Ep 42 - The Holidays Are Stressful On a Good Day! Here Are Some Tips You Might Try.

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Today I am back with a solo episode.
Holidays can be magical and stressful. They can be warmly familiar or stressfully familiar. 
Expectations bread resentments, so today, I am providing you with some strategies to implement during your holiday season, which will offer you the ability to be more peaceful and self-caring rather than reactive and other focused.
Be kind with yourselves, which will allow you to be more kind with others.
Prioritizing your needs will be the greatest gift you give each person you love.
What is that saying on the plane – put your oxygen mask on first before helping others!!!
I wish you all a peaceful holiday season, one day at a time!

See full transcript below.


00:01

You’re listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. A place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now, here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.

Margaret  00:23

Welcome back. Today, I stand in my closet looking out the window, and the snow is flying around. So, I decided what a good day to record a solo episode about how to navigate the holidays in the healthiest ways possible, when you love someone with the disease of addiction. 

Holidays, traditionally, our times for indulgence, overindulgence and also a time where there are lots of expectations, and many family dynamics that can be stressful. That’s on a good day! Add in this cunning, baffling, and powerful disease of addiction to the mix, and it can create a really difficult, stressful time for newly recovering people or people whose loved ones are not in recovery. 

So, let’s dive into a few tips to help make the holidays healthier for you. 

The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast 

First, please remember that you cannot fix manage or control anyone, other than yourself. You cannot love someone sober. Nothing you do over the holidays, makes another person recover or relapse. Encourage you to not isolate. I know in my experience, when I’m alone, my monkey gets louder. And when I’m alone, I find myself in my head trying to negotiate with a monkey, that’s telling me every ‘what if’ that could possibly go wrong. 

So please find your community of support. Get to meetings, talk to your sponsor, call your fellows in recovery. Don’t be alone with the monkey. One of the other things is really take pauses throughout the holidays and evaluate how you’re feeling, how you’re experiencing the anxiety, the fears, the excitement. You know, check in with yourself, which I know for me in early recovery, I rarely did I had to learn to check in with myself. I was so other focused that I was always vigilant and checking in on how everyone around me was doing and not spending any time looking inward and how am I doing? 

Be choosy? You know, one of the things I’ve had to learn to do in my recovery is over the holidays be choosy about who I spend my time with. How many social events that involve alcohol and enormous amounts of food that I go to. Because as a recovering food addict, I also don’t use alcohol, because I’m very well aware of cross addiction. And if I hit the alcohol, my inhibitions and my reality to relapse into the food, and binge eating become very prevalent. And at this time of the year when there’s holiday celebrations everywhere and food everywhere, it’s really easy to want to do what many people do. How many of us have a huge meal, and then you remember hearing afterwards? Oh, I’m so full. 

You know, or how many of us recognize that alcohol consumption and other mood-altering chemicals seem to be acceptable in large quantities around the holidays. So really be choosy about how much you engage in and be okay with saying no.  I’m not up to doing that. No is a boundary and a complete sentence. 

One of the other aspects of this is how to support your loved one when they set their boundaries. You know, for many of us, when we love someone with this disease, we have the expectation that they get sober, and life gets just way more easier. And in time that’s the truth. You know, many addicts look for the easier softer way which is in the drugs, alcohol and behavior. But it is easier to be in recovery. And that’s a learning curve that happens on the journey. But many family members have a hard time with the fact that newly recovering people need some space and distance from family at times, especially high-pressure times. The fear of judgment, the fear of people not accepting them. The fear of people walking on eggshells around them, and then feeling uncomfortable. Early recovery folks tend to be much more porcupine like, prickly, reactive, because the substance that was used to navigate life is no longer there. And feelings are really raw. 

So, if your loved one in recovery says to you, mom, dad, whomever. I’m going to bring my own car, I’m not going to ride with you to the extent of family party. And I have some plans to maybe go to a meeting and step out when I’ve had enough. Though you may be sad because you want them to stay. And though your monkey may go, uh oh, is that bad? Is that good? Is that okay? Are you willing to accept that the boundary they need to set is what’s best for them? And it’s coming hopefully out of a place of having talked with their recovery community, their outpatient program, their sponsor, whomever about what’s best for them, in recovery.

Book ending social engagements, this is huge for early recovering people in any program. What does that mean? What is bookending? Well bookending is when I’m going to go to a high stress, potentially emotional situation, or a celebration, and I’m not sure how I’m going to feel, you know, if I’m there with my newly sober person, am I going to be vigilant to everything they do? Am I going to try and manage all of the conversations around them, you know, do insane things that I’m not capable of doing? Bookending is I’m going to call my sponsor or a person in recovery, who feeds my soul, because they are walking the path, and offering me a listening ear and experience of their own. I’m going to call them before I go to that event. And then once I leave the event, on the way home, when I get home, I’m gonna call them again. Tell them how it went, the victories and the struggles. One, it connects us to the we have recovery, which is what keeps us all working our program. Without the We. This is incredibly stressful and difficult to deal with. Secondly, I get a chance to process how I’m doing how, I’m feeling keep the focus on me. Thirdly, I’m not staying still with the monkey. Because I can tell you, the monkey can get crazy even after successful events just as stressful events. And so, it’s really important to have a voice. Give that voice to the monkey and allow people in, to help me navigate what it’s telling me.

