Staying Grounded: Recovery and Mental Health During the Holidays
By Jen Bennethum
When Joy Feels Dangerous
Sarah sits in her car outside her sister's house, watching relatives carry wrapped presents through the front door. Her hands shake slightly as she grips the steering wheel. This will be her first sober Christmas in twelve years, and her body remembers what December means – it means wine while cooking, champagne toasts, and that warm blur that made her mother's criticism dissolve into background noise. Her nervous system is already flooding with the familiar message: you can't do this without drinking.
Recovery during the holidays isn't just about willpower or avoiding triggers. It's about befriending a body that has learned to associate celebration with substances, a nervous system that believes joy itself is dangerous without chemical softening. When clients share their holiday fears, we're not just hearing about party anxiety – we're witnessing the profound grief of losing their most reliable coping mechanism during the season that demands the most coping.
"Trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you. Trauma is that scarring that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling." Dr. Gabor Maté
When we apply Dr. Mate’ quote to recovery, we understand that the nervous system doesn't distinguish between past and present threats – Sarah's body is responding to December as if she's still in danger, as if the only way to survive family gatherings is through the familiar numbing of alcohol.
The Body Keeps the Calendar
From a bottom-up therapy perspective, the challenge isn't primarily cognitive. Sarah knows all the reasons to stay sober. She has the phone numbers, the meeting schedule, the escape plan. But her body holds a different kind of memory – the muscle memory of pouring drinks while cooking turkey, the way her shoulders would finally drop after the second glass, how her chest would open enough to laugh at family jokes that weren't really funny.
These somatic memories activate automatically when December arrives. The smell of cinnamon, the sound of specific songs, the quality of winter light – all of these can trigger a cascade of body memories that whisper this is how we survive the holidays. A trauma-informed approach recognizes that these aren't weaknesses or failures of recovery. They're evidence of how brilliantly our bodies adapted to survive difficult seasons.
Creating New Traditions from the Ground Up
When working with clients navigating sober holidays, resist the urge to start with cognitive strategies. Instead, begin with the question: What does safety feel like in your body right now? For Sarah, safety might be the weight of her dog's head on her lap, the rhythm of her breath when she's walking, the specific temperature of tea that soothes without triggering wine memories.
Build new traditions from these felt senses of safety. Maybe Sarah discovers that kneading bread gives her hands something to do during family gatherings, grounding her in the present moment through texture and resistance. Perhaps she finds that stepping outside every hour to feel cold air on her face resets her nervous system when indoor gatherings become overwhelming. These aren't avoidance strategies – they're ways of teaching the body that it can find regulation without substances.
Honoring the Grief No One Talks About
There's a particular loneliness in early recovery during the holidays that deserves acknowledgment. It's not just missing alcohol – it's missing the version of yourself who could glide through family dinners, who had an easy answer to social anxiety, who knew how to perform the expected holiday cheer. Clients need to hear that grieving their drinking self is not a sign of weak recovery. It's a sign of honest recovery.
One client described it perfectly: "Everyone else is celebrating, and I'm holding a funeral for the person who knew how to celebrate." This grief is valid. The traditions that included substances were real traditions. The comfort found in drinking was real comfort, even if it came with devastating costs. Trauma-informed care makes space for this grief without rushing to silver linings.
When Family Systems Resist Change
Marcus realized something profound during his second sober Thanksgiving: his family was uncomfortable with his recovery. Not because they didn't support him, but because his sobriety held up a mirror to their own drinking patterns. His brother kept making jokes about being his "bartender," his mother anxiously offered him "just one glass" of wine, and his father grew quiet and distant without their usual bourbon bonding ritual.
Recovery disrupts family systems in ways we don't always anticipate. The person who was the "fun drunk" at gatherings leaves a role unfilled. The family member whose drinking made everyone else's seem moderate by comparison no longer provides that comfort. Therapists can help clients recognize that family discomfort with their recovery isn't personal – it's systemic. The family organism is adjusting to change, and resistance is part of that adjustment.
Relapse as Information, Not Failure
If relapse happens during the holidays, the trauma-informed response isn't shame or starting over at day one. It's curiosity about what the body was trying to communicate. Did the relapse happen after a specific family interaction? Was there a moment when the nervous system flooded beyond capacity? What was the body seeking – numbing, connection, escape, or something else entirely?
One client who relapsed on Christmas Eve discovered through somatic exploration that the relapse began not with the first drink, but hours earlier when her mother commented on her weight. Her body had begun the familiar dissociation pattern, and by evening, drinking felt like the only way back into her skin. This information became the foundation for deeper healing work around body image and maternal attachment, work that strengthened her recovery far more than shame ever could.
Moving Forward- Building a Recovery That Feels Like Living
The goal isn't to white-knuckle through holiday seasons, grimly checking off sober days. The goal is to build a recovery that feels more nourishing than drinking ever did. This might mean discovering that sober conversations with cousins are actually funnier than drunk ones. It might mean tasting food fully for the first time in years. It might mean being present enough to notice your nephew's joy at opening presents, a moment that would have been blurred before.
Recovery during the holidays is an invitation to discover what celebration feels like in a regulated nervous system. It's learning that joy doesn't require chemical enhancement – it requires presence. Real joy moves through a regulated body like music, touching every part without overwhelming the whole. It rises and falls naturally, leaving you tired but whole, rather than empty and ashamed. This is what the body learns in recovery: that it can hold celebration without breaking, that it can feel the full spectrum of holiday emotions – gratitude, grief, connection, loneliness – without needing to escape itself. The nervous system discovers its own capacity for expansion and contraction, for holding difficult moments and releasing into genuine laughter, for being fully alive to both the beauty and pain of being human during the holidays. Please feel free to reach out to us at Integrate Therapy and Wellness Collective with questions or for us to walk with you on your healing journey to wholeness.
