37 Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During The Holidays

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For some people in recovery, the holidays can be tough. But you can make it to January with your sobriety intact. You don’t have to let unfulfilled expectations, stressful family dynamics, or crazy in-laws threaten your recovery. Not to mention all those holiday parties.

You just need a bit of preparation. Start planning your strategy now, with these #soberholidays tips from The Recovery Book and the workbook companion My Life in Recovery.

Sober Holidays Tip #1:  Remind yourself every single morning how good it feels to be sober (and how great it will feel come January). Plant that thought in your mind right now, and think about it every morning. Stick a note on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself to think about it every day. 

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>> Download a free sample of My Life in RecoveryRead more...

37 Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 2)

For tips 1-20, see 37 Tips to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 1).

Sober Holidays Tip #21 Bring your own beverage.  If a holiday celebration includes the use of alcoholic beverages (such as wine at Passover), make sure in advance that there are substitutes (such as grape juice) for you and anyone else who doesn’t want to drink the harder stuff.

Sober Holidays Tip #22  Stay sober at the party: Don’t go it alone.IMG_1664 Bring along an AA buddy or a hired sober companion. Or take someone at the party into your confidence (the host, a friend, even a waiter); candor will serve you better than pride, embarrassment, or guilt. Tell them that you can’t drink, and enlist them as bodyguard. It will make the event easier for you, and will keep you from winding up in a relapse. If you can’t take someone with you, Read more...

Recovery Zone ReCheck – New in The Recovery Book

The Recovery Zone ReCheck is a simple relapse prevention plan.

In every Recovery Zone, at all times, you will be at some risk of relapse, often when you least expect it. The Recovery Zone ReCheck helps you avoid relapses by regularly taking stock of your life.

Once a month or so, use the three Recovery Zone ReCheck questions to assess your life. They will help you see when changes are coming up—relationships, work, health, medication and so on—that could trigger a relapse. These changes can be almost anything: dental procedure, divorce, getting a raise, having a baby, moving to a new town.

When you spot such road blocks, you move back a Zone or two, brush up on the guidelines of that Zone, re-commit to sobriety, and re-focus on recovery. See pages 18-21 in The Recovery Book for all the details.

The Recovery Book