Maintaining sobriety/ recovery through the holidays is strengthened by participating in sober activities in Los Alamitos and Long Beach with your sober support group. Practicing new recreational and social skills pays off with sustained sobriety. Take a sober friend to these events, have holiday fun and build a more-sound recovery:

29th Annual Lighting of the Bay, Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, Newport Beach, November 30th

Holiday Show, Los Alamitos High School Show Choir, December 5

Uptown Village Market, Expo Arts Center, Long Beach, December 6

Winter Wonderland, St. Isador Historical Plaza, Los Alamitos, December 7

Christmas Holiday Boutique, 6958 Ellis Ave., Huntington Beach, December 14, 11:00am

Bass/ Percussion Holiday Concert- Free, Bay Shore Church, Long Beach, December 15, 7:00pm

Holidays in Who-Ville- Free, Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, December 16, 10:30am

Winter Fest OC 2019-20, OC Fair & Event Center, Costa Mesa, December 20 – January 5, 2:00pm

Holiday Gingerbread Workshop, Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, Anaheim December 21, 11:00am

Christmas Eve and Day, New Years Eve and Day Holiday Marathon Imperial Alano Club House 9604 S Figueroa Paramount

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call: (866) 594-8844

Participating in sober holiday events in Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and Encino can build recovery skills and a sober support network. Old habits and relationships from addiction need to be replace with healthy activities and relationships. They sustain recovery over time. Your recovery be enhanced, you’ll build new friendships and you’ll have fun all at the same time! Try some of the following:

Conejo Valley YMCA Turkey Day Dash, Thousand Oaks, November 28

2019 YMCA Turkey Trot, Burbank, November 28

Lake Balboa Turkey Trot & Kids 1K Gobble Gobble 2019, Van Nuys, November 28

Hope of the Valley Thanksgiving Drumstick Dash 2019, North Hollywood, November 28

French Holiday Bazaar 2019, International School of LA, Burbank, December 6, 3:00pm

Holiday Celebration by Sober Link, December 21, 11am – 4pm, Plaza Del Valle, 8610 Van Nuys Blvd., Panorama City

A Patchwork of Cultures, Free Concert, Sherman Oaks, December 2

Community Volunteer Wrapping Event, Sherman Oaks, December 7

Angel City Chorale Holiday Concert & Sing-Along, Sherman Oaks, December 7

The Beach Boys Holiday Show, Thousand Oaks, December 7

Sherman Oaks Galleria Tree Lighting, December 7, 7:00pm

Chanuka Holiday Boutique, Sherman Oaks, December 8

Radford Halls Marathon Meetings, December 24, 25 and December 31, January 1, 13627 ½ Victory Blvd.

NA SAN FERNANDO VALLEY ANNUAL NEW YEAR’S EVE MARATHON MEETINGS

Meetings: 9:00pm – 4:00am, Reseda United Methodist Church, 18120 Saticoy Methodist Church, Reseda, CA 91335

 

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call. (866) 594-8844

Our time celebrates affluence, personality, noise, and hyperbole. “Living out loud”, we seek not only to feel more pleasure and relief, but we are also stuck in the pursuit of it. We are chasing more than we are being. Silence, stillness, subtlety are attributes which we disdain and avoid. Humility is dead to us.

Simple truth and facts fall behind good storytelling, great acting and becoming (or following) an influencer. Adjectives describe only the extreme and sentences need an exclamation mark! Communication is lost in overstatement.

To catch attention, escalating quantities of emphasis are required. Attention is lost in the competitive bidding for it.

Addiction, with its manic swings to the edge, lands as “normal” amidst plummeting societal standards. “I became aware that I had a problem when I disintegrated faster than I could lower my standards.”

Dopamine, the pleasure/ relief chemical in our brain, heightens in the pursuit of the object of desire, as much as with its acquisition. To maintain the high, we must seek more. The magic is in the chase.

Whether our object of choice is vodka, meth, oxy, bud or crack, it is the fantasy and seeking of the substance that allures and spikes our pleasure centers. The sensation achieved by use is rewarding and secondary.

We addicts not only get stuck on “not enough” and “more”, but we also can’t shift out of “get more” and “use more”. Our brains receive rewards for imagining and pursuing the drug. Perhaps substance use disorders (alcohol and drug addiction) are as much process (behavioral) addictions as sexing and gambling. Our obsessions and our behavior are as much of the problem as the drug of choice (or du jour).

