new hobbies since sobriety
 

So what has everyone taken up since they put down the glass? For me I've started playing video games again like I was 15 (sad I know). Instead of parking my a55 in front of the TV with a bottle of rum and coke, I park my a55 in front of the TV with an xBox controller and a coke. I've also started watching movies that I saw when I was drunk. Its amazing, because its almost like seeing them for the first time! I can't believe how much of the plot I missed when I was drinking.

Haha! We've totally done the movie thing. We never watched films sober EVER in 9 years of marriage. It's amazing how good the endings to some movies are!

Also taken up lots of exercise and writing (I was doing that before, but I do it better now). We've also started doing really quiet things together, like jigsaws. Hanging out with my H doing a jigsaw with a cup of tea is a surprisingly brilliant way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Who woulda thought?

Nice thread dude!

Still
xx

I've also taken up exercising, flying RC helicopters, going to auctions and flea markets to buy and sell antiques - just to name a few. After thinking about it, I never realized how much drinking consumed my life. I had no hobbies when I was drinking. When someone would ask me what my hobbies were, I had no idea how to answer them (I sure as heck didn't want to say I loved drinking a fifth of rum every night). Its great to start exploring life again.

I've been staying busy and active -- I work out in the mornings, and then in the evenings when I would normally start drinking, I'll do something to get out and exercise, even if it's just a walk.

I was dead exhausted last night though, which worried me because I thought that if I stayed inside I might drink, but I ended up having a fun time re-watching a couple of episodes of "Walking Dead." I was drinking when I watched them the first time around, so I had forgotten quite a bit. (I think sobriety is giving me a new appreciation for the horror genre, by the way.) Of course I held my iPhone in my hand and stayed close to the forum the whole time.

By the way, I love jigsaw puzzles, but I can't do that right now, as my 2-year-old would likely scatter the pieces.

Oh, and this is a little embarrassing -- I love playing Sims 3 on my computer. I don't use the game play mode very much; I just build houses, parks, stores, libraries. I couldn't sleep the other night, so I stayed up and built a very close replica of my own house.

There's always arts and crafts. I taught myself to crochet the other day using you tube videos, and I've been trying my hand at Chinese brush painting.

I love puzzles but tend to keep them as a winter activity. I have been working out (trying to lose 20 pounds of alcohol and pot induced munchies). I am reading, painting, crafts, and cleaning.

thanks for all the replies. Its giving me ideas for other hobbies I can get involved in. If I can stay as busy as possible, I think about drinking less and less.

I'm glad you posted this thread! Because although I have taken up the new hobbies of remembering what I did last night, making sense in conversations, saving money, single-vision, and having an appetite, there are some other hobbies I want to take up! So I'm hoping by replying that I'm motivating myself to do them. I have had a keyboard behind my couch for, no lie, 3 years. I have tutorial books and music sheets also- bookshelf- three years. I also want to try yoga since everyone has been talking about it here, think it will help with my anxiety and bring me to this "in the moment" place I keep hearing about. I used to do crafts. I used to cross stitch squares and send them into these people who made quilts for sick kids. I used to knit scarves. And I really want to scrapbook the millions of pictures I have sitting in boxes! I must look back to this when I'm bored and, by then by default, wanting to make a drink. Thanks for making me think!

Good for you, me I just resumed old interests that had fallen away because of the bottle.

By the way, when I read the original post about parking your "a55," I literally read it as a-fifty-five. I didn't realize what you actually meant until I got to the second "a55." Thanks for the giggle. I really need to make some coffee. Hahah.

Ha! You're not the only one.