Hi General,
I also drank every night to numb myself from, well, not sure what, but I definitely got the job done every night so I wouldn't have to be there, present in the moment.
My first few evenings I spent laying on the couch wrapped in a huge blanket, with half dozen pillows propping me up, not talking much (definitely wasn't much in the mood for conversation), reading, reading, reading the posts on here.
I never drank during the day so my days didn't change much at all, except the lack of headache, crabbiness, and feeling terrible.
Around 6 pm was when it became difficult. I became agitated, restless, and like your question in your post wondering, "What in the h*ll do I do with myself for the next 6 hours?"
I had different plans that worked to take my mind of wanting to drink.
Plan 1: Hole-up on the couch like I mentioned. My evening included nothing but me, this website (SR), the pillows, blanket, ice cream, diet soda, and lounging on the couch. When my partner wanted to talk to me I kept it simple: short, polite responses. Often our significant others want to support us with hugs, loving questions, and endless conversations about not drinking and how we're feeling, but for me I needed to keep a narrow focus during the first night or two: remind myself of why drinking was not working for me by reading post after post on here, and receive support from everyone here who could relate to what I was going through.
Plan 2: Go to the gym at night, even late. I found that sweating it out on the treadmill for 60-90 minutes was like some sort of cleansing. During the hour on the treadmill I find that the craving is gone; completely gone. It also killed an hour or two of the evening. And, I felt good that I was active, burning calories, and doing something good for my body.
Plan 3: Force yourself to do something during the evening that you normally did while drinking, but do it sober. I love editing videos on my computer at night, and I always drank while doing it. I sat myself down in front of the computer and did it anyway. I admit at first it was hard but I still enjoyed it and it passed the time.
Plan 4: Walk the dog.
Plan 5: Call someone. An old friend, relative, coworker and chat. This was also strange at first because one of my old 'favorite' (sneer) things to do was to drink and talk endlessly on the phone. Yeah, I'm cringing as I write that; how I must have sounded! This, like editing the videos, was something I wanted to retrain myself to enjoy sober. After one or two times I found it to be enjoyable.