Holidays~3 fold disease

[Celebration1994]

A Threefold Disease
It has often been noted wryly that alcoholism is a threefold disease: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. The holidays can be a minefield of emotions, both good and bad, and many of us struggle with family and relationship issues that are brought into sharp focus at this time of year. But sobriety can bring a different perspective, so long as we remember our primary purpose: to stay sober and help another alcoholic. With this simple goal in mind, we’ve found that it’s possible to enjoy this time of year whether we spend time with our families or not. Sometimes the best we can do is to stay in close contact with our recovering friends and community; and this, we have found, can be more than enough to make it through the holiday season safely.

[letgo]

Excellent and so true. We have a saying here (No Thanksgiving) that Christmas is just another day with tinsel. Well I suppose it can be, if we remember our primary purpose as you say. For many though, the holidays are a tough time, maybe because of how we used to celebrate them or maybe because they bring up a lot of difficult emotions. That's when all of us need to be extra vigilant about our Recovery.

[DryDaveC]

Thanks for that. I distinctly remember back in my military days, I was stationed in Maryland. When Thanksgiving would come around, I drank more than usual. Shipmates were going home in shifts for the holidays which made it worse. Lack of companionship and lonliness are two huge enemies to the alcoholic, and I always had both when that time of year came along.