Almost One Year....bored and feeling less than confident
 

Hello. I've just joined here, though on the 26th of this month I'll be one year sober. This is my longest period of sobriety. (A few years ago I made it to six months, but otherwise it's been a month or two here and there). I don't know if it's jitters about getting close to the "big day"....but for the past month or so I've been thinking a lot about drinking and had a few close calls. I've been attending meetings more, and feel fine while there, but there's a whole lot of hours in between! (a reason I thought coming here might be helpful). What's disappointing and frustrating is that prior to this last month, I felt pretty good. I was staying busy, not having too many thoughts at all about drinking, but now I feel like I've worn out all those activities I was enjoying and I'm insanely bored. I'd do one thing, get bored with it, find something else, etc. Now, everything feels so boring. I do know getting too bored is not good for me, but I don't seem to be able to find anything motivating/interesting lately. If anyone has any advice/suggestions I'd be grateful to hear them! Thanks!

i'm an avid reader so new books transport me to new places and new adventures. that shakes me up a bit. i'm on a new health kick with the gym so i can't advocate that enough. i can't wait to start some new classes.

regarding your year of sobriety...first congrats! that's a wonderful achievement! still, this occurred to me in another thread i answered today for someone who was dealing with cravings while coming up on the one month mark. i think when we celebrate our milestones we accidentally let them get in the way of the two periods of sobriety that we should be most concerned about. our daily sobriety and our continued sobriety though our entire lives. all the milestones we celebrate in between are great but none are as important as those two. remember, a year is just a period of time. it's not nearly as important as having a sober day! ^_^

i hope you're able to work though all this and that this period of ennui passes you soon and you're able to experience the vitality of life that sobriety allows us to know. welcome to SR. it's good to have you here!

Welcome to SR & congrats on 1 year.
I'm sure you'll get support here & advice from others.

Hi daisypetal - welcome :)

for me there were two parts to staying sober...one was not drinking...the other was making a life for myself that I loved.

If we're not loving our life, I think we need to ask why not?

you'll find a lot of support here :)

you may also find this useful reading - see if it resonates... :)
PAWS « Digital Dharma

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Congratulations on your upcoming one year celebration. I've really started to work hard at filling my life with meaningful and positive things that I have found I enjoy doing. It is hard, figuring out what you enjoy doing that doesn't involve getting completely wasted. But I just kept trying new things until I found a few things that stuck. It sounds like you are a bit complacent about hitting a year. I mean it's exciting, just work a program around it and whatever you do just keep going to meetings.

I haven't gotten past ten days yet, so congrats on a year! :) I will be there to :D

I think the milestones are the both the best and the most dangerous days of recovery. We think on where we've been, where we're going, the changes we've made, the progress and the loss. In all directions. There's so much to consider! Maybe it's not like we thought it would or should be. There's this image of rejoicing gleefully over ones newfound sobriety we sometimes see, but it's not that way on a day-to-day basis. Don't let the images fool you, recovery is hard, and sometimes boring. But so is life in general, sometimes.

You have a fully active brain and life again to do with as you choose. Rerouting yourself and your life can be scary and hard, difficult to know what to do. Think on what you enjoy most, or try something completely new and different. Engage yourself in activities, passive or active. Learn new things, meet new people. Volunteer, or maybe even start a new job or business. It can be hard to see beyond the boredom but once you start down a path of engagement whole new worlds might open to you. Enjoy your freedom! Best to you, and congratulations on a year!

If you are bored drinking will not be the answer it will only plaster over your boredom and make you sick .

Sometime we have to go through the motions untill things catch. Why not plan something nice for someone you love, take the focus off yourself and give yourself a break for a while .

Bestwishes, M

Welcome to SR Daisypetal :)

I am sure you'll find this place will help between meetings. What sort of things have you been doing to keep yourself from getting bored? Some things I do are just a thing I do and others are a process, with no end (a bit like sobriety). Like reading a book has an end to it, but learning a musical instrument doesn't. I could do up my house and be bored when I am finished but if I took up something I had to do regularly, like exercise, maybe that would be less boring, because there is always somewhere new to go, another level to get to...

