Break From the Booze BEFORE the Holidays

November 23, 2023

Why is a break from booze before the holidays ideal timing? Sober Curator Allyson Sullivan, blogger of Shimmer & Shame, shares her story.

My sobriety date is November 28, 2021. That means my first month sober was the month of December. What happens in December? Christmas parties with friends. Christmas movies. Christmas cookies. ALL the Christmas activities with kids. Christmas cooking. Time off work. Downtime with family. All the games. All the music.

You know what goes with all those things? Wine. Beer. Christmas cocktails. Spiked hot chocolate. Holiday-inspired mimosas. Christmas-themed shots.

Some people may say that starting my sobriety journey in the most challenging month of the year was setting myself up for failure. I thought that at first, too. Starting this crazy journey at the most inconvenient time was actually the best thing I could have done for myself.

Reasons Why You Should Break with Booze Before the Holidays:

#1. You have the motivation, even if you don’t know it. 

If you’re like me, then the Christmas drinking season is just the grand finale of a messy, inebriated, and hangxiety-ridden fall season. With colder weather comes sweater season, red wine season, Halloween parties, college football Saturdays, NFL Sundays, mountain trips, hot tub season, tons of time cooking and baking, time with family, and Thanksgiving. By the time December rolls around and you’re putting your Christmas tree up, you’re likely already exhausted, sick of eating and drinking crap, and ready for a break. Whether you admit it or not, a fall full of shenanigans and feeling like hot garbage could be the best motivation to get you started on your attempt to stop drinking.

#2. It’s the ultimate confidence boost to start things off on a high note.

The absolute best thing you can do to get comfortable with something new is “put in the reps.” I love this phrase. The more times you lift that ten lb. dumbbell, the stronger you get. The same applies here. The more times you find yourself in a situation where you would typically drink, and you decide not to, the stronger you get and the easier it is to keep doing it. If I can make one single promise about your journey to stop drinking, it is that you will never EVER regret not drinking.

There will never be a single time you wake up in the morning and say, “I wish I would have drank last night.” I can 100% guarantee that. So, the more often you put yourself in a tricky situation to say no and follow through with it, the more you will have that incredible feeling of waking up without a hangover when you would typically have one. That’s a feeling I can’t even describe; you must experience it to understand. If you spend the entire first month of your sobriety practicing saying no and enjoying your life without alcohol, you will start the whole thing off with a BANG of “damn, look what I can do!” The Christmas season brings a hell of a lot more opportunity to say no than Jan, Feb, March: shit, any month of the year.

#3. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

If you make it through the holiday season without drinking, then what can’t you do? It’s the ultimate flex, honestly. And if you do this at the beginning of your journey, then any obstacles that come your way seem so small and easy in comparison. That first December was hard for me, I won’t lie. But I made it through. And then any obstacle that came up after that seemed so irrelevant. I can’t tell you how often I thought to myself (or said out loud to Korey), “If I can make it through Christmas without drinking, I can go out to dinner with my friends without having a glass of wine.” One night of drinking at a family wedding is nothing compared to everything you said no to during the holidays. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it, and if you can make it through, then you get to reflect on that time for the rest of the year, knowing that if you can climb Mount Everest, then surely you can make it through a chill hike with your friends.

#4. You get immediate proof that the highs of life are even higher when they’re not clouded by an alcohol haze.

I LOVE Christmas and everything about the holiday season. Even more so with kids. Everything is magical, happy, and joyful: the music, the lights, the movies, the experiences. Everything is happier in December. I used the “holiday high” as a reason or as an excuse to drink historically.

What goes better with Christmas music and baking cookies than a cranberry mimosa in your favorite Christmas-themed champagne flute? What goes better with your favorite Christmas blanket, cozy fireplace, and yearly watch of your favorite Christmas movie, “Love Actually,” than a glass of your favorite red blend in your Christmas-themed wine glass? What goes better with your trip on the “polar express” with your kids than a spiked hot chocolate? Here’s a spoiler – the answer to all those questions is “a peppermint latte, a hot cup of tea, and a regular fucking hot chocolate.”

The dead-ass truth that I am here to tell you is that all those things are better without alcohol. Alcohol SEEMS like it makes all of those experiences better, and that’s due to the incredibly genius marketing schemes that are soaked into our brains every day. But the actual truth is that alcohol makes all those experiences slightly less enjoyable. When your cookies are done baking, you are ready for your mid-morning mimosa nap and don’t have the energy to frost them.

You fall asleep before “Love Actually” is over, or you end up not watching it but instead just sending funny memes to your friends while sipping your wine. You lose patience with your kids on the Polar Express because they spill your spiked hot chocolate, and you don’t have enough airplane bottles to make another one.

These things seem like they’ll be better with alcohol added, but it’s all a myth. Spend the holidays without alcohol, and you can enjoy all the things you love more meaningfully from start to finish. Please trust me on this. Playing with my kids and their new toys on Christmas morning rather than telling them to play with their new toys upstairs while I sleep off my mimosa buzz was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my entire life, and I am not exaggerating.

#5. It’s an opportunity to jump-start your new year health and wellness resolutions.

Everyone knows that New Year’s resolutions are kind of a crock of shit, yet everyone still low-key has them. Even if you don’t write them down or announce them on social media, most people still have something in the back of their mind they want to work on in the new year. It’s a fresh start. Most people likely have resolutions related to health and fitness. I want to lose 10 lbs., or I want to go to the gym 3x per week, or I want to cut down on my meat intake. If you stop drinking in December and start the new year sober, you are far more likely to stick to those goals. 

Removing alcohol does not fix everything in your life, but it does provide:

  • The much-needed space

  • Clarity

  • Confidence to tackle things in your life

It will be much easier to lose that 10 lbs. if you’re not eating a Chicken Supreme Dinner from Bojangles with extra Honey Mustard every Saturday morning. You’ll have a much better chance of making it to the gym 3x per week if you get the sleep you need and aren’t dehydrated from drinking. You’re more likely to stick to your weekly meal plan if you skip out on the happy hour and the temptation of just picking up Chinese food for the family on the way home. Will ditching booze in December force you to stick to New Year’s resolutions? Definitely not. But it absolutely increases your chances and removes many of the barriers you may not even realize were there, to begin with; I can promise you that. You’re setting yourself up for success here.

Most people who have a desire to change their relationship with alcohol will wait until January to explore it. Why do you think “Dry January” is such a popular thing? It’s the ultimate way to detox after the holidays and start the year fresh. I am not hating on Dry January or anyone who participates at all – I think it’s awesome if anyone is taking any kind of break from booze to begin with. BUT this message is for anyone who is already sick and tired of their own bullshit and may want to flip the script. You don’t have to wait until the new year to make a big life change. In fact, you’re kind of a badass if you decide to do it now. Is it easy? Hell no. Is it worth it? Hell yes. 

There are so many positives to breaking up with the booze BEFORE the holidays and I hope this may give you the confidence or the whisper in your ear or the nudge in your back you may need to go for it. Also, if you decide to go for it, let me know! Always here to chat, coach, inspire, or complain to. For real no judgement, I promise.

If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources.

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