The Ho Ho Holiday Party at Work

We are entering the time of year that makes seasoned managers cringe and human resource directors want to leave town.  Despite fine words to the contrary, there is little Peace on Earth at the office this time of year because we are getting ready for the office Christmas, oops, I mean “holiday” party. 

Yes, we’ve learned to choke on the word Christmas and insist that the December party where we dress in sparkles, bring wrapped gifts, and drink eggnog standing next to an evergreen tree is just a winter event. But language games are the least of it when management has to plan the annual

—“no one will be happy no matter what we do”--office holiday party.

Career coaches give us the guidelines: You must attend, you should not drink, don’t dress like a stripper, and do make an effort to talk to many people. The warnings should certainly be heeded. The annual holiday party is ground zero for what is known in Human Resources as the CLM, or the Career Limiting Move. CLM’s include Xeroxing body parts, getting tanked with co-workers, and making jokes about the boss to his/her spouse. But love them --or leave them early-- the office holiday party is a ritual of the workplace.

The list of issues is long: Do we go out on the town or stay in the building? Is the event during work or after hours? Will there be dancing? Music? And biggest bugaboo: booze or no booze? The tension produced along the way inevitably ends up in an annual review or with someone not forgiving someone else for months.

Divisiveness is in the details. One of the words tossed around liberally in the weeks leading up to the party is “they” as in  they don’t have kids, they don’t like to drink, they drink too much, or they don’t have to pay a baby-sitter. Preferences also break down by personality type: Extroverts love parties; Introverts want to die. 

Some offices give money to charity instead but then end up bringing in a deli tray on December 22^nd because it doesn’t feel right not to do something. I think it hits us that if we don’t have some kind of party, then we’re admitting that this is actually work and not really our family or our best friends. It’s one of the passive deceptions we engage in to smooth life along.

So what’s at the heart of this holiday ritual? Well, for starters we have strong cultural memories and it’s dark this time of year and we are longing for light. Workplaces have their own kind of darkness so it’s human to want to brighten that up too.

But there’s more. The office party is really a throwback. Yes, that sushi with sparkles affair in the boardroom is a remnant from the Ebenezer Scrooge days. It’s a flashback to the days when Big Daddy Corporation rewarded its Childlike Workers with the decent meal and glass of bubbly that they could never provide for themselves. The company party was also a time to reset any drifting notions of who owned the means of production.

I remember that kind of event. At the box factory where my Dad worked, the assembly line was shut down once a year: the Saturday before Christmas. Hot dogs were served from the corrugator and Santa arrived on a forklift. There were no Bring Your Kids to Work days back then, so the Christmas Party was how you saw where Daddy went every day. It was understood that that place and those people held the key to our family’s survival.

Today, in our workplaces, we play out that past. And despite all the tension it takes to get there, we’ll toast our teams with hopes for prosperity and pray for peace at work.

The Eight Stages of (Holiday) Relapse

This month time we’ll hear a lot of good information about taking care of ourselves at holiday events: office parties, family gatherings, spontaneous get togethers with Friends. We are warned to watch out for the spiked eggnog and the fruitcake with brandy and the fancy Bourbon cookies.

If our addiction is food we’ll be on super alert for sugary snacks offered at every stop along our way.

But it’s not just the drinks or treats we have to worry about, and it turns out, it’s not just the newcomers who have to worry.

The greater triggers toward a slip or a relapse are more likely to be our thoughts and our moods. So what should we be watching out for that is inside of us?

I recently heard another recovery coach talking about relapse: How it begins and what to watch out for. His list of the eight stages can work as a daily or weekly checklist. And it’s a perfect holiday inventory getting us to the New Year:

Here are the Eight Stages of Relapse:

1.  Beginnings of secret dissatisfaction.

2.  Boredom or frustration at work or at home.

3.  Relationships change.

4.  Return of denial.

5.  Emotional drift—(away from our program, or friends, or sponsor, or supports.)

6.  Anger and Resentment.

7.  Depression and Dishonesty.

8.  Then—picking up the substance:Relapse.

Share this list with your recovery friends and agree to use this as a check list throughout the holidays.

********
I write more about relapse in my book, “Out of the Woods—A Guide to Long-term Recovery” published by Central Recovery Press. Think about a copy of “Out of the Woods” as a holiday gift for your recovering friends.

January 2nd--Happy Introvert Day!

Ahhh,  January 2. The day that introverts get to breathe a sigh of relief.  We can come out of hiding; it’s safe to answer the phone, and to stop pretending we feel the flu coming on. Hip Hip Hooray! The holidays are over.

