How To Vacation Without Drinking

Helpful hints and anecdotes

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I am still trying to recall a vacation that went exactly according to the hype in my head.

No.

When you’re at home, you know where everything is. You have your comfort stuffies. Your emotional support dogs. Your hot water bottles (kids, cats). Your fidgets, sage, whatsits, blankets, favorite pillows.

The second you leave for the airport, you’re at the mercy of the laws of the universe. You are cattled into concurrent grids of organized chaos. Snacks are less convenient. You’re squished together with people making loud accusations at invisible apparitions until you realize they are wearing earbuds. You are forced to breathe in surrounding conversation and anxious energies like secondhand smoke. The pyramidal Nurf guns perched atop your kidneys are rocketing cortisol into your bloodstream. It’s not like you need this. I find it hard to believe we have apps that diagnose sick plants from at-home pictures. But we don’t have ones that deploy snow globe aura-protectors in airports.

Vacations, while peddled as luxury and life-epitomizing, could sensibly be reduced to intensive crash courses in “Sitting With Discomfort.” Ever wonder why so many people drink in airports? Can someone put a rush order on forcefield production?

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Once you sort out the rental car, which has inevitably either been rented out, downgraded, or doesn't come with the car seat upgrade, loaded up disgruntled mini-me’s, and driven to a hotel that is eight times further than initially anticipated, your nervous system is no small amount smoked. You can’t relax until everybody’s happy. Watered. Placated.

Is it any wonder you rush to the first bar you see? No, it’s not. That’s the cultural prescription for stress. Drink. But if you follow that drink down your throat and into your organs, you’ll see that the stress relief is temporary. YES. Alcohol is a depressant. But since your body is perpetually working to create homeostasis, and the relaxation is artificially inspired, the anxiety produced once it wears off is thrice as high as the original. Ever wonder why you wake up at 3am, heart pounding mouth dry? That’s your sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight/freeze) trying to restore balance. Is it worth it? That’s for you to decide.

There are better ways to manage the stress of traveling with family. You just have to make some small changes and plan ahead.

YES! Make sure to pack an array of carefully crafted outfits you won’t wear, along with earplugs, bathing suits, and cowboy boots you also won’t wear but always manage to rationalize because you can’t Kondo-cram the cat. Just make sure to leave some space for your sober medicine toolkit, too.

Items to include:

• Post-it notes containing affirmations (I am safe. I am supported. I trust)

• Folded bits of paper with breathing exercises written down like tiny love notes. (Box Breathing, 6-3-8-3 Breath, Nadi Shodhana - alternate nostril breathing)

• An assortment of calming teas: decaf earl gray, tumeric + ginger, chamomile.

• Your Morning Pulp notebook and favorite pen

• Actual earplugs

• A portable sound machine for good sleep and for bringing into the bathroom to take a quieter bath.

• A rock or stone from home. Keep it in your pocket and hold or slide your thumb across it when you feel triggered.

• Palo Santo/incense + Matches to clear frantic/anxious energy

• Small pouch of bath salts

• Body oil or essential oils with grounding scents like cedar or patchouli (I know, but it works lol)

If you’re vacationing with family, any boundaries you worked to establish six months ago at Christmas break will likely be forgotten. You will have to re-stake your claim. Re-commit to protecting your sacred space. This takes grit. Especially when you just want to be on fucking vacation. While it’s annoying, it is worthy and worthwhile work. Sure. You can drink to be able to ignore all of this. Make the moment tolerable. The only thing with drinking to solve problems is when you wake up in the morning, your mom will still be grilling you about your finances. Your in-laws will still be trying to convert your kid to Christianity in your absence; your self-esteem will still be wrecked from not being able to lose the baby weight as fast as your sister did. It’s all still there. But now seen through the cobwebbed attic window of a hangover. Yikes.

