Boxing Day - The True Start of Holidays

Why a sober Christmas is f*cking hard.

It’s Boxing Day.

I wasn’t going to write anything this week, but I felt like I needed to write this one.

I’ve been a grumpy bastard around the house the last few days, and I owe it to my family to snap the fuck out of it.

I woke up feeling the most incredible sense of relief. As though a physical weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about drinking over the last fortnight or so.

All my adult life, I’ve had anxiety between the final day of work for the year and Boxing Day. I don’t know why.

I’ve always kind of felt like the holidays don’t truly start until Boxing Day.

It’s like the period from the last day of work is some kind of anxiety-plagued holding pattern where you’re just kind of aimlessly existing. You can’t do too much because you have obligations around Christmas.

I’ve always struggled to do nothing. Even intentionally. I don’t even know if it’s a fear of sitting with certain thoughts and feelings or just that I hate wasting time and, as someone with ADHD, seek constant stimulation.

In the past, I would fill this void by going an almighty cocaine and alcohol-fuelled bender on the last day of work. It might go for two or three days and cost me a lot of my money and even more of my integrity.

Even before drugs were a big problem, I would drink my way through this period because I couldn’t wait to get this period over with, where I felt an obligation to do “dumb family stuff” so I could take off with some friends somewhere and waste the rest of my holidays away.

Then, I could spend the rest of the time until Christmas curled up on the lounge, fading in and counting consciousness, briefly waking up to gorge on more takeaway or junk food with the occasional trip to the toilet.

Like almost all Australians, I drank my way through Christmas Day. It was one of the only days of the year when I would feel absolutely no shame about drinking before 9 am. It’s just what was done.

In more recent years, I would be secretly high on cocaine at family Christmas events. When it came to lunch to dinner, I would either have to come up with some excuse as to why I wasn’t hungry or force myself to eat something. I reckon I chewed everything four times more than I needed to.

The drinking before 9 am thing I can let slide. Not so much the bumps of cocaine off my house key in the bathroom of my parent’s house at 10 am at a family Christmas. I’d use the flush of the toilet to disguise the sound of my snorting back the coke. I still carry a lot of shame around doing that kind of shit.

I’ve really struggled this Christmas. All the typical thoughts. “Why can’t I drink?” “I’ve done the work now. There’s no way I would end up back like I was.” “Are you really going to spend your whole life being this boring, never enjoying anything?”.

I don’t know why this Christmas has been so much harder than the last. Naively, I thought that the experience of last Christmas would’ve helped me cruise through this Christmas unscathed. But I was wrong.

None of these thoughts were about trying to enhance the time I spent with family or friends. It comes from a place of escapism. When I have these thoughts about drinking, “it” is trying to convince me that this is what people do at Christmas. We kick back, relax, and enjoy ourselves with family and friends. A few drinks in good company, some reminiscing and time spent together where everyone can truly be themselves without the stressors of regular life impacting them.

The problem with “it’s” tactic was this wasn’t how I wanted to drink. If I were to drink, it would have been alone, quietly. “It” was trying to convince me to break by using the enhancing social experiences angle. That’s how I know it wasn’t an actual conscious decision. It was a demon trying to throw me a curveball. A lot like when those pricks call you from an overseas call centre offering you a better deal on your electricity.

This Christmas, we intentionally had fewer plans than last. My partner returned to work from maternity leave this year. I’ve taken a promotion with increased responsibility. We identified that we were feeling more burned out this year than last and planned accordingly.

With no obligation to be anywhere, on any day or at any time, we wanted to spend a day or two getting the house in order and doing some activities with our son. My partner only has one week off work. So this is the only week the three of us will have together until we go away in August. Of course, the weather has been dog shit pretty much the entire time so far. I caught myself being ungrateful about the weather the other day and reminded myself that a little bit of rain and wind is much more desirable than what the people of our community lived through just four years ago…

Look, Christmas or the New Year holiday period is fucking amazing, particularly in Australia. It’s summer. The days are long, and we are fortunate enough to have good weather for a long time to squeeze so much into our days.

But they can be equally challenging as amazing for some of us.

It’s by far one of the most challenging times of the year for people in sobriety/recovery.

We have a strong drinking culture around Christmas.

In sobriety, we become so dependent on routine and structure. Holidays for us are like pulling the rug out from underneath us. We can only be so prepared even when we know it’s coming.

I know there’s something I’m not dealing with because, along with the thoughts of drinking, I spent Christmas Eve mindlessly wandering back and forth from the kitchen, snacking on junk food, something I know I do when I’m anxious or avoiding difficult thoughts. I don’t feel like I have the energy to confront any of those thoughts at the moment. I need a holiday from them too.

Anyway, this is not a pity party. I don’t hate Christmas. I had the most amazing morning with my little family yesterday. For some of us, some of the things we associate with Christmas are tough.

Ultimately, I made it through my second Christmas sober. It is an achievement in itself worth celebrating. The madness of Christmas is over, the sun has come out from behind the rain cloud, my partner isn’t returning to work for another week, and Boxing Day, the actual start of the holidays, is here.

No more Christmas stress, no more obligation.

Thanks for listening.

Cheers Wankers.

X.

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Through a few different recent life events, I have been exposed to just how powerful community and connection to community can be.

That’s why I have decided to start the Sobering Thoughts WhatsApp Group.

This is not an exclusive group for sober people. This is a group for the sober curious, for people who have loved ones struggling with addiction/sobriety, people struggling with addictions to things other than drugs and alcohol, and, of course, for people in sobriety.

If you struggle to get up to meetings like me, this might be a gentler way to break the ice and ease into a community of people who could help change your life.

So what are you waiting for? Lets goooooo!

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Make sure you check out my Writing 4 Resilience friends. They’re all legends.

Running for Resilience Ben Alexander Brent Ford Running Rare The Milkbar Reflections of a Clare Bear

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