Some Tips on Avoiding Holiday Depression
Last year at this time, Dave, 34, was using three grams of cocaine, 15 gallons of wine, two fifths of Scotch, one gram of methamphetamine, and a couple of beers every week during lunch.
Dave would do this because of the holiday season.
“Most people look forward to Christmas,” said Dave, a medical building maintenance man who asked not to be identified. “I hated it. I made it a point when with my family to get high enough where I could sit for four hours and be a good boy.”
After he left his family, “I’d go out and sit in a bar or pick up a couple of six-packs and go home and watch TV until I would pass out.”
Dave is not alone. This Christmas, about 35% to 40% of all Americans will turn to alcohol or drugs to feel the holiday spirit because otherwise this time of year makes them sad or depressed, said Steven Bucky, director of outpatient treatment services at Mission Bay Hospital’s Chemical Dependency Treatment Center.
Holiday drinking is triggered by the unrealistic expectation that everything has to be perfect, that life must be a “Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post-type of Christmas,” said Paige Bunn, director of the alcoholic treatment unit at the McDonald Center of Scripps Memorial Hospitals.
Because these expectations aren’t fulfilled, many people believe they are failures, said Bucky. There is added pressure because many people have to spend time with relatives they don’t like or buy presents they can’t afford because they are expected. In addition to this pressure, the holidays mean “the normal life structure of work and school becomes disrupted, and many people need that schedule and structure in their lives,” said Bucky.
“Holidays are traumatic for alcoholics because it’s a time for drinking and partying, so people drink more. I think there is an expectation to drink at a holiday party,” said Jay Piper, outreach coordinator for the McDonald Center.
Avoiding these pressures, experts say, means taking several steps. Those include:
- Spending time with people you like, especially those who understand your feelings of depression and loneliness. If that isn’t enough, try writing about your moods.
- Keep your daily routine as normal as possible.
- Don’t eat junk food.
- Try to increase the amount of exercise because it relieves tension and burns the extra calories that come with holiday overeating.
- Leave parties and family gatherings when you want to, not when you think others want you to. Bring your own car because it gives you a sense of control over your activities.
- Avoid making yourself overly tired by holiday shopping and preparations, such as cooking, cleaning, wrapping gifts.
“What we do every December is tell people, ‘Don’t get too lonely, don’t get too tired,’ ” Bunn said.
For Dave, the holidays exacerbated a drug habit that already included a weekly “gram or two of cocaine . . . a gram of crystal (methamphetamine) and . . . two to three gallons of wine a night to take the edge off. Sometimes I’d mix it with a fifth of Scotch.
“Around the holidays, there is more of a party atmosphere,” said Dave. “People drink more, and cocaine and liquor are always being offered. It gives you that warm Christmas feeling.”
Dave said he will have a different Christmas feeling this year, though, because he attended the Mission Bay treatment program and has been free of his alcohol and drug dependency since June.
“This is the first year (at the holidays) I’m not on alcohol and narcotics, so I haven’t had the mood swings that generally occur,” he said. “Before, I would wake up with the cold sweats and worry about having to buy presents and having to see my family and worrying whether they would be able to tell I was high.”
Early memories of Christmas for Jerry Varney, 40, included getting drunk Christmas Eve while on his paper route, blacking out at someone’s house and being taken home. It was a Christmas tradition to “come to in my living room” that started when he was 13 years old.
Varney said his alcohol intake during the holidays included a “couple quarts of wine, two or three grams of coke, eight to 10 joints and, to come down at night, some Valium.
“I never felt I fit in . . . ,” he explained. “I would start drinking heavily three or four days before Christmas. I felt guilt and shame because I thought it was my fault I didn’t fit in.”
Now, Varney, who kicked his dependency in 1981, works as a counselor for adolescents admitted to the McDonald Center.
“I’m into it now,” Varney said about his sobriety during the holidays. “I bought Christmas presents, and I’m sending out 45 cards. What I learned . . . is that I’m Jerry and that’s all there is. I’m more at peace with myself.”