By focusing on eating healthy, nourishing foods, you are actively working on reversing those symptoms. If nothing else, it starts to chip away at any notion you might have that you’re unworthy. If you have the time, sign on to a longer-term project like helping with this year’s charity bake sale or the big 5K race your city holds yearly. You’ll get to meet new people and be a part of something positive.
Addiction
When you remove alcohol from your life, you free up all the time you spent drinking and recovering from drinking. If you ever sit down to do that math, you will shock yourself with how much time went towards drinking. If I was hanging out with friends, we were getting drunk. Our brains don’t like imbalance and will work very hard to correct it. That overcorrection is what you’re probably feeling right now. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of happiness, well-being, and pleasure.
- Self-medicating can drastically impact overall health and well-being.
- Originally from New Orleans, Meghan earned her master’s degree from Arizona State University (2021) and became a Licensed Addiction Counselor in 2024.
- Plus, we’re always introducing new features to optimize your in-app experience.
- Drinking out of boredom because you feel anxious is likely to make you feel worse because alcohol is a depressant, so if you are already feeling low, it makes those feelings more extreme.
- Originally from Nashville, TN, Jordan moved to Colorado with her family at age five.
If you have a willing friend or family member, take them along. Plus, you might meet some cool people, and that’s always a double win. Don’t get down on yourself because you can’t get wasted at the bar with your friends anymore. And while these things might sound serious and scary, it’s important to note that it’s one piece of a larger puzzle. A therapist can help treat the underlying symptoms through therapeutic modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or trauma-processing techniques.
Keep a List of Supportive Contacts
But I PROMISE you, if you keep moving forward, things in your brain will start to click. And one day, it will occur to you that you’re actually happy and enjoying your life. It also opens up space to approach your internal world differently. One of the biggest impediments to my sobriety during my relapse days was my inability to avoid getting consumed by emotions. When you get sober, you realize there is an entire daytime pulse in your city or town that you never really felt before.
- When he’s not working, Nate enjoys horticulture and is very active in Denver’s recovery community.
- They asked people to sit alone in a quiet room for 15 minutes, with no phone, no books, no distractions—just themselves and their thoughts.
- Drawing from her background in local improv groups, she infuses sessions with laughter and humor, fostering a non-judgmental space for clients.
- During the pandemic, this issue became even more apparent, with alcohol sales outside of bars and restaurants surging by 24% as people sought ways to escape the monotony of life at home.
And if you have already quit alcohol, then there comes the wave of nostalgia and the reminiscence to the old days where you could just pour a glass of wine to soften the edge. Whatever your goals, it’s the struggle to get there that’s most rewarding. It’s almost as if life itself is inviting us to embrace difficulty—not as punishment but as a design feature. One could argue that boredom may well be responsible for some of the greatest works of art, literature, and invention in human history. And boredom can become the empty space where that question echoes the loudest. I still remember as a kid, if I was caught just sitting around doing nothing, my mom would say, “If you’re bored, I’ll give you something to do!
Sitting in traffic, for instance, is one of those things that most people would rather forego. Other tasks like laundry and cleaning the house can cause boredom and be a source of anxiety. If you have been around Sober Curiosity for a while, you know that alcohol’s “help” often comes with fine print. So let’s take a look at what tends to happen when we use alcohol, or any distraction, as a way to respond to these two different types of boredom.
Scan the QR code to get started!
The drinking culture and alcohol industry offered us a big nudge. Jeanette Hu, AMFT, is a decade-long daily drinker turned psychotherapist and the creator of the Empowered Alcohol-Free 4-Pillar System. She helps high-achieving individuals break old drinking patterns and create a fulfilling and empowered alcohol-free life.
Additional resources to fight boredom in sobriety:
Specializing in Compulsive Hoarding and Behavior Addictions, Brionna guides clients towards healthier relationships and boundaries. Additionally, she is trained in Brainspotting, offering a unique approach to trauma-informed care. Specializing in diverse mental health challenges, including depression, addiction, and trauma, Christy embraces a person-centered approach. She tailors interventions to individual needs, drawing from modalities like mindfulness, DBT, CBT, and EMDR.
How To Quit Drinking Alcohol: 15 Tips From Someone Who Did It
According to Medical News Today, the average adult in the United States experiences around 131 days of boredom per year. How we react to the state of boredom is critical to our ongoing mental health, experts state. If boredom already makes us squirm, then alcohol culture helped position drinking—especially boredom drinking—as an easy solution (one much preferable than zapping ourselves). The truth is, most of us didn’t just stumble on “using alcohol to solve boredom” on our own.
I’m currently at work, and super tempted to pick up some drinks right now. It’d be far from the first time I drank on the job, even though I know it’s not a good idea obviously. Part of it is definitely that I’ve had a rough month and struggle with depression, but another part is simply that it’s a slow day. Just imagining the next few hours slowly creeping by – with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me – really makes me crave that drink. This subreddit is a place to motivate each other to control or stop drinking. We welcome anyone who wishes to join in by asking for support, sharing our experiences and stories, or just encouraging someone who is trying to quit.
Our admissions team is available 24/7 to listen to your story and help you get started with the next steps. Recovery is hard work, but we think you’ll find it’s well worth it. Unstructured time leads to unpredictable behaviors, which are problematic in recovery. If you have someone you trust, let them know if you are feeling down or lonely – so they know you won’t mind if they check in with you more often. See if there are organisations around you where you could help out, that would love to use your skills and talents.
Mental Health
We are stressed-out, overstimulated, tech-obsessed creatures. Pile on some sobriety struggle, and it’s a recipe for madness. I found myself planning little drinking out of boredom outings when I got sober because I needed to figure out what it meant to have fun again.
She cherishes quiet moments with a good book, her two beloved cats, and the tranquility of nature’s walking trails. Describing her approach as eclectic, Darcie seamlessly combines person-centered and evidence-based practices. Drawing from her background in local improv groups, she infuses sessions with laughter and humor, fostering a non-judgmental space for clients. Darcie believes in collaborating with her clients, tailoring interventions to suit their individual needs. When he’s off the clock, Chandler is equal parts maker and explorer—reading, crocheting, gaming, crafting, puzzling, hiking, rafting, and snowboarding.
If you’ve created an entire social life around drinking, it is natural to be afraid of life without it. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just a result of having nothing to do. In fact, boredom is a genuine emotion, akin to happiness or sadness. When this emotion surfaces, it reveals our disconnection or lack of interest in our surroundings or activities. It searches for a spark, something to stimulate and captivate us. This might explain why, in such moments, we impulsively reach for distractions, like the remote or a social media scroll.
