alwayssober1

I was talking to my mum about me being over 3 months sober, I said I missed having a beer especially at the weekend, my mum said why don't you have a beer and I said I can't because I'm an alcoholic, but my mum said "your not an alcoholic...I think its just a boredom thing" and I must say.....boredom was the reason I drank since teenage years.

I have always been a bit of a loner, single, lost contact with school mates, going from job to job, I drunk because I had nothing else going on in my life. Where I live people go to work, live for the weekend then drink, now in over 3 months sober, late twenties, living at home and I'm bored!

Anyone else drink out of boredom? How did you overcome this getting sober?

Stoogy

Hi AlwaysSober, hope you are doing well my friend, what you are describing is classic of people who maybe do not understand what it means to be alcoholic, a lot of good willing people think that because you have not drank in 3 month(congrats by the way) that you do not have a problem because you have went so long! But like most people we cannot just have a drink can we? One becomes a bender and bang goes all your extremely hard work.

Love your posts, look out for them.
All the best AlwaysSober.

least

I drank for any reason at all, boredom was just one excuse to drink. I started to occupy my time more meaningfully so less boredom. And now, if I'm really bored I either walk my dogs or take a nap.

alwayssober1

Thanks for your reply stoogy, I think because my dad and my brothers do the same I think its ingrained into my heritage..lol, I'm the only one in recovery, people are amazed I'm still sober but I do know it is dangerous to health drinking as much as I did, that's why I quit, same with tobacco. I know I can't moderate my drinking, its all or nothing!

It was me being a few years away from 30 and still nothing had changed in my life, no motivation but to sit, do nothing and drink! I'm hoping I get some motivation to do something with my life, stop being one of life's spectators.

alwayssober1

I suppose you are right least......people could have busy, non stop lives and still drink too much, alcoholics don't need reasons to drink!

GunnyL

Yep. One of the prime motivators to get me going.

I'm changing my lifestyle, for one. Going back to work. I don't have to, but I need to. Sitting around with nothing to do is too much temptation.

When I worked, and I work out after work, I don't have a whole lot of extra time.

I don't really need an excuse to drink, but I find if I keep the time filled and my mind occupied, I have a lot less time to even think about it.

FeenixxRising

Yes, boredom and restlessness were probably two of the main reasons for my drinking. But like Least, I try very hard to occupy my time with meaningful activities. Learning new things is something that keeps me interested. I've also been relearning and increasing skills I need for my career. There are many things one can do to stave off boredom, but sometimes you need to "force" your thinking towards a different but healthier direction.

PhaseTwo

Although we did drink out of boredom sometimes, we drank for many other reasons too. Were alcoholics so any reason sounded like a good reason to drink. When people suggest that you can drink again let it go in one ear and out the other. They often mean well, it's just they don't understand what it's like to be an alcoholic. They are making suggestions to you based on their own experience with drinking which is vastly different from ours

Notimetoloose

There was many times when I would say "What will I do now, I know I will have a drink and think about what I will do."
I drank out of boredom, fatigue, happiness, grief, excitement, celebrations, sadness, loneliness, to wind down, to wind up, to recovery from a hangover, to feel socially comfortable...I drank..

It appears that a lot of people, family included have a lot invested in us not being an alcoholic for many reasons..one being that it somehow reflects on them.

I feel it can take us sometime to acknowledge that we are alcoholics, once acknowledged we can address it or not but we can't really take it back.

Raider

Drink when bored? Oh yes.........

Johnston

Definitely, huge trigger.

matt4x4

Nope, I did not drink out of boredom. I can, and will, make up any excuse in universe to drink. You can blame it on boredom if you wish, then you can blame it on the cop that wrote you a ticket, then you can blame mommy and daddy, or grandpa and grandma.

I know the facts today and the facts are I am an alcoholic, I drink to change the way I feel. No excuses needed to take a drink. Thats just what we alcoholics do, WE DRINK!!!!!














When not recovered.

alwayssober1

No doubt about it, i'm an alcoholic, definitely need a new outlet, its seems like as the weeks roll by it is getting harder to resist temptation!

Notimetoloose

Always sober, I think we are pretty much at the same amount of time sober, while I think we are going great and a little bit awesome to get this far...I believe it is early days and from everything I read it comes back to bite us hard at around the 5 to 6 mth sober mark....Hang in there and ride it out.... and let see what sobriety is like at 9 mths, 12 months....

Dee74

I said I drank out of boredom.

The normal response to boredom is to do something.
I did nothing, and drank.

To me that means I'm an alcoholic

D

alwayssober1

Thanks notimetoloose, I agree just because it seems like we've been sober awhile now, its still early days, it would be interesting to see how it is at 9 months, just got to hang in there.

alwayssober1

I know there just excuses dee there coming thick and fast lol, cravings have been strong the past week, but I do my best to ignore them, keep strong.

Johnston

The trick for me is to free up the idle time I used to use drinking with other activities. The first year it was AA. Now I am learning a new software language and working 60 hrs/week coding. Replacing one addiction with another maybe. But I go to bed sober and have more green in the wallet than I used to.

Brian316

I really appreciate what you are saying my friend, I actually did drink out of boredom a lot myself. But at the same time, there could be all the excitement in the world going on around me and I would still drink. I always had a reason, the real reason was I just like to drink. I'm an alcoholic and that's what I do.

LBrain

Alwayssober,
As others have already said, I needed no excuse or any excuse to drink. I must say that boredom (isolation) was a huge trigger for me. Call it laziness or what you want. Sometimes I would just wait around for when it was time to drink. Then when I got tired of waiting, it was time to drink. Sometimes I would get bored from drinking. So I would drink to alleviate the boredom. It's was a vicious cycle.