Glad you're here and well done on a year sober!! x

Congratulations on this huge accomplishment! What tenacity, resolve, and courage you have! Great suggestions here. It's interesting how we all are so different yet the same. I am very goal driven. Dangle that carrot and I am going to bat at it, in one way or another, until I have it firmly in hand and turn it into cake. 3 months shy of a year, I am so driven to make it that nothing is going to shake me at this point - but that's just me. Being sober has caused some major inward looking and it is so rewarding to find solace and the answers I my addiction was keeping hidden. I really feel I have come out of the dark and into the light. I'm so pleased you posted. You are an inspiration and a role model. Happy, sober Sunday!!

Welcome to SR! And congrats on your sober year.:hug:

So very well said !

Congratulations on your sobriety milestone.

I think you need to figure out why the things in your life are not satisfying you. Do you need to try different activities? Have you considered volunteering as a way to give back? I think if you focus on gratitude it can help a lot, also.

Congrats. I've stopped counting ....I know I stopped drinking in June....but no longer focus on weeks. I think of sober time as my future....a road before me. Visualizing it this way helps me not to hear the "tick tock" which I think sets limits on my sobriety.

I agree about finding things that make you happy. When we are drunk we are not doing anything...... and there is so much out there to do:)

Congratulations on your (almost) one year! What an inspiring achievement! I agree with the advice of the prior posters, but wanted to add just a little. Everyone's different, I think, but it is hard for me to be happy and fulfilled unless I feel like I'm doing something important on a regular basis that makes a difference in other people's lives. It can be hard to get that feeling from work sometimes (depending on what you do) because, while most people's jobs are important in some respects, they often are "cog in the wheel" important where you can't really see or feel the positive impact you're making. I can come up with fun and personally productive things to fill my leisure time - and I do - but I also need to balance that with some kind of activity that makes my life feel really meaningful BEYOND myself, in a way that directly helps other people. I need this to feel a sense of inner contentment.

A couple of people have suggested volunteering, and that is the very thing that gives me that sense of fulfillment I'm talking about. I volunteer at a rehab facility (of all things) - I meet with patients and families as they go through the admissions process. They want to talk about what they've been going through, and their fears about rehab, and I listen, share what I've learned, and my ES&H. It is obvious that it means A LOT to them, and helps them deal with this scary and stressful moment in their lives. And because they make it so clear how directly helpful my interaction with them is, it gives me what I need to feel like I'm making a positive difference in the world beyond my own little life. I do this just one day a week, and adding this to the mix of my normal job, family, exercise, and relaxing "just for me" leisure activities gives me that balance I need to be really content.

Like I said, everyone's different, and you may get that inner sense of contentment through other activities, but I thought I'd share what works for me.

It is quite possible that what I am posting here will be of no aid to you, simply because I have been dealing with mood disorders for at least as long as I have been aware that I am an alcoholic. The fact that I am in recovery from both does not alter the fact that my knowledge of mood disorders almost certainly causes my perception of things to be altered by looking through that particular lens. I know for example, that one of the classic signs of depression is a sudden loss of interest in activities once found enjoyable. And I believe that if you entered into recovery from addiction expecting that that alone would cure all that ails you, that alone might be dissappointing, for, as you very likely know, recovery is a tool which greatly enhances one's ability to deal with life's troubles; it no more heals them on its own than remission from cancer puts money into your banking account. So if a years sobriety, a very commendable thing I should add, is somehow less than you expected perhaps you should check out whether your expectations were realistic. If they were not, depression might be an expected result, but it is a matter to be looked into with a doctor, not me. Best of luck to you, and please remember that this post is coloured by my own POV--I see some very good suggestions on this thread that you might more profitably check out---best of luck to you, and please remember that in no way will picking up again benefit you-----Rick

Thank you all for your support and advice. I love the idea several suggested about volunteering. It hit on the fact that even in recovery I tend to be very self-centered. (hate admitting that). I realized a lot of my activities to stave off boredom have been things like reading, hiking, knitting, etc.....things I do by myself - by choice, of course. I've never been outgoing and have difficulty relating to people, though I've recognized how much better I feel when I'm around others. I need to make a conscious effort to get out of the shallow world of one (me) I've been living in. I think for the better part of this past year I was riding on the "pink cloud" and ignoring reality. I certainly was in the frame of mind that since my life sucked while drinking, it could only un-suck not drinking. Obviously, learning to live in and deal with the real, sober world (complete with boredom and other issues) is something I need to work on and after a long drinking career, need to realize I'm not going to get all the skills down right away to do these things (despite my thinking I can).

Lots of thanks and gratitude for you all! A change in perspective certainly helps strengthen a positive attitude! and stay happily sober another day!