Christmas and New Year’s are right around the corner, so how do you spend these holidays—especially when you’re newly sober? Here are some of our favorite ways to see us through these sometimes-tough days.
Sober Holidays Parties
Knowing that the holidays are a huge trigger for many addicts and alcoholics, many groups set up sober dances and parties for new memories and a safe place to participate in Fellowship. If you haven’t been to one of these yet, you owe it to yourself to go—you might be surprised at how much fun you can have in sobriety.
Marathon Meetings
If something more low-key and directly related to recovery is your style, many Alano clubs and organizations run marathon meetings. Marathon meetings are exactly what they sound like—they are back-to-back meetings, 24 hours a day. No matter when the craving kicks in, marathon meetings are available when that drink or drug starts looking good.
Sober Holiday Movie Marathon
A lot of us may not have grown up sitting around the fire with the family watching It’s a Wonderful Life. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t start forming some of these memories yourself right now.
Get some movies off Netflix, call some of the friends you’ve made in meetings or in your OC drug rehab, and enjoy a good time. It’s possible you might replace that old tradition of blacking out and forming a new one.
Volunteer/Community Service
We have awesome lives today, but many still have yet to receive the gift of sobriety or the same quality of life that we have been so fortunate to have.
There are many meetings and clubs that organize community service events like toy- or food drives, volunteer at soup kitchens, or otherwise be of service outside the rooms of recovery. The Book says we are to practice these principles in all of our affairs—not just with people in recovery.
We’ve taken from society for so long that it truly is the least we can do.
Above All Else
Remember that Christmas and New Year’s for addicts and alcoholics are really just days like any other. All we have is today, right now, in this moment. So long as we keep God and the Fellowship close, we stand a good shot at making it past this rough season. After all, you can’t get drunk or high if you don’t drink or use, so surrounding yourself with others in your position tends to make a lot of sense.