Avoid an alcohol relapse over the festive season
The busiest day of the year in my rehab is January 13th. The hope at home is that everybody will be relaxed, enjoying themselves and having a good time over the holidays. The reality of the Christmas period is that it is often a very stressful time.
Families gather round to have a good fight. Old resentments come bubbling up. The ironic statement that families are for Christmas – and only for Christmas – becomes painfully true.
For alcoholics and drug addicts it can be a very challenging time. If, from previous experience they recognise the need for abstinence, they may get through the break by ‘white knuckling’ it. They clench their fists in determination. That hardly makes for peace and good will!
In the UK we live in an alcohol using society. Alcohol tends to features in all celebrations. It’s in our culture. We comfort ourselves over the past with a drop of the hard stuff. We rejoice in the present with hooch. We toast the future with booze. There’s no getting away from it.
And drugs are more frequently tolerated nowadays. They’re often seen as the alcohol of a younger generation. In the mistaken belief that ‘soft’ drugs like cannabis and amphetamines (speed) are relatively harmless, there is increasing pressure towards legalisation. At a significant level, drug use of one kind of another is becoming a new norm. ‘Substance abuse’ is seen as a term to be used by doctors and social workers, not by people having a toot of cocaine of a bit of wacky backy to enjoy themselves.
The holiday season is a high risk time of year for people ‘in recovery’ from alcoholism and drug addiction. ‘Recovering alcoholics’ and ‘recovering addicts’, as they describe themselves, are abstinent. These people know they are vulnerable to relapse because they’ve relapsed so many times before. This results in them being highly alert and vigilant over the Christmas and New Year holiday time. And then – on January 13th – they relax. And bang! Down they go.
An underlying alcohol addiction or drug dependency does not take holidays. It stays with us wherever we are and whatever we do. And we resent that. We feel that only weak people are alcoholics and addicts. The truth is often the opposite.
Addictive disease is no respecter of persons. It affects prince and pauper, egg-head and air-head, alike. Many people who are absolutely determined to prove to themselves and other people that they are most definitely not addicts in any way, simply defer the day of recognition that they are.
An alcohol rehab like mine focusses on accurate diagnosis on an addictive nature. Over-diagnosis (labelling people as alcoholics when they are not) is just as dangerous as under-diagnosing (failing to pick up the early signs of a progressive illness). My questionnaires on this website make clear distinctions between people who are addicts of any kind and those who are not.
Addiction treatment has to be targeted towards long-term addiction recovery. The goal is to avoid relapse. This is not achieved by the three things families most often believe in and fervently put into practice: love, education and punishment. The approach that is successful in gaining continuing relapse prevention is daily commitment to working the Twelve Step programme, first introduced by Alcoholics Anonymous.
The love that works is the love that people in recovery give to each other. The effective principle is that ‘we keep what we give away’.
The education that works is through gaining an understanding of addictive disease as a condition that is probably genetically linked, affecting some families in particular.
The punishment that addicts learn from is the punishment we give to ourselves. We get sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Staying clean and sober during the holidays is no different in principle from relapse prevention and staying abstinent and enthusiastic at any time. Working the Twelve Steps of the AA programme each and every day takes very little time but the benefits are lifelong.
Using the support group of AA, or another anonymous group for another addiction, maintains contact with people who understand the nature of the problem instinctively. A sober friend is a friend indeed – and often has a cracking sense of humour: alcoholism is a serious malady but members of AA know very well how to poke fun at themselves when they are fully aware of their previous insanity.
I last used alcohol, or any form of addictive substance, on 12th October 1984. Nobody has to pick up the pieces after me these days. That adds up to many many happy holiday seasons, not only for me but for my family as well.