How to feel more grounded and less triggered this season.
I’ve been thinking lately about the holidays and how hard they can be for people, especially those trying to navigate them alcohol-free. I’ve been alcohol-free for 26 years, and as a therapist I’ve spent a large portion of my career helping people through exactly this.
Throughout the holidays there is the wondering about why there’s sparkling water in your hand instead of a glass of wine, the drinks being put in your hand automatically, and the questions we don’t feel like answering. The answers are never enough for people anyway.
Isolation and loneliness can affect us on a significant level. Not long ago, in 2020, we were all quite isolated and were detached from community, and that has had a lasting effects on most, if not all of us. When we’re isolated, our nervous system, our brain, and our bodies see it as a threat. This can turn on a stress response/ alarm response and keep it running until we’re reconnected. Our brains are still primitively programmed, so when it reads anything from it’s memory banks or primitive signaling, anything that threatens our well-being is it read as potential death. This creates a chain of reactions to ensure survival. Fight- think anger, frustration, impatience, brain fog; Flight- anxiety, worry, staying busy, avoidance; Freeze- can be depression, lethargy, brain fog. these are only a few of the symptoms that can be contributed to the alarm response.
Back in the day, living without refrigerators or running water, being out of community was dangerous. We needed each other to function. Somebody would hunt, somebody would gather, somebody would raise the kids, somebody would get water, somebody would mend the thatched roofs, somebody would watch for wild animals and other threats. Community was the only way we survived, and somehow we’ve evolved into living completely separate. We no longer live in connected families. I grew up in Chicago, where many of the buildings were three-flats and each apartment held a generation. Kids were supported, elders were supported, and everybody did it together. We don’t do that anymore and about brains are still wired to need this. We are wired to need this.
Holidays can remind us positives and negatives. It can remind us that we are not as connected as we prefer, or bring up fear about those we may “have” to spend time with. It may even shine a light on the fact that maybe we don’t have a place to belong. Sometimes we don’t have family left, or we don’t get along with them. Sometimes we live far from them, or have made a new home elsewhere. Those moments of disconnection can increase anxiety and the stress response, and that has an impact on our physical health. It suppresses the immune system. It’s emotional too: feeling sad, disconnected, or lonely can drive depression, anxiety, and fear. There’s the fear that no one is there for us, or that we’ll go somewhere and be forced to answer questions we don’t want to answer, eat things we don’t want to eat, or be around people we don’t want to be around. Those are situations that could make us think it would feel easier with a drink in hand… A craving could even cause us to take action and drink.
If you’re trying to get through the holidays with less alcohol or none, you’re working against a habit, a nervous system programmed reaction and the brain’s way of dealing with stressors. It can be complex but with the right tools solvable. Alcohol can be a coping mechanism, and the craving can be triggered when the stress response goes up and the nervous system determines a threat. That’s fight, flight, or freeze. When we don’t feel connected or safe, and these aren’t necessarily conscious thoughts, that’s simply how the brain interprets the situation. When the brain decides we’re not okay, it does things to cope. It’s also very good at remembering what helped in a moment of fear or stress.
Say we’re out, we feel socially awkward, or we’re around a family member who drives us crazy or makes us feel less than. We take a drink, or smoke something, and it does something biochemically that numbs us and truns down the threat perception. The brain sees that as relief from the stressor/ danger. It makes a note: “do this next time”, because it worked. It took the stress response down and made us feel safer. Again, none of this is conscious. So when we’re triggered or feel a craving, it’s often something stored in the brain and the nervous system.
One way out is creating new behaviors and interrupting the pattern. Picture a river rolling down a hillside that has carved a deep crevice, like a Grand Canyon. That’s the behavior we have done for a long time. It is literally a neural-pathway, which means it is programmed in there. A craving, where we end up drinking, is part of what drives this “habit” down the river. It is automatic. To create a new response we need to divert the water into a new path. But this path isn’t established so it is difficult to divert the water at first. We “put a rock” in that channel and veer the water to the other side. The more we do this different pattern, this diversion, the more the water runs through the new path and carves its own canyon. This then becomes a new path/habit/response. To be clear, when I say habit, I am referring to the brain pattern of habituation.
There are two parts to this, recognition of triggers and responses then the rewiring and rerouting of the river of the reaction(s).
In order to reduce what triggers us: the activations, the people, the thoughts, the belief systems, the brains sensitivity and memory, we start by noticing triggers and reactions. Noticing when activation happens in the body and nervous system, and working with settling it down. It doesn’t mean forcing calm. It means speaking to the brain the way IT understands, with an intervention that helps the nervous system come out of the stress response, the reactive piece, the craving, the anger, the urge to jump in the car and leave. There are many ways to do that: physically, through guided imagery, emotionally, nervous system literacy, therapy. These are all tools you can develop.
