Darwinia

For the most part it does not feel if my life changed much in sobriety. I live exactly as before, except I don't drink.

I have noticed one thing though. All my life I often felt as if I was at the wrong place in the wrong time. When I played golf on a Tuesday afternoon I felt guilty and wished I was rather at the office. When I was at the office I wanted to be out playing golf. When I went away on holidays I wished I was rather at home. When at home I long for an exotic holiday.

I never associated these feelings with anxiety. I just thought I was a bit weird this way and lived with feeling out of sorts quite often. In my 5 months of sobriety I have noticed a difference in relation to these feelings. I seem to be more content with wherever I am. The unease is not totally gone, but much less pronounced.

I now think that this nagging unease was/is nothing other than a form of anxiety. Not drinking defnitely helps. It helps a lot.

Lightning Bug

I experience something similar - like I can never feel content in the space I currently occupy, I want to be somewhere else. Work, home, shopping, etc. I have explored this with my therapist. It seems to be hardwired in my ADHD. My brain is constantly thinking about "what's next? What do I have to do, where do I have to go?" It brings anxiety because it is task driven. Either I want to do the task and get it out of my head or I want to avoid it and feel guilt. It's mindboggling. I can't just be.

D122y

Dar,

Glad you posted this. My brain obsesses about work way too much.

Journaling here helps. It is a great outlet and folks offer real, working now advice.

I got some great help yesterday on my obsessive nature.

Aellyce

I also relate. When I was younger (even long before drinking became a problem) I often had these tendencies that I wanted to do something very much and I would do everything to make it happen. But then when I was experiencing what I wanted so much, my mind had already been a hundred miles ahead... I would often lose the momentum, thinking instead, what's next. The same tendency also often blocked me feeling the impact of a healthy rewarding experience. Surprise that I started to seek something stronger in the form of alcohol and drugs?

I also tended to think back then, that I was probably not "in my right place" and had to continue looking for my genuine niche. This is a long story... but I've figured it was an illusion mostly (not completely though, that would be another discussion) and I could go on searching for something forever the same way, never experiencing a moment of joy and peace. There are a few factors feeding this type of mentality for me... yes anxiety is one, but an even bigger one and specifically relevant is a novelty seeking temperament. Novelty seeking is often considered a personality trait that can be associated with a vulnerability to developing addictions (always chasing something different). Ironically, I was more restless like that before my alcoholism took over... so in a way, I self medicated/numbed that type of restlessness and being an active addict truly turned my life into a boring, repetitive cycle. Of course it comes back big time when we get sober as in many of us it is a "pre-existing condition", not the consequence of addiction.

For me, the thing is to learn to be more grounded in the present and focus on what is currently happening, try to really experience the moment and discover the richness in ongoing experience. Many people are fond of mindfulness work and meditative exercises for this purpose and I also find these helpful, especially the "active" forms (as opposed to just sitting).

There is also the fact that those of us who are prone to this feature will probably always experience it to a certain extent. Here is where a mindful approach can be useful again: try to accept that not every moment and experience will be enjoyable and use a longer term vision also to acknowledge that we often truly appreciate experiences in retrospect, at a later time point.

As I said, for me this phenomenon is not strictly tied to drinking but sobriety definitely helps a lot. Life experience likewise (having tried many things already).