TexasAngel8

How do you have fun? Nothing is really FUN anymore. I'm not fun anymore.

I go to work, go home and play with my iPad. Repeat. Days that I go meet my boyfriend, we go sit in a bar with all our friends, and I watch them drink. I can laugh and joke around and have a decent time, but it's short lived. After an hour or two, I'm just bored and go home. I'm also somewhat faking the happiness...I automatically turn on around people, so they think I'm happy, but it's just shy of forced and can't last all night.

My boyfriend and I are out of town this weekend visiting his family. His brother owns a restaurant/bar (largely bar), so we sat there for hours last night. I finally went up to the loft area to lay down because I was bored. Today we were there from 2:30 til 7:30, and I finally just asked for the keys and came to the hotel. So I'm screwing around on my iPad while they're listening to live music and seemingly having a blast.

All my girlfriends meet up for happy hours, and I just don't even want to go. I'll try with my boyfriend because I want to see him badly enough, but it's just not fun. I don't know what to do with my life anymore.

And for reference, yes, he would probably have an alcohol problem, and tomorrow is 9-months off the sauce for me.

Maybe I'm just having a pity party.

Dee74

I think sitting around watch other people drink is pretty close to my idea of hell, to be honest.

Maybe it's time to think about making some changes to your life and lifestyle?
My drinking life was fine for drunk me. but not at all suitable for sober me....

there must be other things you'd like to rather than sitting in a bar?

D

PurpleKnight

I always use the example of when we were young!!

Can you remember when you were 4 or 5 years old? . . . we didn't know what alcohol was, and we didn't need it to have fun, but were we bored? . . . no we had plenty of fun, we didn't have enough hours in the day to do all the things we wanted to do!!

So why can't he have fun now without alcohol??

zeroptzero

My pity parties are fewer and farther between, but I still host them from time to time. It was a little difficult to learn to have fun without drinking, but the longer I stayed sober and the more I learned, I realized that drinking isn't really an activity. Drinking isn't really doing much of anything. I thought it made things more fun but it had really kept me from learning what I really like and who I really am.

gardendiva

"Boredom is a demand that life provide constant, food-fed pleasure. It is simply an admission of one's incompetence in finding meaning or fascination at a given moment." - Jack Trimpey

You have many, many options for "what to do with your life" besides drinking. What is meaningful and fascinating to you?

TexasAngel8

I know this will reek even more of "pity party," but I really don't even know! What would I rather do? Yes, I can do house projects, or bake, or go get coffee. That's all solo stuff. I guess I'm kind of lonely and totally on a different wavelength from literally everyone I know, and I'm a friendly person who knows a LOT of people lol.

Zero, you said drinking really kept you from learning what you really like and who you are. That clicks with me. I'm not drinking, but I am still part of that lifestyle, except when I'm home alone, so I'm not finding that stuff.

I think ending my relationship is going to end up being an inevitable part of this process, but I'm not there yet. Letting him go, ending my best friendship, is going to almost kill me. I think I'm going to have to go a little further down and go through that before I can start to come back up, but I'm not thrilled at the idea of dredging through it.

TexasAngel8

And thanks for talking to me about it, y'all.

seek

Isn't there a saying that you have to "get a new playground and new playmates?" I am not an alcoholic and I would be bored to death hanging out in bars with drunk people.

There are many other fun things to do, but it sounds like you have to change your lifestyle to discover them. Maybe start with books - go on Amazon and browse topics of interest or go on Pinterest.

gardendiva

It doesn't sound like a pity party to me, more like you're trying to figure out how to reorganize your life so that having fun and being sober aren't mutually exclusive. We all have/had to do that. You may want to check out the book Living Sober. It's and old one (1975) but I found it to still be very relevant to this issue.

Gottalife

I have about the coolest life I can imagine. Currently I live on a yacht with my partner and we cruise around the place, visitng new places, making new friends.

In my social activities I frequently find myself in bars and clubs and I happily enjoy the company of friends that drink. Very rarely do I even see a drunk, but I guess that is because I socialise in different places with different people for different reasons than I used to.

The method of recovery I have chosen has given me tremendous freedom. I can go anywhere that free men can go, I can enjoy life ( a life I never even knew existed) to the full and I can do it without fear of alcohol.

The company of those who indulge in mindless drinking has no appeal to me. But I dont find many of them in restaurants, fishing and yacht clubs, or even the local blues club.

And as a bonus, every new town we visit has a fellowship I can call in on, to which I already belong, and in which I can participate in a most rewarding way. I never knew I had so many friends. For me, sober is just the coolest way to live.

Congrats on your nine months. I hope your sobriety turns out to be as meaningful and as much fun as mine has.