The Holidays can be tough for some of us. We have this ideal of what the season should be marketed to us from Hollywood and Madison Avenue. When it doesn’t measure up to this illusion, we get disappointed. We feel as if we are somehow deficient, because what we feel, doesn’t match what we “should” feel.
We go to the office parties, and there’s pressure to join in with the drinking, and because we’re trying not to, not only are we judged, but we question ourselves.
In a season of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward all”, we read the news. “If it bleeds it leads” doesn’t take a break this time of year. We forget that it’s newsworthy because it’s out of the ordinary, and the constant drumbeat of negativity gives us the idea that the world is falling apart.
All this can make us want to use, or drink, or get nasty with eachother, or withdraw, or spend money we dont have, on things we don’t need, to impress people who don’t matter. It can make us want to eat everything in sight.
And then we head into a New Year. We only think of the bad from the previous year, and approach the New Year with an unrealistic optimism only exceeded by unrealistic goals.
Inoculate yourself from this nonsense. Turn off the news. Turn away from negative people, be they in social media, or right in front of you. Hug your loved ones daily. Focus on the giving part of the season, and forget about the receiving. Have compassion for those who are drinking their way through these next two weeks, but understand that they are lemmings caught in the inexorable drive toward the cliffs edge. You say “no” to the drink that matters…the first drink, and you do it every time it appears in front of you.
Do this, and your sobriety remains intact. You wake up on NYD with a clear perspective. You decided to be better, and you are better. You know your strength. You’ve been tested and won.
You are prepared for another year of getting better at getting better, each and every day.