If you happen to be the one who picked the destination, there’s the added pressure to make sure everyone is having a good time. You overfunction to deliver this. Your own needs a white wall where you hang the needs of others. All dietary restrictions for a party of 16 have been met. You wonder why you are irritable come 4 pm.

So here’s my top tip for sober vacation success. And you’re not gonna like it, but here it is anyway.

Put down your weapons.

For me, weapons are often words, thoughts, and feelings. When I am with certain family members, I revert to behaving like my 12-year-old self. I see everything through the lens of the same little kid I used to be. I armor up. I sound the battle cry. And I miss any opportunity for connection becuase I’m so stiff from the heaviness of metal. I have to remind myself that I’m not 12 anymore. I don’t require anyone else’s approval, affirmation, or validation to find meaning in my life. I can give that to myself. I have, and I do, and I will continue to.

I need space to remember that I forget this when I’m thrown in the ring again after a long time of not. I need a place where I can go to practice empathy for myself. To forgive the times I slot back into outdated narratives. When you can’t drink to soften edges or pretend a problem doesn't exist, you just have to confront the problem. Then, it actually goes away. It’s brilliant. It’s a novel. Still. After 6 years. It’s one of the greatest esteem-building facets of sobriety. One of my favorite things about it. Taking care of shit. You look at the thing. Deal with it. Move on. It ceases following you around like a cold, soggy sock. I mean, is there anything worse?

So here’s what you do: you take a notebook. You take a pen. You lock yourself in the bathroom for ten minutes or bring it into the shower and sit on the toilet while the room steams up, and you write. Your thoughts and feelings HAVE to have a place to go, maestro. Or they build up and build up like plaque around your heart. Unlike cholesterol, they don’t have a statin for this. And alcohol is no longer physician-recommended.

Your armor has to have a place to be stored. Store it in your notebook. Use your hand to write down what’s pissing you off. Without holding back. Without feeling like someone’s going to find it. If you’re that worried, and you happen to be on a cruise ship, make a paper airplane. Store it in your purse. Excuse yourself at dinner. Launch your folded thought fillets into the sea under the stars. Where they will become fish confetti. Or sponge fodder. Or both. Make it a ceremony you can be proud of.

If it were not for my Morning Pulp (which, yes, I do every morning EVEN on vacation), I would be a certifiable basketweave. Cordon pockets of time off for yourself. I know so many mothers who are afraid to ask their husbands for help or a time-out. Think about these as investments in the quality of your trip. Remember the tacky wall hanging at your grandmother's house? If mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy? Forget that it was brown cross-stitches on a corn-yellow pillow with red chickens and blue cows in one corner. Take it for truth. At least in the realm of vacation-dom.

Drink water.

Wake up early.

Learn about the local fare. At the beach last week I found an Audobon Society reference book on marine life species. I leafed through it and was so tickled by some of the names I devoted an entire page in my Leichturm to writing them down. I got out my Merlin Bird app and turned it on so I could know which birds were calling out to me every morning. Knowing their names brough me into presence with them. Just like knowing the name of your grocery bagger at your local Walmart. You can feel more invested in people. Just like you can feel more invested in place.

Here are some of the common names that delighted:

• Sinistral Spiral

• Comb Jellies

• West Indian Sea Biscuit

• Labyrinthine Brain Coral

• Chicken Liver Sponge

• Gurney’s Sea Pen

• Corky Sea Fingers

• Yellow Sea Whip

• Sea Squirts

• Sea Peach

• Northern Sea Pork

• Disk Top Tunicate

• Crumb of Bread Sponge

• Lacy Crusted Bryozoan

Writing is healing. Wonder is enchanting. Drinking tea can be deep work if you let it. Notice all the details. Pack your medicine bag. Wake up before the sunrise. Remember the bigger picture. You can do this. You WANT to. You WANT to be fully present for these core memories. Not hungover and hazy and forgetting. Look for the bread crumbs. Or the Crumb of Bread Sponge.

Either promise to deliver.