Hawaiigirl

I have been sober almost 14 months and find I am going through a phase of being bored and feeling stagnant in my recovery. I have gotten some motivational books from my sponsor and I still do the "do" things, I also remind myself that this will pass however that doesn't help me at the moment. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

HighHopes

Hawaiigirl welcome to SR and first of let me say that you should be really proud that you are clean for 14 months.

Congratulation, that is a big achievement that many of us are struggling with, it's been almost 40 days for me, so all I can say is that I have my bad days, usually triggered by something.

Maybe the ones with more clean days can add more, hope you feel better and wishing you all the best.

scrambled2012

If we are hit by a car and injured, our #1 priority in life becomes recovery from that injury. It's on our minds every day, the discomfort or the need for cruches or whatever. We look forward to the day when we are back to "normal" and think we will never forget how hard it was right after the accident.

Human nature being what it is, and not without reason, after making a full recovery we might tend to forget the pain of being in the hospital, or how grateful we were to be able to start walking without assistance.

Without this clear objective or goal to continue working on (since it has been reached), it is probably normal to start feeling bored or dissatisifed with our current standard of life. We want to acheive a thing or move forward in some way, all the time.

In a sense, maybe you are at a point in your recovery where you crave some additional challanges that aren't directly related to recovery from alcohol... the same sense of challange, or moving forward, that non-drinkers tend to feel weeks, months, or days after feeling the satisfaction of achieving a given thing.

After all, life isn't about succeeding at just one thing...its about constant growth and challange.

Perhaps this is what you are going through? I am still consumed enough with staying sober to see that as a huge goal in my life!

TheReader

I know exactly how you feel as I am at 13 plus months and often feel the same. What I find works is to stay busy, have to find something to look forward to or a goal to achieve. When we were using, we were always chasing the pills or the high (that was our goal and what we looked forwarded to day after day). Scrambled says it best - we reached our goal of recovery and now what? We cannot just tread water and expect to continue a successful recovery.
Try to do things for others, plan a trip, read a book, take some new classes, etc. Last year, I planned a trip and then took it - and that whole process really kept me focused on a positive and very successful goal.
Life is about ups and downs. We are going to be bored if we do not "push ourselves". Keep posting here on SR as there are lots of us in various stages and recovery and understand your feelings

lostgirl25

Congrats of being sober and I've found a need for life and behavior changes that have kept me from becoming restless and bored. I'm into month 4 of my recovery and right now my goal is to become debt free. During my addiction I amassed $9,000 of credit card debt due to addiction and bad choices made because of the addiction.

I'm on a path to become debt free in 24 months and I've focused on cutting expenses in all areas. This means I spend more time meal planning, shopping, cooking, looking for bargains, couponing, and tracking every penny I spend. This goal and seeing progress seems to fill a lot of time. Motivational books only work for me when I have a goal and keep myself to the grindstone. The good part is I'm ahead of my goal of 24 months and I think I'll make it sooner.

I hope you find something to beat the boredom and keep sharing with us.