“Getting meth makes me feel alive, invincible!” “I can’t wait for that five-o’clock shot of vodka- everything becomes comfortable and I then fit in.” “It will be like crack to me!” “When I take oxy, I feel the most warmth- it’s sublime.” “It’s like I can finally breathe and settle in when I can get my bud!”

And then, for many alcoholics and addicts, ultimate desperation, degradation, deterioration arrest the fantastic. It all collapses like a dismantled Broadway set. The Titanic meets iceberg and no rearrangement of deck chairs can recreate comfort.

Sobriety slams us in the face as does the floor during a drunken collapse.

“I’m sorry Dear but we don’t see recreational users in the ICU.”

 …so what to do? Sober up?

“I love my sobriety and my new friends (but I’m bored…).” After the excitement of arrests, accidents, arguments, illnesses, injuries, near-death adventures, threats of violence and violence, life without alcohol or drugs seems oh-so mundane.

If your amplifier has been stuck on deafening, pianissimo (quiet music) may be inaudible for a short while.

Stick it out and find friends who share your ups and downs. Dopamine gets a boost from social contact and connection. The boost is incremental at first and then grows. Eventually, the addiction is replaced by connection. The hole in your middle gets filled with the care of and for other people.

“Newcomers are such drama queens”. Having recently eliminated drugs and the pursuit thereof from life, exaggerated feelings and gestures can only be expected. Arriving without chemical influence where chaos was standard, our dance may seem a bit frenetic for a while. A new one will be slowly learned in tamer circumstances.

“I feel crazy- I’ve never gone this long without a drink/ hit/ blunt!!” What once was the best idea is now reconsidered. Listening to others (finally) you learn to become teachable. You learn that different directions produce better results. Change becomes possible.

And do we find salvation and live happily ever after? Thankfully no for, after all, we bore easily.

Life moves steadily forward. Better skills can now be trained and emotional upheavals can be better regulated. There is no end to this side of the game. At first, we run to stand still, and then we walk to maintain. Stopping does not result in homeostasis. Stopping results in falling and sinking.

We continue to seek. Recovery and spirituality need continuous practice and exploration. The thrill is in the search.

Stagnation results in back-sliding; relapse can equal death. Or worse, we can back-slide with a lack of motivation or complacency. We can revisit the floor slamming us in the face in a falling-down drunk. And then the cycle begins again. We roll recklessly and randomly. With luck, we are blessed with another interruption sponsored by humiliation, desperation, and pain.

The thrill is in the hunt. It is our choice for what we continue to look.

 

Having sober fun with others in recovery is an essential practice which is both fun and strengthening.  Behaviors and activities practiced in addiction need replacement. Building a sober support network of friends will sustain your recovery over time.

 

Following are some sober holiday events and resources in Orange and Anaheim. Participate in some of the following and strengthen your sobriety:

 

Potluck 2-4pm December 25, BBQ and Bingo 7-10pm December 29, Marathon Meetings 12pm December 31 thru 1:30pm January 1, Anaheim Alano Club, 202 W. Broadway

 

Orange County AA CENTRAL OFFICE, 1526 Brookhollow Dr., Ste 75, Santa Ana, CA 92705-5466, 714-556-4555 (24 Hours), email: Manager@oc-aa.org, Office Hours: Weekdays: 9am – 7pm, Saturdays & Holidays: 9am – 1pm

 

Maverick Theater, 110 E Walnut Ave, Fullerton, CA 92832, (714) 526-7070, www.mavericktheater.com

 

The Rinks, 5555 McFadden, Huntington Beach, CA 92707, (949) 673-1434, www.hbinline.com

 

K1 Speed, 1000 N Edwards Court, Anaheim, CA 92806, (714) 632-6999, www.k1speed.com

 

Twin Town Treatment Centers is immediately accessible to all Los Angeles and Orange County residents, is accredited by The Joint Commission, and is certified by the California DHCS. All network HMO/PPO/EPO insurance plans and Medi-Cal contract with Twin Town Treatment Centers to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Our phone is answered by real people. We can see people on the same day you call. (866) 594-8844