‘Tis the Season: Supporting A Loved One in Alcohol Addiction Recovery Through the Holidays

For many people in alcohol addiction recovery, particularly in early stages, attending holiday events with family or friends can be an overwhelming experience that compromises the recovery process. Ask your loved one if they feel comfortable participating, and tell them that you will support whatever decisions they make; if holiday parties and family events are not safe places for their sobriety, it is perfectly fine to avoid them. It is always okay to prioritize recovery.

If your recovering friend or family member does want to spend the holidays with you, talk to them about what they need. Their vision of how to get through the holiday season with their sobriety intact may be drastically different than your own, and having a heart-to-heart conversation about their needs allows you to support them in a meaningful and relevant way. Discussing fears, triggers, and coping mechanisms can allow you to create a plan for how to structure holiday events and better understand the challenges your loved one is facing. For example, some people in alcohol addiction recovery will only feel safe in an alcohol-free environment, while others feel dry events call unwanted attention to their struggle with addiction and prefer that alcohol continues to be served.

Drinking can be a big part of holiday festivities and you often don’t notice just how big a part it truly is until you can no longer participate. Because holiday events are often structured around social drinking, non-alcoholic beverages may be an afterthought, leaving non-drinkers with limited options. Ask your family member what types of beverages they would like to have and what they want to avoid so you can be sure to sidestep potential triggers. For example, some recovering alcoholics enjoy non-alcoholic sparking cider as a substitute for champagne on New Year’s Eve, but for others, the similarities only serve to increase cravings and produce emotional distress.

If you are hosting events at which alcohol will be served, asking your loved one if they want to bring along a sober friend can be critical to resisting temptation and avoiding isolation. The camaraderie and mutual support between people in recovery can strengthen your loved one’s resolve and ensure that they have an ally on their side.

Offer your loved one the time and space to remove themselves from the festivities if it gets to be too much. For many people in recovery, taking time out to go for a walk, spend time quietly meditating, or attending a meeting is vital to coping with stress, triggers, and cravings. Make sure they know where they can go if they need to get away and that you respect their need to do so.

Many of us have idealized visions of the holiday season; you see yourself surrounded by family and friends in a beautifully decorated house, opening thoughtfully chosen gifts, sharing wonderfully prepared meals, and enjoying each other’s company in blissful harmony that reflects the spirit of love, generosity, and kindness. Or at least you really, really want everyone to be happy and get along. This may be particularly true if this will be the first holiday season your loved one has spent sober in some time, as it’s common to want to make up for lost time by creating a wonderful family experience. Such expectations would be difficult for anyone to live up to, let alone someone who is in the early stages of alcohol addiction recovery and is likely to be experiencing difficult emotions as a normal reaction to a major life change. Having realistic expectations of your loved one, yourself, and the holidays as a whole can avoid setting you and your loved one up for disappointment and protect against unnecessary conflict.