Volunteering is a great way to reconnect with your community. Helping others actually drug addiction boosts our own mental health and feelings of self-worth. Plus, it helps us with our emotional sobriety and wellness. On the one hand, you have no idea what you’re supposed to do with yourself.

Are You Feeling Suicidal?

Excessive drinking can lead to vascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Digestive problems and liver disease are also potential long-term health risks that binge drinkers face. When you hear the term “binge drinking,” you may picture underage drinking at high school or wild college parties.

Use resources by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

In fact, when you first quit, it feels like everyone in the world is out getting drunk but you. I was doing almost nothing with my free time, but it never bothered me much. I wasn’t a total shut-in; I still occasionally visited friends or explored the city.

Alcohol didn’t make life fun. It just made you not care.

Boredom and isolation are known relapse triggers for people with substance use disorders. An important way to safeguard your sobriety is to be aware of this and take steps to mitigate it. Many cite their increased use as a cause for concern but are struggling to cut back despite their awareness of alcohol’s negative effects on their physical and mental health.

Have nutritious, filling snacks

This post will show you how to take a break from booze so you can get your physical, emotional, and mental health in order. 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. One of the best things you can do for yourself when you’re feeling bored in sobriety is to find a way to serve others.

Please login to bookmark

If you’ve created an entire social life around drinking, it is natural to be afraid of life without it. When you’re feeling bored, taking a walk not only provides a distraction from any urges to snack but also physically removes you from food temptations. If you’re feeling content with your food choices for the day, you might be less likely to reach for a snack when you’re bored. Finding suitable replacements for alcohol as a coping skill can be helpful even if abstinence is not our goal. Enjoying a drink feels different than needing a drink to tolerate a painful or difficult experience. Also, our brain’s ability to adjust to novel situations relies on repeated exposure with positive outcomes.

Boredom eating in unique situations like this may be nothing to worry about. It’s normal to feel an urge to eat when you’re bored, even on a regular basis. Identifying the triggers in your life that tend to cause the urge to eat when you’re bored is key to breaking the habit.

Boredom: A Possible Road to Addiction

This didn’t motivate me to quit, but I was afraid of how bad things could get if drinking because of boredom I drank too much. While admitting that you have a problem is the first step in many recovery programs, part of that process is realizing that you’re afraid. You might be afraid of what happens if you keep drinking, but you’re more afraid of what happens when you stop.

Why Can’t I Stop Drinking Once I Start? 4 Major Reasons

• “Failures of self-control are their problem,” he says.
• Understanding this relationship between boredom and alcohol is crucial for breaking an unhealthy cycle of drinking out of boredom and finding more fulfilling ways to spend our time.
• Remember, it’s not that sobriety is terrible, but that your brain is trying to grapple with the sudden loss of dopamine.
• Your friends are out getting drunk, the same as they always do.
• By putting a stop to boredom eating, you can retrain your stomach’s muscle memory so that it will send out signals of hunger and fullness much sooner and less often.
• It’s what stressed-out-to-their-end-of-the-rope moms use.

Also, consider giving back along your recovery journey. Even if you’ve only been sober for 1 day, there’s someone who can use your guidance that is at day 0. The irony of this approach is that I often tried to drink away this fear to socialize more easily, and I arrogantly (and wrongly) believed that I was in control.