4 Easy Tips For New Years Eve

Love Over Addiction

Michelle Anderson

Society & Culture, Wifeofanalcoholic, Codependency, Relationships, Recovery, Alanon

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2017

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

New Year's Eve is a night of the year that painfully reminds us of the unique relationship of loving someone who drinks too much or has substance abuse issues.

Here are four tips that will help make this holiday a little easier:

Be kind and compassionate with yourself.

Don’t worry if other people are judging you because of your partner’s disease. You are a beautifully created, loving woman. Your self-worth needs to come from God, not your friends or family members. Don’t compare your normal with other people’s normal. They may not be in love with someone suffering from this disease, but I promise you that their partner is not perfect either.

Walk away.

It might be a good idea if you need to leave the room or leave the party – with or without them. Or, choose to skip the party have a cozy evening in with a great book or your favorite movie and some popcorn. Bottom line: create some distance between you and this disease if you need to.

Do not own their embarrassing behavior.

Do not apologize for your partner’s actions and bad behavior. He or she is an adult who needs to make their own apologies. If they are slurring, being inappropriate, or rude, don’t make excuses for them. Let the bottom fall out. It might be the best thing that ever happened to them.

Do not lecture them the next morning.

You don’t need to remind them of their awful choices. He or she already knows. Yelling or giving the silent treatment the morning after will just make them resent you and make you feel guilty.

You are dignified and courageous. You can and will speak with kindness and strength. And if you feel like you just can’t control yourself - leave for an hour or two or make yourself busy with something that brings you joy.

It’s okay to let them know if they ask how they behaved the night before. But no amount of shaming or trying to convince them how bad they were will change anything. They know there’s a problem - they are just not willing to do anything about it yet.

I know these are difficult steps, but I believe that you can do it! You are not alone and I am here cheering you on! Don’t let this disease bring you down. You deserve a fun New Year's Eve - if they are sober or not.

If you haven’t joined us in one of our programs and you want to find answers, hope, and happiness, what are you waiting for? Click here to check out the details. Our programs are offered for just $25 a month. If they are spending money on their bad habits, making an investment in your family's future is a better choice, don’t you think?

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the us of the night of the year that painfully reminds us of the unique relationship of loving
0:26.0	someone who drinks too much or has substance abuse issues.
0:31.0	So I've put together a list of four helpful tips just for us women who love someone
0:38.8	that's suffering from this disease. Now I know that most people in our communities are probably super
0:46.1	excited for New Year's Year, right? Just like most people are excited for
0:50.3	weekends. But I know for me every time that Friday was close by, I got extra
0:56.8	nervous. At least at the beginning of my marriage with the man I loved who was suffering from addiction because as soon as Friday
1:06.4	was here it was party time. Lots of drinking, lots of drugs. I knew he'd probably be gone a night or two away from us.
1:16.1	And then as this disease progresses, like it does, it became not just the weekends, but the drinking and drugs also happened during the week.
1:27.0	But for New Year's Eve, most people are excited, right?
1:34.0	They're picking out their dresses, they're deciding how they want to spend their evenings,
1:39.0	but people like you and me were kind of waiting for this night to get over with because we don't know what
1:46.5	to expect when we love someone suffering from this disease.
1:50.6	We don't know how much they're going to drink, we don't know if they're going to
1:55.7	keep their promises to stay sober. We don't know what kind of drugs they're going to use. We don't know if they're going to slur their words or even worse, get
2:06.3	behind the wheel of a car.
2:08.6	And if you're a mom with kids, like I was, I was very, very worried about his behavior around the children. I was always
2:19.2	worried about what they would think of their dad once they noticed he wasn't acting normal.
2:26.8	So New Year's Eve brings a lot of anxiety for women like us. And so I wanted to put together of
2:35.0	for women like us. And so I wanted to put together four helpful tips just for you and me
2:38.0	and all the other women out there
2:41.0	that will help alleviate some of the anxiety. It will help remind us that we do have
	...

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