Happy New Year to all of you.
We hope that the festive season has not been too traumatic. Every year there is the big build up to the Christmas period, and it seems to start earlier every year. So, by the time Christmas finally does get round there is either an unrealistic expectation or a huge dread that what happened last year will happen all over again – only worse!
Well we have both been there and experienced both the joy and rthe nightmare of Christmas. If you have the Christmas hangover, why don’t you listen to our podcast at this link – Bottled Up Podcast
Or watch it here
Feel free to leave us a comment to tell us how the festive season was for you.
This is a comment that was emailed to us. We thought that it may be something that would be of interest to our members and visitors, so we contacted the member and asked permission to share it as long as we anonymised it.
Hi, Happy New Year to you both!!
I just wanted to share some good news 🙂 After dreading Christmas for several years due to my husband’s drinking, I have finally had a Christmas without issues! I used to spend each Christmas feeling it was just me with these sorts of issues, as in past years I Googled and found not one piece of advice or support anywhere for people in my position: facing Christmas with a secret binge-drinker. In previous years I would have found your podcast absolutely invaluable, as I always felt like I was the only person facing the and would feel really alone and like I couldn’t get through the festive period. I used to love Christmas and the drinking had turned it into a time of year I dreaded. I was a member of AlAnon and even attended on Christmas Day on Zoom one year, but still found it really hard to deal with.
It’s so hard when you’re with someone with drinking issues as you really can’t do anything about them even though their behaviour impacts on you. I got so fed up with him binge-drinking secretly (usually on Sunday nights) and then appearing from wherever and saying he hadn’t had a drink despite evidence to the contrary, and stopping drinking, but then starting again. Our house was really small and it was hard to avoid him when he was in that state and, in the end, I refused to spend time in the house for the rest of the day/evening with my husband once he had even one drink. I found this was just such a relief as I could go off and do something else for example courses or various projects. I was also so grateful that I was in a position to just do this as I’m aware many people can’t for whatever reason. Fortunately my husband ended up getting help from a therapist and gradually started to arrange in advance to go somewhere else if he was going to drink, as I think he started to understand the impact on me but also felt desperate to drink. This was much better than previously when he’d randomly appear the worse for wear and I’d have to suddenly leave the house with no notice because he had secretly drank and swore he hadn’t and I always tried to avoid arguing with him when he’d had a drink (generally doesn’t get you anywhere).
Anyway, this year my husband managed to not drink the whole of the time my brother was staying here for Christmas so he could spend time together with us – completely his choice. It was wonderful to just have a great Christmas together and made me really appreciate the time we spent together. This is a major achievement for him as I can see Christmas is a really hard time to not drink. Also for the past two years we’ve spent New Year’s eve together as he hasn’t drank. Again a major achievement for him as it’s probably the hardest night of the year for him to not drink. It was so good to have the evening together after spending several New Year’s eves on my own because of his drinking. There have been huge improvements but it’s mostly down to him working on the drinking rather than anything to do with me. I have been focussing on myself and have had support from lots of different sources including yourselves, a therapist, AlAnon and my friends to make sure I looked after myself as it’s just so stressful. I do think that deciding on boundaries and sticking to them has helped me cope and also helped my husband too.
Anyway, just thought I’d share a positive story as there are so many sad stories when discussing drinking issues.
All the best for 2026!