The run-up to Christmas used to hit me like a seasonal storm, and these days it seems to start mid October. Everywhere I turned, the world seemed to slip into a frantic state of needing and wanting – the endless “I hope I get…” that hung in the air like tinsel-wrapped anxiety. Those expectations, both spoken and unspoken, pressed against my chest until drinking felt like the only release. It wasn’t just the day itself; it was the build-up, the pressure, the pretending. I felt swept along by a current I didn’t understand, yet I kept returning to the bottle because it numbed the fear I couldn’t name.

What made it worse was how invisible that fear seemed to be to others. Nobody noticed the panic behind my smile, because everyone appeared to be running on their own “how merry can I get?” default settings. The collective rush – the gifts, the plans, the forced joy – created a shared projection of worry, as though we were all trying to conjure one perfect day through sheer will. And while everyone else looked outward, I imploded inward. Their excitement fed my terror, and my terror fed my alcoholism, until the two things felt indistinguishable.

There was always this belief circulating around Christmas: that if I could just get the right thing, give the right thing, or feel the right thing, then everything would fall into place. But that longing – that want – only deepened the ache. Hope and fear worked together to push me into the future, into possibilities I couldn’t control. The more I wanted the season to go “right,” the more frightened I became of it going wrong. And the more frightened I was, the more I drank to escape the dread of disappointment.

Following the AA path didn’t just remove alcohol from my life; it removed the fuel that kept those hopes and fears blazing. I learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, that both hope and fear are projections – stories I tell myself about a future that isn’t here yet. They are two sides of the same coin, both pulling me away from the present moment where life actually happens. My drinking thrived in those imagined futures. My recovery thrives in the now.

The more I understood this, the more the Christmas season began to soften. Not because it changed, but because I did. I stopped wanting a different kind of holiday, a different kind of feeling, a different version of myself to show up on a specific day. I stopped worrying about whether I had enough, whether the week would be perfect, or whether I was enough. By letting go of the expectation that anything needed to be different, I found a quiet steadiness in simply being where I am.

Now, I can meet the season with a calmness I never thought possible. Not because all worry is gone or because life is magically tidy, but because I am no longer swept away by the powerful current of hope, want, and worry. I don’t need Christmas to be perfect. I don’t need myself to be perfect. I don’t need anything outside of what I have right now. In sobriety, I’ve discovered a kind of freedom I used to search for in a bottle: the freedom of presence, of acceptance, of amor fati, or in none Latin, love of fate – loving this moment, as it is, without hoping or fearing it into something else.

To practice Amor Fati I use the following mantra’s

I don’t just tolerate this moment; I welcome it.

I don’t fight reality; I work with it.

I don’t waste energy wishing things were different; I meet life exactly as it is.

And this helps me each day – not just for Christmas, to accept the past without resentment, accept the present without fear, and accept the future without trying to control it. Amor fati turns “Why is this happening to me?” into “What can I learn or how can I grow from here?”

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Amor Fati in the Winter Light

The run-up to Christmas,
used to arrive like a seasonal storm,
not with snow,
but with needing, wanting,
the restless wind of I hope I get…
whispered from every shop window,
every advert,
every smile stretched too thin.

By mid-October,
the world leaned forward into frenzy,
and I leaned backward into fear.
Expectations - spoken and unspoken,
pressed upon my chest,
until the bottle felt like the only door,
left unlocked.

It was not the day,
but the build-up,
the pretending,
the slow tightening of the calendar,
around my throat.
I drifted with a current,
I never understood,
yet let it carry me,
into the numb quiet,
I mistook for peace.

What made it heavier,
was the invisibility of my fear.
Others sparkled with forced joy,
bright on the outside,
hollow in the middle,
projecting hopes so loud,
they drowned out,
my silent implosion.
Their excitement fed my terror;
my terror fed my drinking,
until the two,
shared a single breath.

I believed, once,
that the right gift,
the right feeling,
the right moment,
could steady the world.
But wanting sharpened the ache,
and hope and fear,
worked together like twin horses,
dragging me into futures,
I could not hold.
The more I longed for “right,”
the more I feared “wrong,”
and the deeper I sank,
into the bottle’s warm forgetting.

Recovery taught me another way.
Not the way of striving,
but the way of seeing.
Hope and fear,
two shadows cast,
by the same imagined sun.
Both pointing away,
from the only place life lives:
this moment.

Sobriety did not soften Christmas;
it softened me.
I stopped demanding,
that the season change,
that I change,
that anything unfold,
according to my design.
Without the fuel of expectation,
the fire eased.
The storm quietened.
And in its clearing,
I found enough.

Now I meet the season,
with an open palm.
Not perfect,
but present.
Not chasing,
not hiding,
simply here.

I need nothing,
beyond this breath.
I need no version of myself,
other than the one,
that stands here now.
This is the freedom,
I once sought in a bottle:
the freedom of acceptance,
the stillness of “yes,”
the gentle strength,
of amor fati,
loving what is,
before it becomes,
what was.

So I practise:

I don’t just tolerate this moment; I welcome it.
I don’t fight reality; I work with it.
I don’t waste energy wishing things were different;
I meet life exactly as it is.

And in this practice,
the past loses its resentment,
the present loses its fear,
the future loses its chains.

Amor fati turns
“Why is this happening to me?,”
into,
“What can I learn from here?”

In this quiet turning,
I walk gently,
through winter,
through Christmas,
through life,
not controlling,
not resisting,
but moving with the Way,
as it unfolds.
And each moment,
welcomed fully,
Is just right.