A Queer’s Guide to Staying Sober during the Holidays

Guest author Mary Bowers is a writer and graphic designer living in Chicago with her wife and two kids. She stopped drinking in October of 2002 and knows exactly what it’s like to confront the wall of holiday booze. You can read other stuff she’s written at here.

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PHOTO CREDIT: VILLAGEQ

Ah, the holidays – the season of hype, nostalgia, disappointment, expectations, guilt, comparison, and brotherly love. Possibly the most difficult time of year to stay sober. Your homophobic uncle lurks around, blasting fags one second, running his hand up your thigh the next. Your brother-in-law tells your son not to be a pussy. Your mom wonders if your friend might be going to see her own family this year?

Co-workers sip champagne at the office holiday party, cheeks ruddy, skin glowing like a crackling fire, easily flirting that will surely lead to satisfying sex, right after their sled ride home under fat snowflakes plopping on their eager lips. Maybe they would try getting sober before the romantic by watching some erotic content (like the steamy hot videos at Porno 71) and taking a shower.

Meanwhile, without our usual drink to soften the edges, our sweater pinches, fluorescent light magnifies the zits spread across our mouth like tiny marshmallows, our voice squeaks, we smell like fear and the HVAC’s roaring in our ears like the hot panting breath of a wolf.

You can stay sober through this season of endless parties. You can even thrive and emerge into the New Year a happier, more generous and fulfilled version of yourself!

All it takes is a few (dozen) simple tips.

Balashikha Avoid HALTs

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired: the four horseman of relapse. Don’t go anywhere hungry, not even to dinner parties. Food might not be served for hours after your arrival, especially if the host realizes at 9 p.m. that she never turned on the oven in which the turkey is sitting. Maintain your body’s homeostasis; eat three meals a day, sleep eight hours and wear a coat and hat if it’s cold.

Set Boundaries

Determine in advance how long to stay at an event. Work this out with any person(s) you’re attending with. If the time is awkwardly short, let the host know in advance so that you don’t have to make a sneaky, embarrassed escape out the bathroom window. You’re an adult. You don’t need a reason or excuse to leave so don’t worry if people say, “What? Leaving already?”

Get a Buddy

Don’t isolate. Reach out for help. Appoint a sympathetic/sober friend to be on call. Bookend stressful events with calls to your buddy. If you’re triggered during the event, step outside and call your buddy. Be a buddy for someone else.

Create Games

Set specific goals for an event. Some examples: talk to three people, ask four people four questions each, introduce yourself to everyone wearing blue, reach out to the person in the room more awkward than you. Specific tasks distract your mind from its unrealistic ideal of successful mingling.

Help Out

Those who can, mingle. Those who can’t, wash dishes. If you can’t manage small talk but want to remain part of the event, making yourself useful is a win-win. Wash dishes, take out the trash, help the little kids or arthritic people cut their food, clear the table, fill the dishwasher, take coats, wipe up spills.

Sit By the Drunk

Find the loudest, most clueless drunk and park yourself for the best views of him/her barking, braying, dominating the conversation, devouring the crab dip, spilling, tripping, and stumbling into furniture. Your own sobriety will feel so sweet. If you can’t abide the shower of boozy spittle from your favorite drunk, sit with another teetotaler.

Warning!

Avoid moderate drinkers lest you become obsessed with their barely-sipped glass of Chardonnay and when they’re gonna finish the damn thing already, and why they are letting top-shelf booze go to waste, and what the hell is wrong with them in general. You’ll get jealous and glare bitterly. They’ll wonder if you’re a psychopath.

Be Detached

People acting poorly at the party? Political argument break out? Drunk aunt got you cornered you in the laundry room ranting that no one knows the difference between occupational and physical therapy? If you’re a writer, it’s great material. Observe. Listen. Take notes.

It’s OK To Leave

To you, they’re emerald eyeballs of Sirens luring you to relapse. To everybody else, they’re bottles of beer. If the booze is sucking you in, by all means – make a quick exit. If possible, say goodbye and thank you to the host. You’ll feel much better about yourself in the morning if you don’t just flee.

Take Care of Yourself

Create rewards for surviving particularly stressful events: a fancy skin scrub, a tin of Illy, facial, massage, lipstick, ice cream cone. Alcohol is full of sugar, so you’ll be craving it if you’ve recently stopped drinking,. Carry chocolate to eat when you desire alcohol. Hit the gym, go for a walk, pick up an extra yoga class.

Escape

When the champagne fountains and pervy relatives overwhelm you, check out for a while. Binge-watch Queer as Folk, overdose on Temple Run, masturbate (perhaps by visiting live freecams porn website), sleep, eat Cheetos, sleep more, read mysteries, trashy magazines, and gossip columns.

Be Kind

Create a whole new way of being during the holidays. Hold doors and elevators, punch floor buttons, let cars cut in front you, assist at the Ventra machine, give directions, give up your seat, offer quarters to people digging under their floor mats at a parking meter, wave the person with two items ahead of you at the checkout, offer rides, shovel the neighbor’s walk.

Be Creative

Give yourself the gift of a date. Forgo presents with your partner and use that money to hire babysitters if you need to or trade a babysitting evening with your neighbors. Throw a sober party. Make your own festive drinks: grapefruit Izze, Pom mixed with sparkling water, booze-less eggnog, mulled cider.

Volunteer

Focus on what you do have, not what you don’t. Be a secret Santa for a local family, volunteer at a soup kitchen, deliver Thanksgiving turkeys. Donate clothes, food, money, toys. Bring communion to those who are homebound. Give to Smile Train or Women for Afghan Women or any cause that touches you. Visit hospitals and nursing homes. Bring your kids along and explain the realities other families face.

Get Spiritual

Pray. Meditate. Journal. Tithe. Breathe. Attend temple, synagogue, church, mosque, favorite place of worship. Read spiritual books. Don’t know any? Try The Power of Now, When Things Fall Apart, Like A Thousand Suns. Each morning, list the things you’re grateful for.

Take on Projects

Use the time you would have spent passed out to paint the bathroom, organize your bills, put in the storm windows. Scrubbing the toilet is a great distraction! Gather up your kid’s overgrown clothes and donate them to a resale shop. Complete projects that create satisfaction. Set realistic goals and follow up with rewards.

Read

Let your mind be blown with great writing and ideas. Read fiction and nonfiction. Find out how other people live. My suggestions: The Shipping News, Beloved, A Fine Balance, A Man Without A Country, God Is Not Great, The White Tiger, Reading Like A Writer, Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, Murder City, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Diary of a Young Girl, Devil in the White City.

Seek Appropriate Help

If you struggle with your desire to stop drinking, attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, find a therapist, put yourself in a treatment program, research alcoholism, read recovery literature.

Hang in there! You’re giving yourself the most precious gift: the gift of yourself. It gets easier. No matter how desperate you may feel in the moment: this too shall pass. As it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness… We will comprehend the word serenity …That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. ”

It’s true! Happy Holidays!

BIO PHOTO CREDIT: MARY BOWERS