How to Avoid Holiday Drinking Triggers

At Banyan Detox Boca Raton, we understand how challenging triggers can be when it comes to maintaining your sobriety. If you’ve recently completed alcohol detox in Boca Raton and you’re looking to stay sober over the holidays, it’s important that you avoid drinking triggers. Holiday sobriety can be difficult, especially if you’ve just recently gotten sober. However, you can get and stay sober for the holidays and beyond. Below are tips from our treatment professionals.

Holiday Sobriety Tips – How to Avoid Triggers

A trigger can be anything- whether it’s a person, a place, a song, or even a smell, that entices cravings or temptation to drink or use again. Triggers leave a person susceptible to relapse, and they must be understood if you’re to stay sober over the holidays. Usually, triggers remind a person of when they were using or drinking. Triggers can also be new, challenging situations, such as tense family issues or holiday stress. You can avoid holiday drinking triggers by:

• Knowing your limits. Know when too much stress or social interaction will drain you. You need to stay in tune with yourself to understand when you should remove yourself from a situation.
• Avoiding certain situations. While total avoidance of all situations is not ideal for your holiday fun, you do need to know which situations are simply too much to handle. Avoid these situations at all costs.
• Teaming up with a friend. Find someone you trust who you can bring into potentially triggering situations, such as holiday parties or events. When you have a friend you trust with you, you’ll feel safer at holiday events.
• Developing an exit plan. You should always have a polite yet effective exit strategy for holiday gatherings or other potentially triggering situations. It can be something as simple as having to leave because the babysitter had an emergency, or saying you have a stomach ache. Removing yourself from tough situations will help you stay sober for the holidays.

We hope these holiday sobriety tips will make it easier for you to avoid triggers often associated with the holiday season. Contact our drug and alcohol treatment center in Boca at 888-280-4763 for more holiday sobriety tips.