Short video segment by Amber Hollingsworth offering practical communication strategies for people in early sobriety. Advises training family/friends how to interact, explicitly stating boundaries and needs to reduce awkwardness and triggers, and cautiously recommends avoiding alcohol/drug-filled settings early in recovery.
Chapters
I know it seems silly, but you're probably gonna have to train the people around you how to be helpful and supportive, Because your recovery is not just awkward for you, it's awkward for the people around you. So at the next family function or school function or whatever it is, the people around you may know that you're not drinking or using or whatever it is anymore. But. But they don't know how to interact with that. They don't know whether they should just act normal in front of you, whether they should never bring any kind of alcoholic beverage around you. They just don't know what to do. They don't know whether to say something about it or not say something about it. And it can become this, like, really awkward purple elephant kind of situation. So in order to avoid that, just tell them. Say, you know, say, well, right now, I'm just not taking my. You can say right now I don't really go to places where they serve alcohol, or you can say, it doesn't bother me at all if you drink. I just don't drink. For a lot of people, the awkwardness around it is more of a trigger than, like, the alcohol or something like that. Now, early on, way early on, I really don't suggest you put yourself around it, but eventually you're gonna have to go to a wedding, to a social event, to something where there's going to be drugs or alcohol. And you've got to figure out some sort of way to get through all this awkwardness. Tell people what you want or what you need. It'll make you feel better and them feel better, and it'll turn the light on that big purple elephant in the room, and then we can get past it.