Yes, from mid-December through New Year’s Day, those of us with an introverted nature live in a state of perpetual dread. The weeks of office parties, neighborhood potlucks and open houses drain all our energy. But today we can relax; we made it through.

I speak from experience. I am an introvert. It surprises most people because I’m outgoing and friendly and, in fact, very far from shy, but I prefer one person and one conversation at a time.

I fought this for years, always trying to be someone else. I made myself go to parties; I tried to fix what I thought was “wrong” with me. It didn’t help that other people would press, “But you’re so good with people” as if being introverted meant living on the dark side. But I finally got it.

This is also one of the blessings of being older. Along with the wrinkles comes a, “What you see is what you get” self-acceptance, or perhaps for introverts it’s, “Who you don’t see is what you get”. It is a great relief to stop trying to be who you’re not.

But it’s no wonder that we introverts are sometimes defensive. Seventy-five percent of the population is extraverted; we’re outnumbered three-to-one, and the American culture tends to reward extraversion, while being disdainful and suspicious of reflection and solitude.

I’ve learned to spot us though. We’re the folks walking toward a festive house saying, “How long do we have to stay?” Or we’re the ones in the center of the room assessing other’s interactions, and slowly backing toward the door. Introverts crave meaning, so party chitchat feels like sandpaper to our psyche.

Here’s what introverts are not: We’re not afraid and we’re not shy. Introversion has little to do with fear or reticence. We’re just focused, and we prefer one-on-one because we like to listen and we want to follow an idea all the way through to another interesting idea. Consequently small talk annoys us. So does pretending to be happy or excited or anything that we’re not.

Many great leaders are introverts and I think that many of our better presidents have been introverts: Lincoln, Carter and the John Adams—both father and son.  No, maybe I’m not being totally fair, but life isn’t fair to introverts. Introverted kids are pressured to “speak up” and “make friends” or told they’re not leaders. We’re hounded to “be more outgoing” and tortured with invitations that begin, “Why don’t we all…” …No thanks, we don’t want to do anything that involves “we” and “all”. We prefer to visit you, just you, and not a dozen other people.

The philosopher Pascal wrote, “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”  Introverts do. So let’s make January 2^nd, Happy Introvert Day. We’ll be quiet and happy. As a bonus, January’s weather is on our side.

You say it might snow? Oh darn, I guess I’ll have to stay home.

Recovering Christmas

Christmas and long-term recovery: It changes every year. It involves negotiation and discernment. While some of the holiday habits are always black and white (alcohol) some are grey (food) and some are passionately colorful (relationships).

Holidays have changed so much over these recovering years. From white-knuckled not drinking, to staying away from places and people who drank, to staying away from all family—two years of not speaking to my family of origin while I did the heavy lifting work in Alanon. Then backing into the grey—seeing folks, learning not to lecture (and torture) them, bringing my own beverages and for some years even my own food.

The years of crying when my family sent gifts of alcohol and candy ignoring my abstinence and sobriety, and then years of just crying because I was watching them die—and not me. And then more years of laughing, sighing and just accepting.

Relationships on and off and on again. Marriage and divorce through the holidays. More addictions uncovered, dreaded, accepted, recovered. Crying over all that and then, much later, laughing too.

Now it’s clear that I don’t drink. Guests are welcome to bring their own booze if they take it when they leave. It’s not a temptation. Food is different. Less black and white but always awareness or awareness after the fact and honored in the breach. One cookie? Two? Candy? Well…. Some can stay in the house, some can’t even enter. I no longer demand that other people change their lives for my food plan.

Lots of prayer and an ongoing program. A wonderful sponsor, a recovering family of choice, a spiritual director, sober friends, Alanon friends, OA friends, wise friends who’ve never had any addictions. Lots of gratitude.

Now a new year doesn’t require big promises and big lists of Do’s and Don’ts. The only resolution is keep recovery first. I’m grateful and happy. Long-term recovery: It’s a wonderful life.

In the Dark Street Shineth

Off we go trailing shopping lists and credit card receipts. Hanukah is done but Christmas is next week. We may complain about our errands and even about some of the folks on our list, but we do enjoy the festivity the holidays bring to our gray December days.

It’s no coincidence. The holidays that celebrate light, Hanukah and Christmas, are aligned with the seasonal transit of the sun. It’s a leftover from earlier times when the religions of nature led all of the others. There was good reason, then as now, to run from the darkness.

We know that ancient man feared that the sun had died.  It was his terror that the heat and light were gone. To coax the sun god back our ancient relatives created rituals.  The Druids lit bonfires. Now we celebrate with candles and lights in our windows.

