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“It is hard to say no when you’re supposed to be in this festive environment.”
Recovering addicts Melissa Rice and Jade Wye present BBC Radio 5 Live’s Hooked podcast, and in the latest episode, they discuss what the festive season was like before rehab, and what it’s like now they’re in recovery.
Christmas past
For Melissa, Christmas Eve was always the big night, her “favourite going out night of the year”.
In Kirkby, on Merseyside, there’s a pub crawl known locally as the “Kirkby mile”, and Melissa says this is where she went every Christmas Eve from the ages of 17 to 29.
“Not once did it go through my head that actually the next day I need to be present, need to be with my family. It was all about Christmas Eve, being seen.
“I’m an alcoholic, my whole drinking is excess, and when everyone is on that same wavelength as you for one night of the year, you’re like, ‘Yes, I’ve arrived, we’re all like me tonight.’
“Every Christmas Day there was the same rigmarole, ‘You’ve done it again’, but I didn’t care.”
Jade is in recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol. She says Christmas Day was often “a complete write-off… trying to eat a Christmas dinner and it tasting like a cardboard box”.
She remembers promising her younger sister that they’d put the Christmas tree up together, and then getting “obliterated” with her friend all day.
“Getting home and seeing her little face, I was too drunk to put the Christmas tree up, and it was sad, it’s really sad,” she says.
Christmas in treatment
“Christmas is about family,” Melissa says, “but sometimes it can feel, especially in recovery, that Christmas is only about drink, and I find that quite challenging at times.”
After getting help for their addiction, both Melissa and Jade were in treatment over Christmas.
Jade says it was hard for her family:
“I remember my sister driving away from the treatment centre crying and saying she didn’t want to leave me saying, ‘[Jade] just loves Christmas so much’.”
For Melissa, being in treatment on Christmas Day was “really tough”.
“I told my family, ‘Don’t bring me any Christmas presents,’ because I wouldn’t want anybody to not have them to open, and then on Christmas Day I was the only one who didn’t have anything to open.”
And she says Christmas can make her feel like a fraud because she’s not as happy as everyone else seems to be.
“I am doing what I should be doing because it’s Christmas – it makes me feel quite lonely… it can get on top of me, that pressure and that lack of happiness.”
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Melissa Rice
Melissa and Jade are now both in recovery, and hoping to enjoy a sober Christmas
Christmas present
Michael Rawlinson is a treatment consultant at Clouds House, a residential treatment centre for Action on Addiction, and has worked with both Melissa and Jade.
He says people in recovery “need to be cautious” at Christmas – because the number one relapse danger is being in the presence of alcohol or drugs.
“It’s about keeping yourself safe”, Michael says, “if you’re in recovery from active addition, you need to be ready and prepared.
“Take responsibility for the environment you’re going into, and treasure that recovery you’ve fought so hard to get.”
It’s something Melissa and Jade are very aware of.
“There is booze everywhere,” Melissa says, “it’s important for us to acknowledge that Christmas can be a triggering time emotionally and also quite triggering in recovery… you only have to turn the telly on to see just how much drink is advertised and linked to Christmas.”
Even alcohol in food causes difficulties “I can’t even buy a mince pie without having to check the ingredients,” Jade says, “all the Christmas cards are focused around especially gin at the moment – that’s the fashionable drink”.
Treatment consultant Michael Rawlinson says people in recovery need to be “cautious” at Christmas
Jade says throughout her recovery she’s been determined to do the things she wants, so go to parties, hang out with friends. And she says the last few weeks have been difficult: “Lately I have been going to different things with friends who drink, and a couple of days ago, it just came into my head, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to use [drugs] or to have a drink?’
“It wouldn’t be nice at all, it would be an absolute [disaster] and that’s just worth me noting, because I’ve been spending a lot of time around [alcohol].”
“Christmas today, in recovery,” says Melissa, “is 100 times better than it would have been. That’s a gift in itself that everybody around me feels settled, isn’t anxious, isn’t worrying.”
And Melissa says being sober has helped her to enjoy simple pleasures: “I have a nephew, did I like watching him opening his presents? I don’t know. Now I do.”
Michael Rawlinson says an increase in social gatherings, office parties and family tensions can be a risk, “but at the same time Christmas is a wonderful time. And if you’re sober and clean during that period it’s really joyful.”
Michael’s top three tips for keeping safe at Christmas if you’re in recovery from addiction:
1. Be prepared – when you go out to social or work occasions, make a list in your mind about what you need to do to keep yourself safe. Find out where it is, what the structure is, so that when you arrive you know what contribution you’re going to make. Don’t go to an event and become a “victim” of that event. If you have structure you will feel more confident and more safe.
2. Make sure your 12-step network knows what you are doing, keep connected to those people who care about you, who are fond of you so that you can share with them and ask for help.
3. Don’t isolate yourself. Christmas is a fun time but can also be very scary – don’t isolate yourself off from your networks and friends.
If you’re concerned about addiction, BBC Action Line has help and support.
The latest episode of Hooked is now available on BBC Sounds.
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