How Can I Not Drink over the Holidays – For Problem Drinkers

There is no optimum answer to “How Can I Not Drink over the Holidays”, particularly if you have a drinking problem or happen to know you suffer from alcoholism/alcohol addiction and haven’t addressed it as yet.

For anyone who is in the early stages of getting sober and having some success, exposing yourself to alcohol is not a desired situation because the exposure can set you up for a relapse even if you don’t drink that particular day or night. But no one wants to stay home from holiday events particularly where you are expected. In the early stages of sobriety sometimes just watching people drink alcohol can have you picking up a drink two weeks later. For a better explanation on how this works see Social Situations that Include Alcohol when I am Trying to Stop Drinking.

If you have a drinking problem and are still using, chances are you have been in situations where you drank too much and made a spectacle of yourself. We’ve all done it – it comes with the territory. If you have family functions or business functions you really want to attend or are obligated to attend then your options are pretty straight forward.

First, it is advisable to only go to the parties that are the most important and leave the rest. At whatever events you do attend it is walking on very thin ice to promise yourself you’ll only have one or two drinks and give that a try. Because if you are a problem drinker or addicted to alcohol you likely already know that once you have that first drink you are not going to be able to predict the outcome. And you don’t want to be that bad memory at the family or friend’s holiday gathering.

As far as business related functions are concerned, the estimated numbers for people who get fired for drunk behavior at work related holiday parties has hovered in the 400,000 plus range annually for some time in the U.S. alone.

So the only real practical option for an alcoholic or problem drinker attending a holiday event is you can keep a glass in your hand all night, but keep the alcohol out of it. Putting alcohol in your drink is rolling the dice and you could wake up or “come to” the next morning really wishing you hadn’t.

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