You're listening to season six of the Recovery Happy Hour podcast.

Are you ready? Hold on to your headphones.

Let's do this. Hi everyone. Welcome to Recovery Happy Hour where we talk about life

beyond the bottle and what happens after we stop drinking. I'm your host

Tricia and my favorite holiday movie is

Gremlins. Thank you for joining me today. This episode will air on

November 24th, which is just two days before Thanksgiving.

So I think it's time to start talking about your plan to stay alcohol-free over the holidays.

Over the next two episodes, I'm going to go over your alcohol-free survival guide.

We're going to talk tips, tricks, things to think about and plan for and everything you need to pump you up for this season,

which you're absolutely capable of without drinking.

I'm going to divide this list up into two episode introductions because I want to talk about

some more of the basic holiday tips, but I'm also going to go over the more emotional parts of recovery.

You know, things like what to do when our family starts to trigger us.

It's a lot, so let's dive right into it.

First and foremost, guess what you guys?

We're still in the middle of this pandemic.

And that means when it comes to holiday parties,

there's not very many of them this year. Your office party might not be happening.

Your family parties might be smaller versions of themselves. The large group

restrictions of COVID safety are really going to work in your favor this year as far as staying sober.

I quit drinking in the middle of November four years ago, so it was right before the holiday season started,

...