules with you. So, number one, let's see, avoidance is not weakness. It's not. Skipping events is a strategy. It's not fear, it's one of the tools that you're using to allow yourself to still be free from your addiction. Distance sometimes is the best intervention. So distance from the the event or the people for this uh time, for this year, this one time. Fortunately for us, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, it only it only comes around once. A year. You got 365 days to work on this. Next year you can come back stronger, and maybe you can engage in it. Just because you can go doesn't mean you should go. Sometimes it means the opposite. So rule the so let's go over that again. Rule number one avoidance is not weakness. Rule number two. You got a plan. You must have a plan. If you're gonna go, plan your entry and plan your exit. How long are you gonna stay? Who are you gonna be with? Like who are you gonna be around? Where are you gonna sit? And what is your exit? And especially if you're coming with somebody else, what's the cue for the exit? The strategy of doing that is something that I go over with my clients who are less than a year in recovery and the holidays roll around. How long are you gonna stay? If you've gotten past the idea that, okay, you you're you're gonna go, and if you're gonna go, and it's not, you know, you you're not you're required to go, bring a sober companion. And if you're gonna go with a sober companion, you've got to have these things already laid out. How long are you gonna stay? Who are you gonna be with? Who are you gonna be sitting near? Who are you gonna be around when they're there? And what is the exit cue with your sober companion? So bring a spouse, bring a friend, bring somebody in recovery that's supporting you, and and know what that is. So you you can't just go in a hope and a prayer, it's not gonna work. Hope is not a plan, especially during the holidays. It's not. So use use these things, the structure of deciding in advance, strategies, how long, who you're gonna be with, and how what's the exit cue. You might only be there for an hour, you might only be there for 45 minutes. You made an appearance, you you fulfilled the obligation, and then you're out. Rule number three Um Individuals don't get sober and clean, families do, groups do, couples do. So families must hold that line together. Mixed messages can undermine recovery. If you are a family member of someone who has an addiction issue and they're working on recovery, I really hope to God that you're helping them in their recovery and you're not undermining, but mixed messages can undermine that recovery. So if you are saying to the person, oh, you know what, I understand. It's listen, it's not a big deal. Okay, if you want to have one, that's fine, or you know, or the shaming thing. Oh my gosh, I can't believe that you can't go, or whatever. That's undermining. That's a mixed message, and that's going to undermine your recovery. One person sneaking drinks for others creates risk. One person can undermine your drinking by sneaking one to you. The um the enabler is a huge issue, and and many, many times, because what during my interventions, I'm trying to advise, I'm trying to figure out who's the chief enabler in the family. Because it almost always there is somebody. So if that one person, maybe there's somebody who is always your drinking buddy and you're going, it's a family member. Uh, you know, Aunt Sarah and I always drink together. All right, you need to stay away from Aunt Sarah. Because that one person who's going to sneak you that drink is going to create a risk. Alignment matters more than tradition. Okay. Who is in the family? Who is aligned with who? And are you all aligned together to work towards that person's recovery? You all must be on the same page. This is where it gets so incredibly difficult for families because there's so many family politics that goes on in families trying to figure out, like, hey man, what this person's trying to get sober. I appreciate that. Half the family doesn't really care. Or, as some of my clients have encountered, their family, they come from a family of of alcoholics and drinkers. And that's really problematic if you're trying to get clean and sober. And so you the tradition of we gather, yeah, but we gather and we drink. Or we gather and we get high. Well, that's not a gathering you should be in. And those people are gonna undermine your recovery. So the strategies for people in recovery bring your own drink. Um drive yourself so you can exit when you need to. Uh have a r a rehearsed response uh to the request for hey, do you want a drink? Would you like me to get you a drink? Stay connected to the support. So you know, sponsors, peers in recovery, meetings before and after an event. Um they're key elements to the protection that you need to engage in to keep you from relenting. So the drink, bring your own drink or use the universal sober drink, which is seltzer water, cranberry juice, and a lime. Every bartender knows that's the sober drink. So if you walked up to, if there's an if there's a bar, let's say, and you're going to a corporate event, if you go up to the bar, this is the strategy I tell my clients to do. Go up to that person who's at the bar, who's tending bar for the event, slip them a 20, slip them a 50, and say, Look, you see my face? I want you to remember me, okay? Um, maybe you wear a flower in your lapel or something so they can trigger some memory there. I want you to never serve me alcohol. I am in recovery and you're not gonna give me anything to drink. All right. When I ask you for a drink, I'm not, I don't need to be telling you what it is, but it's cranberry and club soda and a lime, or a Diet Coke and a lime, or a 7 up and a lime, or whatever it is, but it's non-alcoholic. And if you tip that person and you say, hey, look, here's a 20, and at the end of the day, I'm gonna give you another tip. All right. I do not want to have to ask for the drink. Just look at me, and when I put my finger up, you just give me that drink. And you know what? It's really funny because bartenders, they they kind of they they like that because you're you're tipping them and you're not you're not uh you're not creating problems, but they do appreciate it. And sometimes bartenders are in recovery, but they get it because they're around alcohol all the time, right? So that's the strategy I tell people to do, whether you're at a conference or you're at a holiday party or wherever, if there's a bartender, do that. It works every single time. Um driving yourself gives you a chance to be able to exit early if you have to. Use the kids as an excuse, use the wife or the husband as an excuse. Hey, we have to go. The babysitter, uh, we're not, you know, my wife's not feeling well, got a headache, whatever. They