Our team of professionals is dedicated to providing personalized and evidence-based care to meet your unique needs and support your long-term recovery goals. We understand that the journey to recovery can be challenging, but we are here to guide and support you every step of the way. Traveling can also help you gain a new perspective and appreciate the world. It’s important to remember that traveling in recovery may come with challenges, such as navigating triggers or finding supportive resources in unfamiliar locations.
Take Control of Your Life
Boredom can be a scary concept for anyone, but it’s even scarier for those in recovery. They may worry that without drugs or alcohol to keep them entertained; they will have nothing to fill their free time. However, finding constructive and fun activities in sobriety is essential for maintaining long-term recovery. Sunnyside is a mindful drinking and alcohol moderation app that can help change your habits around alcohol using a proven, science-backed method. Whether you want to become a more mindful drinker, drink less, or eventually quit drinking, Sunnyside can help you reach your goals.
Why do I drink alcohol out of boredom?
It’s important to understand that achieving sobriety is possible. Now, working with sober curious folks who want to break their drinking patterns, I’ve seen how often boredom becomes one of the hardest emotions to face on the alcohol-free journey. Learning a new skill keeps your mind active and engaged, providing a sense of purpose and accomplishment. You can learn a new language, take a cooking class, or enroll in a course at a local community college. When you challenge yourself to learn something new, you build your confidence and expand your knowledge base, which can help create a fulfilling life in sobriety.
- If someone expects that every Friday night they should be out on the town with friends, but they’re alone on a couch, it may be easier to justify boredom and self-pity, followed by booze.
- What I found particularly interesting about Ms. Whitaker’s book was the way she challenged the cultural acceptance of most forms of drinking, and how societal pressures shape our seemingly independent choices.
- If we chose modest consumption, identifying the proper environments and reasons to reach for a drink can feel empowering.
- She helps high-achieving individuals break old drinking patterns and create a fulfilling and empowered alcohol-free life.
- Various addiction treatment programs are available for those struggling with alcohol use disorder and boredom drinking.
I’m so incredibly, and dreadfully bored.
- My job is terrible, I’m overweight, frustrated all the time, have had on and off deep depression for at least 19yrs (I’m 33), and quite often feel like it’s the end.
- From drinking on the weekends with buds, to drinking on thirsty Thursday and taco Tuesday, to having a few beers after work everyday to wind down and enjoy my time.
- ”…and I’d be sent off to do chores I definitely didn’t want.
- Don’t assume people are too busy to see you, all they need is to know that you would like to meet up.
We scroll through https://ecosoberhouse.com/ social media, snacking without thinking, or if drinking is in the mix, reach for a glass. That leaves us with the other 60–70% of boredom—the kind that sticks around even after we’ve quit drinking, and can lead to relapse if we don’t know how to handle it. From a cultural perspective, boredom doesn’t just feel uncomfortable—it feels wrong. Alcohol feels like the easy fix for boredom because we’ve been trained—by culture, media, and marketing—to see it that way.
By practicing self-awareness and reflection, you can develop healthier habits and coping mechanisms to replace boredom drinking. This will help you regain control of your life and improve both your mental and physical health. However, feeling bored without alcohol isn’t actually a bad thing. And the sickness and tiredness Alcohol Use Disorder you feel after the initial high of alcohol consumption wears off is neither fun nor interesting.
Simple Steps to Interrupt Drinking out of Boredom
And boredom can become the empty space where that question echoes the loudest. Once you have really looked at your habits, consider alternative solutions. If you like gin and tonic when you’re vegging on the sofa, swap it for fizzy water with lemon. If you know your willpower weakens after 9 pm, get up before then and go and have a warm shower instead. I founded The Sober School to show you there’s another way out of your shame that doesn’t involve AA or rehab. Once your downtime ends, and you’ve made progress on your hobby or taken a walk, enjoy a piece of chocolate before your next activity.
While the holidays are indulgent, there’s also plenty of downtime (hint, hint) for learning how to deflect urges to drunk and bored drink. And to stay motivated, take a moment to jot down in a journal how you feel after making progress in your hobby. When boredom strikes and you find it more difficult to muster the motivation to work on your hobby, read these journal entries. That reminder of how good you’ll feel should keep you from heading to the fridge. Moderate alcohol consumption has the potential to enliven social situations. But when you add bored drinks to social drinking, alcohol has the opposite effect.
Emotional Triggers for Boredom Drinking
Workaround managing and coping with those triggers by finding a different strategy that works best for you. Learning to identify the triggers to drinking is the first step towards preventing drinking out of boredom. Try and find ways to build other people into your daily patterns. Different activities will in turn create different thoughts and even the smallest change can start to make a big difference.
