Boredom: A Possible Road to Addiction

For many people, an antidote to boredom is picking up their knitting, grabbing a book, or writing in their journal. These healthy diversions fill a gap that drinking might otherwise fill. The winter months often meet a halt to favorite outdoor activities. This shift in routine, coupled with earlier darkness and cold temperatures, can lead to SAD.

Rather, use it as a learning experience and opportunity to treat yourself with kindness and compassion. What’s more, research has linked boredom to certain benefits. Being perceptive of your specific hunger and fullness signs may be one of the most effective ways to determine whether you’re hungry or bored. Researchers know that your emotions and mood often influence when, what, and how much you eat (20, 21). Some people like to have three meals and a few snacks each day, while others may prefer to have more or less.

8. Tune in to your emotions

In the absence of alcohol, regular life starts to feel dull and gray. It’s why so many people wrestle with depression and PAWS once they quit drinking. Reflect on your drinking patterns and keep track of them to identify your boredom drinking triggers. With self-awareness, you’ll be better equipped to understand and address your habits. By engaging in these activities, you can effectively quit drinking, replace boredom drinking, and promote a healthier lifestyle in 2024. Mindfulness practices and stress management techniques can empower you to cope with boredom and negative emotions without turning to alcohol.

If I couldn’t first accept this, then there was no chance I alcohol rehab would ever fix it. And on your vision board, you can literally put pictures of things that you want to do or things that you’re excited to do in your future. Even though we’re not traveling right now, I rented a farmhouse two hours away from me that I’m just going to go to just for a change of pace. I was worried about my commissions at work taking a hit when I got sober but they have tracked the same so far. And even though my post got removed (was drunk while posting) the advice I got was incredibly helpful.

Situational Boredom Explained (And Why It’s So Triggering)

An important way to safeguard your sobriety is to be aware of this and take steps to mitigate it. For other people, drinking alcohol out of boredom is a much more active choice – they drink to cope with negative feelings like anxiety or loneliness. Many people say that they drink alcohol to manage anxiety – to numb it or take the edge off difficult feelings. I’ve spent the last seven years researching and understanding alcoholism, addiction, and how people get sober.

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Yet, no matter how much pain it causes to the individual or family, alcohol is one of the most difficult substances to remove. There is a strong relationship between boredom, stress, and drug or alcohol use. It’s therefore no surprise that during the pandemic, the rate of alcohol consumption increased among people that reported COVID-19 related stress. The pandemic has been here and, at the time of this writing, is continuing to keep our world in a state of flux.

How to Stop Drinking Out of Boredom: Tips and Advice for a Sober Life in 2024

If you are aware that you have a problem with alcohol, there are several available treatment options and methods to help you. Naltrexone can help reduce alcohol cravings, so they stop wanting to drink alone. On the other hand, Acamprosate can help to repair brain damage from alcohol dependence. If you or someone you know is drinking alone because of depression, it’s best to seek help. Regardless, drinking alone can signify deeper psychological or emotional issues.

Frankl believed that existential boredom signals a crisis of meaning—what he called the “existential vacuum. Waiting for dinner guests to arrive, or helping your kids with math homework, the nagging restlessness that whispers“A glass of wine will make this better” is the same. The reality is there are other, healthier ways both to celebrate that milestone and deal with the boredom trigger. You’ll meet millions of fellow Reframers in our 24/7 Forum chat and daily Zoom check-in meetings.

Individuals can try slowing down when eating, and appreciating the aromas, tastes, and textures of food to allow their body to send the signals to the brain that they are full. Balancing blood sugar can help avoid dips in energy, which may trigger eating out of boredom. My biggest worry when quitting would be the boredom, the everyday type of boredom. It would make playing games and watching YouTube less fun, drug addiction treatment it would make ME less fun. It would take away any excuses I had to not be successful. Drinking alone regularly and excessively could be an early sign of alcohol use disorder (AUD).

• Well, it can be no big deal, but not for people who are prone to frequent bouts of it.
• Many scientific studies have proved a positive relationship between boredom/loneliness and excessive alcohol use.
• If you like gin and tonic when you’re vegging on the sofa, swap it for fizzy water with lemon.
• Remember, it’s not that sobriety is terrible, but that your brain is trying to grapple with the sudden loss of dopamine.
• I find myself drinking on more and more of those nights, usually accompanied by video games.
• When the mind is left unstimulated, it craves something to engage with.
• After helping thousands break free from alcohol, I’ve discovered precisely why resolutions fail and what works.

Discover practical ways to stop reaching for alcohol when boredom strikes.

• And part of the important work is to actually sit with feeling blah for a little while.
• Experts have also suggested that how well you regulate your emotions can influence boredom eating.
• There is a comprehensive legal, educational, and commercial empire that prefers if you keep drinking.
• Regular exercise is an excellent way to reduce boredom and boost your mental health.
• The feeling often occurs when the day has been monotonous or repetitive.

At Ria, we offer weekly meetings with certified counselors to help members stay on track and build skills for long-term change. This could include changing your daily routine, developing new hobbies, or getting involved with sober activities. Boredom is a common symptom of recovery, but it can be managed with the right coping strategies. In this way, recovery can lead to newfound passions and increased enjoyment in life.

And whether or not you have the bravery to go through life and all its pain without anaesthetic depends on you. I believe that we need passion to heal ourselves of addiction. I read recently that looking at what you enjoyed doing as a child is a clue as to what you should be doing to fulfil yourself as an adult.