12 Tips to Maintain Your Recovery During the Holidays

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holidays in early recovery

Any general advice posted on our blog, website, or app is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace or substitute for any medical or other advice. If you have specific concerns or a situation arises in which you require medical advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified medical services provider. You may want to attend your own meeting to stay connected with other families with similar experiences. It will help to be around people who understand what you’re going through. • We encourage you to be supportive and proactive about your family member’s recovery. You can reach to them in a way that lets them know you trust them with their own recovery but that you are there for them if needed.

Create a Holiday Recovery Plan

holidays in early recovery

Lastly, individuals in recovery must address sober networking opportunities to protect their sobriety throughout the holidays. In addition to support groups, there are likely a plethora of sober holiday events and gatherings taking place in communities across the United States. Consider volunteering or planning and hosting a sober gathering.

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  • While individuals cannot possibly prepare for every trigger they will encounter throughout the holidays, it can help to reflect and identify potential triggers ahead of time.
  • Many have trouble just being around alcohol, not to mention the unchecked inebriation that can occur at these parties.
  • She has over a decade of experience in building and operating metrics-driven brand, demand generation, and customer experience teams.
  • Just because this year is tough doesn’t mean every year is going to be tough.

You are not responsible for your guest’s recovery, even if that guest is your child, sibling, or parent. Behind the scenes orchestration to “help” the recovering person through the event can sometimes be unhelpful. Instead, reach out to him or her to see if there’s anything you can do to help the event go smoothly.

  • It’s easy enough to pick up the phone, and you will find yourself feeling better as well.
  • Recovering from substance use disorder (SUD) is a nonlinear journey.
  • Lastly, individuals in recovery must address sober networking opportunities to protect their sobriety throughout the holidays.
  • The ghosts of Christmas and holidays past may also haunt those in early sobriety and bring their substance use and “good ol’ days” to the forefront of their minds.

Building Resilience in Unpredictable Times: A Recovery-Focused Approach

Make your recovery meetings a priority, find time with friends who enrich you, and surround yourself with those who make you feel known and loved. Maintaining our connections to others is part of staying present and accountable for our recovery. Those who are supportive of your recovery want to know what you need.

holidays in early recovery

Practical Ways To Support Those in Recovery During the Holidays

holidays in early recovery

• If you’ll be seeing relatives who don’t know your family member has just completed treatment, prepare beforehand as to who will communicate the information in a way your family member is reframing holidays in early recovery comfortable. Here are tips for those in early recovery on how to navigate the holidays. Sign up now for a weekly digest of the top drug and alcohol news that impacts your work, life and community.

  • Here at the Taylor Recovery Center in Houston we make it our mission to equip our clients with the tools necessary to successfully journey through the Holidays and beyond with a strong grip on their recovery from addiction.
  • Use your judgement – you don’t have to tell everyone at the party.
  • Those showing up to social events sober can unintentionally hold a mirror up to those around them and lead to resistance and judgment.
  • I’ve worked with many people in recovery who tell me that coworkers can look at them as if they have a third eye, or as if they have just sprouted wings, if they decline an alcoholic beverage.
  • Our lack of self-care can often cause us to lose our focus and discipline, and ultimately find ourselves in self-loathing, restlessness, irritability, and discontentment; all of which have the potential to cause us to slip.
  • Be conscious of your evolving needs for emotional and physical space, and give yourself the gift of that space as necessary.