The more we practice these tools, the better we get at recognizing activation as it happens and interrupt it in real time, before it leads to a behavior or reaction we don’t want. This redirects the river.
This isn’t about making the world change to suit us, because that’s disempowering. You can tell everyone to tiptoe around you, which isn’t fair to them either. It also doesn’t mean you skip setting boundaries around inappropriate things. What I’m saying is that if you work on what’s going on inside you, on what triggers you, you gain power in the world. You can’t control others. They may not listen. They may put broccoli on your plate when you don’t want it. But how you react is up to you.
So think about how to approach this season: whatever triggers you, upsets you, or feels uncomfortable. Build that resilience within, so you’re not thrown off track, ending up more isolated because you can’t be around certain people, or angry, or running, or drinking or using to numb what’s going on. Work with the nervous system and support it to be less reactionary.
A tool to try: orienting
One of the tools I’m a fan of starts with learning your own triggers. What does activation feel like for you? If a craving comes on, what was going on right before it? When you walk into a group of people, what do you notice in your body? What thoughts are running through your head? What emotions come up? What story are you telling yourself about the situation, about yourself? Once you know that, you can intervene there and set yourself up for success with the tools including; nervous system work, brain rewiring, imagery, affirmations, breath, and grounding.
One grounding technique I love is orienting. I learned it through my somatic experiencing training, a three to four year program on working with the body to help people come out of and recover from trauma, accidents, medical trauma, and to deal with the things that trigger them in life. It’s also good for cravings. Here’s how it works.
Take a scan of your body. Does it feel tense? Relaxed? Where do you notice it? If you don’t feel your body, that’s information too. Move from the top of your head, down your face and neck, into your shoulders and chest, down your arms, through your belly, glutes, and thighs, all the way down to your knees, calves, and feet. You’re just noticing your current state. Where is there tension? And where is there not tension? What do you notice?
Now think of something from this week that wasn’t ideal, a mild trigger. Keep it around a 5 out of 10, not a 10 right now. Notice what emotion comes up, and whether you see any images. Scan your body again from head to toe. What changed when you thought about that situation? Spend a little time tracking that shift. That’s the difference between where you started and where you are after bringing up something stressful. Notice any changes?
Next, orient. Look around the space you’re in. As you do, track your body and notice a downshift. It might be a deep breath, a spontaneous yawn, or a softening in your glutes, shoulders, or jaw. It doesn’t matter what caused it. We’re letting your brain decide what makes it feel better, shifting out of a stress response and into a more parasympathetic one. Let your eyes wander. When you get that breath, stay with it. It might have been the direction you were looking, or a particular object. Deepen your breath a little. Inhale, and exhale. Keep your attention there for a moment and notice whether anything else shifts, an emotion or a memory. When you’re ready, come out of it.
Orienting isn’t about counting five items or naming five things you can taste, though you can absolutely do that. Here, we let the brain decide what feels safe as it looks around your space, and when it finds that, it downshifts. It’s one of my favorite practices. Do it about three times a day and you’ll build a tool you can reach for when you need it.
You don’t have to do this alone
One of the things I find most helpful is being in a community of people who truly get it. People going through similar things, trying to do similar things, who can help along the way. That’s why I think support groups can be amazing. I believe in them so highly that I am part of several, for different situations in life.
As a therapist, I’ve run groups of many kinds over the years. The ones that are timely to what we’re going through seem to be the most helpful. You’re preparing for something, living through it, and seeing how you react and respond in real time. Then you can make a plan for what’s likely to happen, look at how you did, and refine it.
This holiday season, I’m running a group called Done. It’s a support group for people who want to navigate the holidays a little differently, with no alcohol or less of it, alongside others doing the same. We talk about what’s coming up, make a plan for it, and discuss what it was like in the moment. It’s a place where other people understand. I’m there to support you and to teach tools like regulation and grounding, certain kinds of breath work, and attachment-related patterns that explain why some relationships are so triggering, so that those dynamics don’t knock you off course.
I love running these groups. I’ve spent the last 26 years alcohol-free during the holidays, and every day, and I did it by learning more about myself and being part of a community of people who got it and didn’t pressure me in the moments I was trying to stay the course.
If you’re interested, you can check out the group here: [link to Done]. I run these a couple of times a year, and right now I’m running one specifically for the holidays.