08:18

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Margaret  08:29

Let’s talk about communication over the holidays. We are conditioned by the disease of addiction to walk on eggshells. We are conditioned as the loved ones to become overly responsible and tackle things and take things on that are not ours to take on. That’s when we get into the struggle of enabling. One of the things that we work on in recovery is communicating with honesty, openness and willingness with the people in our lives. Communicating directly with them, communicating with them adult to adult. And remembering that even though the disease created childlike temper tantruming behavior, the person in recovery is working very hard to do the next right thing and mature themselves. So, talking in these ways with one another is actually sharing your own triggers, and, fears and mores with them. 

First though, I always recommend you share your worries, triggers and fears with your recovery community, your sponsor, because sometimes you won’t need to go to them. The other thing is offer to be a recovery support for them in the ways that help them. What do you need? What can I do to help you, and be supportive as we go to this Christmas, holiday, New Year event? 

Don’t tell them what to do because that rebellious addict, by nature will not accept it even if it’s a wise recommendation. Even in early recovery, I was so reactive to my loved ones. 

One of the tips also might be having a word, a word that you share with your loved one. That is a word to check in with each other. Because one of the things I think family members forget is, not only are the newly sober, early recovering, sometimes long term, recovering people, navigating the stressors of holidays with ups and downs, so are you. You may not want to go to every family event. And being a healthy recovering family member is learning to say no, and not feel guilty or worried that someone’s offended or hurt. 

One of the things we learn in recovery is other people’s responsibility is to manage their feelings, care for themselves, and do what they need to do. That is not our job to do for them. 

How about practicing acceptance? Through the holidays, practice acceptance for the struggles we’ve been through, the journey of addiction and the impact it’s had on our life. Recognizing how much is beyond my control, even though I wish it wasn’t true. 

Be willing to have low expectations. I know holidays have been triggers for me to have incredibly high expectations of what I want to happen, how it will go. And they inevitably have led to unbelievably hard resentments. Because expectations just lead to resentments. 

Work on not trying to be Superwoman, or Superman. Treat yourself with kindness, and grace, because it will trickle down to everyone you love, that you will be kinder and more gracious with them. We are humans. We are incredible, wonderful, resilient, capable human beings. And we are flawed. And we are damaged by this disease. And healing takes time and work on all our parts. 

Be mindful of your triggers. You know how many family members want to focus on their addict’s triggers and managing them? We can’t? We can’t do that. It’s not possible for us to do that. We can’t even identify all of their triggers. How about we do something different and focus on our triggers? When is my fear creeping up? When is my anxiety higher? What breathing techniques can I do to just slow me down? What prayer, meditation tools work for me to find my center and ground myself helped me get out of the monkey chatter, and the stories in my head. 

Remember as family members not to set boundaries for other people, not to try and make it a sober environment so my newly sober person won’t use. How about what can I do to support you at this holiday? What would you like for our family function to look like? What would be supportive?

It’s insane the way this disease works on the newly sober newly recovering person from substance use disorder, food addiction, any other chemical dependency or addiction. It is insane that a family member who loves us and knows as well can offer this wonderful piece of advice. And this addict brain will say, no way. No way not doing that. Whereas a sponsor can suggest it and we hear it differently. And is that frustrating as a loved one that that is the case? Yes. But you know what? I need to go to the professionals and the experts with the disease I have for help. And all be it that loving, invested, willing to learn, family members are experts in in a way. On our family, and on our life. I can’t hear it from them that I can from a fellow in the program or sponsor. 

As family members, your job is to manage your feelings, your triggers, your fears, your worries, your excitement, your expectations. Only offer advice if asked. Gosh, how hard is that for me to do? I don’t think it’s out of any mal intent that we offer advice or suggestions. We love the person, and we want things to be well for them. But the problem is, if we’re not asked for that advice, when we offer it, we’re telling them, we don’t believe they can figure it out. We don’t have faith in their ability to be well. And that’s not the message we want to send.

 If you have a loved one out there who is still using. What kind of boundaries are you willing to set to take care of yourself? Protect yourself from their disease while still loving them. Are you willing to share a boundary such as you are welcome to attend our gathering, if you’re able to be sober, we would love to have you? However, if you’re using, I’m going to ask that you not come. 

Are you willing to make a coffee date, if that feels like an environment where it’s safer to be with someone who’s not sober? We have to put our well-being and safety first. And that is so counterintuitive, when the person we love more than anything is in this disease. But if we don’t comfort, care for, heal, get resources, strategies and tools for ourselves. We’re not going to be in any condition to be there for the one we love. 

Finally, I’d encourage you to practice gratitude throughout the holiday season. Be with people that fill you up. Take time outs from the people that are stressful for you. Have gratitude for the growth you’re making. The peace, the moments where you have joy, the times where you’re able to have less chaos and confusion. And I highly recommend navigating the holiday season one day at a time. One celebration at a time, one moment at a time. And remember that your loved one is not alone. Never has to be alone. Neither do you. Unless you all choose to be. There’s a wealth of resources. And some of the best meetings offered are those on holidays because they seem to always have gratitude around them. I wish for you all a blessed holiday season with peace, celebration and the ability to navigate the tough times. Remember, you’re not alone. If I can be of help. I am an email away. 

Head to my website, 

embracefamilyrecovery.com

and go to Work With Margaret page. And on that page, fill out the information and we can have a complimentary discovery call to see if we’re a good fit for one another and look at how I can help you strategize, to have health, wellness and even thrive with this family disease of addiction. 

For some of you thriving may seem beyond possible. But I’m here to tell you that it is possible. 

Be willing to prioritize you and your wellness trusting that if I put myself care and my wellness first, what I give to everyone I love is that much healthier for them. 

Please take care of you this holiday season!