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1. Line up extra AA activities (help on the phones, speak, empty the ashtrays).
2. Be host to friends, especially newcomers, at home or at a coffee shop.
3. Keep your AA telephone list with you at all times.
4. Find out about holiday meetings or celebrations in your local groups.
5. Skip any drinking occasions you’re nervous about.
6. If there’s one you can’t skip, take an AA friend–or keep candy handy.
7. Don’t think you have to stay late (plan an “important date” in advance).
8. Go to church. Any church. And don’t forget about extra meetings.
9. Don’t sit around brooding; catch up on reading, museums, walks, letters.
10. Don’t project about holiday temptations: remember “One day at a time.”
11. Even if you cannot give material gifts, enjoy the beauty of holiday love.
12. Carry the message. Give the joy away, and it will be yours to keep.
    
    — Adapted from Box 4-5-9

Download or Print the 12 Tips for Sober Holidays here

The holiday season can be a stressful time for anyone but for us Alcoholics we need to be on extra guard. With office parties and family gatherings it is very easy to be within arms length of Alcohol. Not to mention the gifts (booze) that can keep on giving us trips to jails, institutions or death. These twelve tips published in Grape Vine magazine and Box 459 have been used by our members for years to help survive the holiday season. Print out some copies and take them to the meetings you attend.

Carry the message. Give the joy away, and it will be yours to keep.