Spirituality is a way out of darkness and into hope and joy. The vehicle is mystery and a miracle, whether it’s oil that lasts eight days or the birth of a baby in a barn.

In the Northern Hemisphere this is a time when we face our vulnerability. Weather is the least of it. We all have moments of darkness: our grief, fears and regrets. The darkness we fear most, of course, is the grave. We still think we can outrun it. So some of us go to the Caribbean and some to sunlamps or light boxes; many pursue spirits, religious or distilled. Like our ancestors we too want the sun to come back and give us life again. So we go to the stores and burn up our credit cards; we sacrifice our savings as we gather at the mall where we may find what passes for community.

But we still fear the dark. Much of what we do this time of year is about distraction. Not unlike whistling when we pass a graveyard, now we sing and shop and light candles and eat too much. And we complain. A lot. But maybe our railing against our holiday chores is itself a part of the solstice. Now when we are oppressed by darkness –when our primitive fears can be felt even through layers of advertising and anti-depressants-- we are drawn to the lights and to other people as our defense against the dark, just as our ancient relatives were drawn to stars and fires.

We talk of holiday depression as if it’s somehow wrong or an aberration. But these holidays we’re celebrating, Hanukah and Christmas, are also about darkness. Sometimes we forget that. But it’s true: the flip side of each story is about the darkness at the edge of the light.

The words of this Christmas carol could just as well be a Solstice song: Yet in the dark street shineth, the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

We’re fighting something ancient, natural and necessary. Occasionally we need to feel the darkness—even symbolically--like we sometimes need a dark night or a wild storm.

So maybe there is another way to experience this day. On this, the darkest night, what if we allowed the darkness and went toward it, daring ourselves to sit still before we light the candles or the tree. What if we sat a moment seeing the tree in darkness--and breathed. That’s what solstice is about. We can enter the darkness and emerge transformed. We can stand it.

On this day the sun is at the most southern point of its transit. Tonight is the longest night of the year. Starting tomorrow our days will grow longer again. The cycle is astronomical and holy. On this night we are as ancient as ever.

           

            

Happy Introvert Day

Ahhh,  January 2. The day that introverts get to breathe a sigh of relief.  We can come out of hiding; it’s safe to answer the phone, and to stop pretending we feel the flu coming on. Hip Hip Hooray! The holidays are over.

Yes, from mid-December through New Year’s Day, those of us with an introverted nature live in a state of perpetual dread. The weeks of office parties, neighborhood potlucks and open houses drain all our energy. But today we can relax; we made it through.

I speak from experience. I am an introvert. It surprises most people because I’m outgoing and friendly and, in fact, very far from shy, but I prefer one person and one conversation at a time.

I fought this for years, always trying to be someone else. I made myself go to parties; I tried to fix what I thought was “wrong” with me. It didn’t help that other people would press, “But you’re so good with people” as if being introverted meant living on the dark side. But I finally got it.

This is also one of the blessings of being older. Along with the wrinkles comes a, “What you see is what you get” self-acceptance, or perhaps for introverts it’s, “Who you don’t see is what you get”. It is a great relief to stop trying to be who you’re not.

But it’s no wonder that we introverts are sometimes defensive. Seventy-five percent of the population is extraverted; we’re outnumbered three-to-one, and the American culture tends to reward extraversion, while being disdainful and suspicious of reflection and solitude.

I’ve learned to spot us though. We’re the folks walking toward a festive house saying, “How long do we have to stay?” Or we’re the ones in the center of the room assessing other’s interactions, and slowly backing toward the door. Introverts crave meaning, so party chitchat feels like sandpaper to our psyche.

Here’s what introverts are not: We’re not afraid and we’re not shy. Introversion has little to do with fear or reticence. We’re just focused, and we prefer one-on-one because we like to listen and we want to follow an idea all the way through to another interesting idea. Consequently small talk annoys us. So does pretending to be happy or excited or anything that we’re not.

Many great leaders are introverts and I think that many of our better presidents have been introverts: Lincoln, Carter and the John Adams—both father and son.  No, maybe I’m not being totally fair, but life isn’t fair to introverts. Introverted kids are pressured to “speak up” and “make friends” or told they’re not leaders. We’re hounded to “be more outgoing” and tortured with invitations that begin, “Why don’t we all…” …No thanks, we don’t want to do anything that involves “we” and “all”. We prefer to visit you, just you, and not a dozen other people.

The philosopher Pascal wrote, “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”  Introverts do. So let’s make January 2^nd, Happy Introvert Day. We’ll be quiet and happy. As a bonus, January’s weather is on our side.

You say it might snow? Oh darn, I guess I’ll have to stay home.