you can just duck out. And, you know, there's gonna be so many people, hopefully, that you're not really gonna be missed easily. So that's one thing, but the other one is the rehearsed response of like, I'm I'm good, thanks. Um, I'm not drinking sometimes, you know. Listen, hey, I'm on a medication and I can't drink. That's a that's a how are they gonna argue with that? Um, no, I I'm good. And the other thing I I tell people is never have an empty hand. If you're an alcoholic and you walk around with an empty hand, people are gonna constantly be coming up to you saying, Hey, can I get you a drink? Have something in your hand the whole time. All the time. And make sure that you, if you feel like you're in danger, you have somebody to reach out to. So I've had people text their sponsors while they're at the event and saying, Oh, I'm I'm getting panicky. So for families, listen, alcohol-free zones or events, that's great. Smaller gatherings, earlier start times helps, you know, because people tend to drink later. They're when they're there later, they tend to drink more. Permission to leave without explanation. You know what? John, if you, you know, what whenever you want to go, you can. You don't have you don't owe me anything or an explanation for protecting recovery. You know, you don't. It's your recovery, it's not theirs. So when you get pushback from people, expect minimization. Um, expect jokes, expect guilt. When you push back, the people who benefit from your old behavior will struggle with your new boundaries more than anybody else. And you're so what you're doing is you're teaching your family. You're teaching your family about you know, no debating, there's no defending. You're teaching them. Like, I'm not defending my recovery. I'm not, I don't need to explain to you. I don't need to defend it. I don't need to debate it. And if it gets to that point, hey, there's your exit queue. Um sometimes the best choice is not going. Missing a holiday is is is it's it's better than missing your recovery. Um, it's not missing love. Protecting sobriety means protecting future holidays, right? Something that is the most loving thing you can do is stay away from the edge. And if it means you're in a dangerous position because of your uh your problem with with alcohol or drugs and you feel at risk, don't go. Please, don't go. They may be upset in the moment, but you know, hopefully you'll be able to teach them that listen, it's my recovery, and I it's better than me using. And sometimes they don't get it. Sometimes they're not going to get it, and that's perfectly fine. The wisdom is in knowing your limits, right? But sometimes that requires experience and knowledge. And if you're early in recovery, you you don't have any wisdom. Trust me, you don't. You have very little experience, and each experience gives you more knowledge. But your wisdom comes from a gathering of knowledge, it doesn't come from a gathering of experience. So wisdom is knowing your limits. Pride is pretending that you don't have any. You you think you uh uh don't you you're impenetrable. You're you're you're impervious to any problems, so it's not gonna happen. So temptation is always around. You don't need to test yourself. You need to be a good steward of your recovery and pay attention to it. So it's more important that you're alive and you're healthy, sane, stable, and sober over you appearing in an event. If something does happen and stuff does happen, we have accidents. If you have an accident, not a relapse, it doesn't go on for weeks, but you have an accident, listen, it's okay, it's fine. Don't panic, don't go into rescue mode, don't go into shaming. It's fine. Stuff happens. That's why I call them accidents, because accidents happen, and they will happen to you. I promise you. Every addict has an accident, some have multiple accidents, some even relapse while they're having accidents and relapses, it's it's just part of recovery. You got to just kind of re-anchor, get your structure back around you, be accountable. It gives you an opportunity to practice um self-forgiveness. But one bad moment doesn't erase your progress. But ignoring it can. And so if you have to go back into the rooms and you have to pick up your 24-hour chip, maybe you've got months in and you pick or years, you you got to pick up that 24-hour chip. You know, in my office, I tell my clients, listen, that doesn't reset the clock for me. Um, a relapse does, but an accident does not. That's part of the the learning experience. But you gotta get back, you gotta get anchored again, right? So you cannot make the holidays safe. You cannot make choices, you can't I'm sorry, you can make choices that are safe. You cannot make the holidays safe. They're dangerous, and sometimes the bravest decision is not jumping into this mess, just avoiding it. Like, don't go. So show yourself some grace, be prepared, look for that support, and understand that the holidays, it's a limited amount of time, there's a lot of emotion around it, maybe there's a lot of negative history around it. Like in my family, holidays for me, it was a huge problem. So I just didn't engage in them. Um, and by that I mean not my not my family I created with marriage and children. I'm talking about in my uh birth family, my family of origin. So just be show yourself some grace, accept God's grace, forgiveness, encourage your yourself and encourage others around you. Be prepared, have support, and change your life. So i the holidays are problematic and troubling, yes. Does it does it equal failure? It does not need to. If you have an accident, Doc Shock is telling you it's okay, don't panic. It's uh it's part of the learning process. And now part of the learning process with the accident is going to be learning how to forgive yourself and to extend grace and to ask for forgiveness, and you will be forgiven. Remember, he he he he's on that cross and he suffered for our sins. Don't let your sins be unforgivable. They are forgivable. Well, that's it for this edition of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Life Guard. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Stay safe for the holidays, please. And if you need help, you can reach out to me. You can reach out to me through my website, WellsbringMindBody.com. Or you can call me. Uh phone number's all over the internet. If you need immediate help, go to a rehab. This is a tough time of year, man. And uh, I hope you can hold it together. And if you're early in recovery, good. Stay there. If you need uh other things, you can always go to a rehab, go to a counselor, go to a meeting, please. Get a sponsor, start working on your recovery. And remember, it's not how many times you fall down, how many times you get back up. This is Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard, saying until next time, see ya.