 It is hard to stay clean and sober around Thanksgiving when you're with your family. So in this video, I'm going to give you three tips so you can stay sober. Stay tuned. What's up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. The first thing we got to do, let's talk about why it's so difficult for people to stay clean or sober around Thanksgiving when they're with their family. This is typically for people within their first year clean. And it's because of a variety of different reasons. Sometimes family members are very judgmental. They're still worried that you're going to relapse and they might be thinking that you're still using or they might be fighting with you about things you've done in the past and that's very difficult and emotionally draining to deal with. On the other hand, you might have a family who just kind of neglects the fact that you're clean and sober now. They might drink. They might even use drugs depending on what kind of family you have and it's difficult to be around your family in that type of situation. In most cases, it's just straight up hard to be around family on Thanksgiving because the same reason we used to use, we feel like we are isolated and alone and nobody in our family understands us. And this is why it's so important to learn different ways that you could stay sober on Thanksgiving with some really, really simple tips. So let's go ahead and get started. Tip number one, have an accountability buddy. All right, best case scenario, you have somebody who you bring with you over to your family's Thanksgiving. This can be somebody who is in sobriety too or it's just a friend who can stick around and be with you. Someone who is there specifically for you and will give you that kind of emotional support. This will save you a ton of stress knowing that you can go off to the side and just have a powwow with your friends about how your family is driving you nuts or how you're craving or whatever it is, just having that accountability there with you. Now, if somebody cannot come with you over to your family's house for Thanksgiving, it is 2017 people use your phone. Ask people who are in your network, whether it's friends, whether it's people in recovery. Have people who you talk to before Thanksgiving and let them know, yo, I'm going into a bad situation, I don't know how I'm going to handle it. I need to check in with you. Can you be available by your phone or whatever it is, not saying they have to sit by their phone because they're probably going to be with family too, but just someone who is aware that you might need to reach out to talk or have some support. So either way, have somebody who can help you stay accountable on Thanksgiving. Tip number two, have an exit plan. Please have an exit plan. Do not go into this situation with no idea of what you're going to do. The way you can have an exit plan is to have a set amount of time that you're planning on being at Thanksgiving. This means say that you're going for an hour, two hours, have a set amount of time in which you are going to be leaving. Let your family know, say, yo, I'm going to be leaving at this time. I'm only coming for two hours. Now, some of you might be thinking, oh, is that rude? Is it this? Is it that? But what I'm going to eventually tell you in this video is that your recovery is more important than whether or not you make somebody a little upset with you. So have an exit plan. You can also devise an exit plan by planning a couple of Thanksgiving's. If you have friends or other people who are very supportive of your recovery, tell them that you're going to come by. This gives you an easy out to give your family excuse like, yo, sorry, I told my friend I was going to leave. I was going to take off. This is what I'm going to do. Tip number three, two words, marathon meetings. These saved my butt in early recovery. My first year sober when it was around the holidays, I went to marathon meetings. I'm both Thanksgiving as well as Christmas. For those of you who don't know what marathon meetings are, if you are in any type of city, like a decent sized city, I guarantee that different 12 step fellowships have marathon meetings. And these are for people who either don't have a family to hang out with on Thanksgiving or people like me who have a crazy family and you need an excuse to get away. So if you're paying attention, this tip is part of tip two. If you plan on going to a marathon meeting at any point, you could say, well, that was delicious food family, or hey, things are getting a little crazy here. I have to go to a marathon meeting. They do this all day long. Usually it's about 24 hours long. And if you have to just go in there and sit there for hours on end. Now some of you might have just tuned me out the second I said 12 step meetings. Listen up. Listen, listen, listen. Even if you are not a fan of 12 step programs, this is a safe place with other people in recovery that you can be around. So swallow your pride for a minute, go there and be around supportive individuals who are also trying to help one another on Thanksgiving because it's a rough time of year. But this is the bonus tip that you didn't know I was going to throw one of those at you. This tip, don't go. And right now you're like, what? What Chris? I have to. I have to see my family on Thanksgiving. That would be insane for me not to see my family on Thanksgiving. That is bull and you know it. If you are like me and your recovery is a life or death situation. If you are not mentally or emotionally ready to be around your family in such a high pressure situation, do not go. I'm letting you know right now this is one Thanksgiving that you might have to miss in order to spend many other Thanksgiving with your family. So if you're very new in recovery or if you're just hitting a bumpy spot of your recovery and you're in long-term recovery, like just don't go. Miss it. Sorry, family. Like you're going to be mad at me for a few weeks or whatever it is, but your recovery comes first because if you go there and you relapse on alcohol or drugs, first off, we don't know if you're going to survive, but second off, we don't know if you're ever going to be able to get sober again. So what's more important when we look at the grand scheme of things? Is it really one afternoon of hanging out with family for this holiday meal or is your recovery more important to you because you might die from this thing like so many others who are out there struggling with the disease of addiction. So I hope these three tips helped you. If you have any questions, please, please leave comments down below. Like here's my question of the day for you. What is your best advice for somebody on how they can stay sober when being around family for Thanksgiving? Leave it in the comments below. But if you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, what are you waiting for? Click the little round subscribe button right below this box because I'm always making videos about addiction recovery as well as mental health. And click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there. Check out some of the other videos on this channel. But again, this is Chris. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.