Originally Posted by sfgirl

I, however, would like to phrase it slightly differently. I am not sure it is the boredom itself that triggered the relapse but your ability to tolerate boredom. I am a year in and I still have a really hard time tolerating a lot of different feelings but I have gotten so much better. For me right now I am especially working on anxiety. I have become over the years very adept at running away emotionally, physically, basically anyway you can imagine from any situation that is at all anxiety producing. But I am getting better. And over the last year I have gotten to be an expert at tolerating boredom. But I guess my point is how you approach it going into recovery #2. You can either forge ahead and try to never be bored. I think the problem with this method is that it is pretty impossible to never be bored, just like it is impossible to never be anxious, or sad, or happy or excited or around people drinking or whatever. Or you can forge ahead and work on being able to notice when you are bored, tolerating it as long as you possibly can, and then moving out of it in healthy ways. I found that meditation helped me immensely both with noticing my feelings and with sitting with them. I also think on the particular subject of boredom it might be super helpful. But you could also find a totally different method that works for you. I think the thing about recovery is finding the balance between putting yourself in the situation where you are tolerating the feelings and in early recovery making sure you are safe and not challenging yourself too much by putting yourself in hazardous situations or I guess feelings.