How Drunk Is Too Drunk for the Holidays?

The winter holidays are a great excuse to let loose and get loose with your hard beverage of choice. After working hard all year long, now you can give yourself the time and space to release your tension and settle into some holiday cheer, but How Drunk Is Too Drunk. 

Yet, before you open crack open another bottle of bubbly — or pour yourself another hard eggnog, or enjoy whatever wintertime drink you prefer — you might pause to consider how you should behave at different events throughout the season. Often, work colleagues, family, and friends have different expectations for your conduct, and you should monitor your alcohol intake closely to prevent an embarrassing display that kills the holiday mood. To get you through the season, here’s a quick and easy guide.

Work Events 

Holiday parties at work are supposed to be a place for employers to show their workers that they care with some free food, booze, and activities. These events are not a place to talk shop or work on unfinished projects; instead, you are expected to relax and enjoy yourself around your coworkers and bosses. However, even if work events occur outside of your typical working hours or outside of your normal work-space, your behavior matters. A drunken display at a holiday party will be brought up if you are in line for a raise or a promotion, and it could even cause you to lose your job.

When you are at a work event, you should impose a strict limit on the hard drinks you will consume — and you should try to drink alcoholic beverages slowly to prevent tipsiness from creeping up on you. It might be wise to alternate with soft drinks, especially water, and to keep your career goals at the front of your mind. Then, you’ll be more likely to stay mostly sober and interact with important movers and shakers at the party, giving your career a nice holiday boost.

Family Events 

How drunk you get at family events largely depends on how comfortable you are around your family. Some families party hard together, while others prefer not to see each other indulging in vices like drinks and drugs. If you feel unnerved by the idea of behaving drunkenly around your mom, your uncle, your grandmother, or your younger brother, you might want to rein your drinking in. 

Even if you and your family often get together for happy hour, family holiday gatherings aren’t typically appropriate places to get noticeably blasted. Instead, you should keep your drinking on the down-low opting for beverages that hide alcohol well, like Irish coffee, vodka-cran, eggnog or hot toddy. You should also try to ensure that other members of the get-together are roughly as sloshed as you, either by encouraging them to drink or by moderating your own drinking level. You should avoid drinking on an empty stomach, which means enjoying as many holiday appetizers as you want — which will keep your grandmother happy, too.

Friend Events 

Your friends should know you better than anyone — they are the ones who have seen you at your drunkest, which means they know what to expect when they invite you over to celebrate the holiday season. As with family, you should try to avoid drinking beyond your norm with each particular friend group, but generally, you can permit yourself to go a bit wilder with friends than you might at work or at home.

Remember that during the holidays, rates of drunk driving skyrocket. As a result, many police services are out in force this time of year, watching closely for signs of dangerous vehicles on the road. If you are prone to partaking a bit too much at friends’ holiday parties, it might be wise to find a safe way home — or else you will need to contact qualified DUI attorneys in Mesa, AZ, or wherever you live.

No matter where you enjoy the holidays, it is possible to get too drunk. If you suspect that you might be beyond your limit, you might want to take emergency sobering action, like drinking water and eating fatty foods. You might ask a trusted friend to help you navigate any touchy situations in which you have found yourself, and you should definitely find an alternative to driving, to keep you and every other holiday-goer safe.