The holidays are just around the corner and people everywhere are revving up for the festivities. Soon, many of us will be heading home to spend the holidays with our loved ones. But not everyone is looking forward to the season.

Some people have mixed feelings about being home for the holidays. For many of these people it’s because the challenges they have with their families complicate an otherwise festive holiday season.

I remember one patient; let’s call her Trish, who’d start getting nervous two or three weeks prior to the holiday season. She had an overbearing mother and a father who never stood up for her.

Trish was anxious about the holidays because there was always at least one big argument when she was with her family and inevitably at some point she’d end up in tears.

Trish had a tendency to over-eat and every year, right before the holidays, her eating would be out of control. It was as though she were comforting herself in advance of the conflicts she was anticipating.

Another patient of mine; let’s call him Devin, would go home for the holidays and get drunk at the family dinners. His family members were dogmatic about their different social and political views and he never felt like he fit in.

Devin didn’t drink excessively during the rest of the year but when he was home for the holidays he’d start soothing his discomfort with alcohol. He seemed to need something extra so that he could tolerate being with these difficult people over a stretch of several days.

Krista, another patient of mine, grew up with a dysfunctional family. Her parents were self-centered and withholding of affection. Each year she’d go home hoping for a better experience but she never had one.

Krista would return from her holiday gatherings having put on 10 pounds over a matter of four or five days. While she was with her family she’d eat non-stop, unconsciously turning to food to fill the void.

Norm was a patient who struggled with marijuana abuse. He had a bully of a father and a mother who neglected him. When he spent time with his family over the holidays, he’d get so stressed that during the meals, he’d feel the need to step outside to light up.

This made his father angry and he let Norm know it. There would be loud arguments, after which Norm would go out and smoke some more, trying to calm down.

For those of us with uncomplicated families, the thought of going home for the holidays can be joyful, but if we have even one or two difficult family members, the prospect of spending several days with these people can fill us with ambivalence, or even dread.

It’s not so difficult to see why folks like Trish, Devin, Krista, and Norm can turn to addiction as a way of dealing with difficult family members.

Some people say that addiction is a disease but I see it as a coping strategy that worsens under stress. Family stress can be particularly difficult as family dynamics are often charged with emotion.

When we’re all together over the holidays, it can be loads of fun or incredibly trying. If stress promotes addiction, you can see how family stress, especially over the holidays, can really ratchet up the problems.

I see addiction as a way that we cope with emotions (for example, hurt or sadness, guilt or shame, loneliness or anger) that we’re uncomfortable confronting directly.

Trish, Devin and the others have been turning to addictive behavior to deal with the emotions that would come up for them as a result of difficult family interactions.

Family stress can drive any of us to seek comfort, soothing or distraction; it can make us feel like shoving down the guilt, hurt or anger with food, drink or drugs or it can drive us to fill the void with food if we’re unable to get the love we crave.

We have such high expectations of our family members and we’re so sensitive to perceived slights by them. Even when we have families of our own, it doesn’t take much for us to get triggered by a sideways glance from our mother or a frown from our father; a tease from our sister, or a boast from our brother.  It seems that we’re most susceptible to the stress that originates in our family dynamics.

If you have a challenging family or even just one difficult family member, you’ll need to be much more mindful if you’re planning to go home for the holidays. When confronted with these difficult individuals, you may find yourself unconsciously turning to addiction to deal with the uncomfortable emotions arising in you.

Instead of mindlessly overeating or drowning your discomfort in drugs, you can start tuning in to your feelings. You can look at what’s going on around you and within you and think about what you really need in the moment to feel better.

Addictions can temporarily numb the pain or fill the void, but they’re only stop-gap solutions and they have consequences when you get home.

After all the over-eating, you may not be able to fit into your work clothes; you could feel sickly from all the pot you smoked or have gastritis from all the alcohol you consumed over the holidays.

If you come home and keep going with the addictive behavior you’re likely to start having social, academic, or occupational difficulties as well.

You could start coming in late to work, get into financial difficulties or start being more irritable and impatient with professors, colleagues, or bosses. The coping strategies you took up over the holidays could start adversely affecting your life.

The holidays can be fun but there are hidden pitfalls of the season. If there’s anyone in your family who causes you stress and if you have any tendencies toward addiction, why not practice mindfulness over the holidays? This way, you won’t automatically turn to addictions to deal with the challenges of a difficult family.

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