Is One Lost Holiday really too Much to Pay?

What were you doing on Christmas Day in 1998? What was your favorite gift that day? Where did you spend Thanksgiving in 2001? In most instances an immediate response or a flashback memory does not come quickly to our minds. The warmth and joy that the holiday season brings us is not usually the result of one particular holiday. It is often not just Christmas day or Thanksgiving day by themselves that accounts for the emotion that surrounds the holidays but it is instead the totality of the season. Several weeks strung together when people may be a little bit happier, a little bit more friendly, and take a little bit more time to let the people around us know how we feel.The warmth we garner from the holiday season comes not from one particular holiday but rather from an amalgamation of many memories over several years grouped together to create nostalgia.

So what does it mean if you are missing this particular holiday season because you are in rehab? Is it ample cause to jeopardize your recovery by dropping out of your treatment program so you can be "home" for the holidays?

Addicts for the most part are very adept at putting road blocks up on their path to recovery. They can come with all sorts of reasons why this particular attempt at recovery is going to fail. Missing a holiday should never be one of them. If by missing one holiday this year you have a better chance of being sober for all future holidays then clearly the price is not too great. Family holiday celebrations can sometimes be trying even under the best of circumstances. Now add the drama created by both an addict and his/her family when there is a disparate need to enter a treatment program. The emotion in the room can shift 180 degrees when the addict skips the holiday for treatment rather showing up for dinner "using". Is the difference between hope and hopelessness.

Also keep in mind that for most addicts they have already "missed" many holidays even when they are home. As a result of using or drinking too much they have done everything but create an album of fond holiday memories for themselves or their family.

So here is your chance to start over. To get ready to start a new mental and emotional scrapbook of holidays to come by getting sober now. If the price for that to happen is one missed holiday then there couldn't be a better bargain around.