Flight Plans – Staying Sober on a Plane

I recently read this in an article on alcohol on planes:

“I’m still constantly surprised by how many of my patients will relapse or overdrink on planes,” says Carrie Wilkens, the co-founder and clinical director of a private group practice in New York that specializes in treating addiction and compulsive behaviors.

I personally know someone who drank on a plane after almost 20 years of sobriety.  It’s a high-risk environment, particularly if you are a nervous flyer and used alcohol to ease your nerves in the past. (Important note: alcohol actually heightens a stressful experience – contrary to popular belief).

Any time you plan to fly you need to think through your strategy when dealing with alcohol. What if the person in the seat next to you gets drunk? Flight attendants are not supposed to serve visibly drunk people, but that’s hogwash – I see it all the time (forget it in first class – it’s like a bottomless wine bottle from what I’ve seen).

For long flights this can be more disconcerting if a few people start wobbling down the aisles or a boisterous group of revelers make it impossible to ignore.  I once had a woman – a complete stranger – offer me a Valium as the plane started to taxi. Umm, no thanks. I want to be able to navigate the wing if we’ve got one of those hero captains who lands us on the Hudson.

First and most important thing: be prepared to deal with it. You aren’t going anywhere once that flight takes off, so it’s a good idea to visualize yourself dealing with any of the above scenarios. If you practice meditation already you will have a tool others don’t. You can slow your breathing, repeat a calming mantra, and detach from the environment.  If you’ve done cognitive behavioral therapy you likely have some very good tools to manage your thoughts during the flight.

Second, have some recovery tools at your disposal – your daily meditation book, some 12-step literature – anything that might put your focus on why you are not going to join in.  If you are on one of the airlines that recently added wireless Internet, you can chat with a sober friend or exchange emails in flight. I’ve posted to Facebook from a Virgin America flight as well as chatted through an iphone app (you can’t use regular chat, so make sure you plan that in advance if you think it will help you).  Get a quality pair of noise-cancelling earphones – I have two pair of these and they are like heaven on a plane.  Bring your music or watch a movie – if they don’t offer movies, bring a good book, put on your headset, set it to noise cancel, and block out the distractions.  I never run out of reading material because I always have my Kindle (ok, I look like tech central when I get on a plane – I know what I need for those 6-hour cross-country flights).

If the smell of alcohol is a big trigger for you, bring something to put under your nose – some Vicks vapor rub or a little perfume will block the smell.

If you are flying with a friend who does drink, you could ask them in advance if they would abstain during the flight and support you instead. Explain why you feel the situation is a high risk one for you. If they get hostile at the suggestion, uh, well, maybe they have a problem too? I mean, really, what normal drinker HAS to drink on a plane?

Check in with a sober friend right before the flight and agree to check in right afterward – sometimes just knowing they are expecting a call from you – sober – will motivate you to stick with it.

Try to get a seat in the exit row. I would imagine the flight attendants are less likely to allow somehow to get drunk in that row. I mean, they won’t even let you sit there if you are hard of hearing or can’t speak English on US flights.

Whatever your strategy is, remember, it’s a short period of time. If you move one day at a time down to one hour at a time you can focus on your success each hour instead of obsessing about the behavior of others.

Remember, you aren’t like other people – you can’t have just one for the flight – you are more like the guy who gets escorted off the plane in handcuffs for getting too drunk and causing trouble. Or like that friend of mine who had his first drink after 20 years on that plane and ended up being carted off in a wheelchair because he couldn’t walk off on his own two legs. No thanks.