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Out and about

Happier Holidays with Club Soda Paying attention to where Out and about

The holiday season often brings a lot more invitations to social events – parties, dinners, work events, seeing this branch of the family, seeing that one, going here, going there in a whirl.

We can still use our plan, control or avoid tactics where we can, but there are inevitably some events we might not be able to avoid. And of course, you might not want to avoid them.

Avoid

Treating yourself with consent is really important here. If there’s a tricky event coming up, like the big Christmas Party where you know it’s going to be really difficult to stick to your drinking goals, you really can give yourself permission to avoid.

You may need coping strategies that work for you in your unique situation. Simply being honest about what you are trying to achieve works with many situations and people:

  • “I’d love to come, but I have decided to try this Christmas booze free”
  • “I have been alcohol-free most of the year and don’t want to give up now.”
  • “This is my first Christmas of doing this so I am happy to avoid temptation for a few weeks just to make it easier on myself. Can we make a plan to do something different?”

Depending on the situation or the person, honesty might not be enough to convince some people. So you could rehearse some plausible excuses and get-out clauses, even ‘white lies’ you can use to politely decline that particular invite or activity. Not everyone is comfortable with telling fibs, so think about what will work for you with the people and situations you have coming up.

Control

If you can’t avoid a situation completely, you will need to plan some strategies to help you control your choices and actions within that situation.

You probably won’t want to or be able to avoid a work event (although some people may decide avoidance is the safest option), but you know you will be offered drinks at regular intervals. So how could you control the situation?

Again, the simplest strategy is to be honest and tell people you are taking a booze break, or cutting down. That often works. “I am not going to stay all night but will be at the party for a while at the start.”

Or, depending on how understanding or supportive you think the people you will be with are, you might prefer to set up a plausible white lie in advance that neatly explains why you will be declining drinks at a particular situation or event that you can’t miss. This can help reduce the stress of being constantly badgered and questioned by other people all day. Feeling unwell or being on antibiotics are popular ones.

One way of controlling situations with people is to practice being more assertive about your needs and requirements. This is not easy, but does get easier with time. Imagine you had a serious nut allergy. You would have to constantly be explaining to people what foods you couldn’t eat, deal with their lack of understanding of the risk, and graciously but very firmly decline foods they had prepared. You couldn’t afford to just ‘give in’ – the consequences would be too great. Explaining to someone that you won’t be drinking tonight and why that is important to you should be a doddle compared to that.

If you are concerned about whether you will personally be able to resist a drink in situations you can’t avoid, one way of controlling the situation is to create a barrier to drinking. The main barrier is to drive, or even better, offer to drive other guests to and from the event. If other people are relying on you for a lift that can really help you avoid the temptation to drink.

You could also control how much time you spend in the situation – for instance arriving late and staying just for an hour, or long enough to circulate and say hi to people you need to see. If everyone else is drinking, they probably won’t notice or remember how long you were there.

Escape

Sometimes you feel confident that you can go into a situation and control it, but then it becomes more difficult to resist temptation. Perhaps people are not being supportive, or the temptation gets too strong, or maybe some internal issues are going on as well – you might feel more stressed than usual, are anxious meeting new people, or someone makes you angry. 

If this happens, just getting out of there might be the best solution to keep you on track.

Again, you might be in a situation and with people who you can be honest with, and can politely make your goodbyes and leave. Or if it’s a large crowd, it might be possible to duck out without anyone noticing what time you left.

Once more, it could be worth having a few excuses up your sleeve, in case you need them: “The babysitter has just called, I need to go home”; “I’m feeling a bit unwell”; “I’m up early for work”, “I need to get this bag of ice home before it melts” (!) etc.

Club Soda member Sam says hello and goodbye at the same time. Explaining she may have to slip off early, she thanks her hosts at the start for the party. That way, she can be polite and look after herself. 

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