canguy

I've managed some sober time....loved it. Learned to cook something different every night. Watched a lot of movies....read a lot of books. Even reconnected with what's left of the family, tho I have to just go sullen silent listening to the sister in law prattling about how expensive it all is and how lucky they are to be able to do it. Uh.

Started to meditate in the mornings.....slow down.....long walk to start the day, make coffee, read the right wing newspaper...read the other side on the internet.

Then just get so effing bored with it. Just spin right out.

Okay...downstairs, big booming sound system and let's get funked up.

For about a week. Then its back to the "gotta stop drinking" thing again.

Just over and over again. Solution before has always been just fly, fly away, but its not working anymore.

Dunno what to do next.

Ohme

I feel the same way. I wanted to offer you help but I don't know the answer. Thought I would just come on here to see what was going on because I get really bored too.
Anything you used to do before drinking got in the way? Like martial arts or yoga or a sport?

manama

Why not come back here ? I dunno what to do either.

Look at the monkey...I get nothing

canguy

Yeah I have hobbies, projects. But I just like doing them totally effed.

I think we alcho ppl have a hard and high tolerance for it. The normal drinkers don't get it. My ex wife....my ex friends....2 or 3 was enough...any more they felt bad. They went home Us?, we just felt better and better, so the harder we went. the better it seemed to get.

But now it's gone.

Now you find yourself using it to blot out what it has caused you to lose. The solution has become the problem has become the solution.

Bad place to be.....and I admire all of you who have got off this.

Maybe one day I'll leave too.

canguy

Oh it's learning to quiet what Buddha called the 'monkey mind'. The ape swinging from tree to branch like the mind just swinging along from one crazed thought to the next.

Alcohol does it. Very effectively.

I have been trying to meditate.....actually doing it is not that impossible. It's just getting up in the early dawn to do it that is the hardest. Can't do it hungover.

You sit and just be quiet for a while....stop thinking.

But can't do it drinking.

columbus

canguy--

Perhaps some deeper engagement with humanity at large would help?

Dee74

I think to get off an addiction, for good, you need to be prepared for a little discomfort - you may even feel a little despair and a more than a little apathetic.

You'll also probably find that the life you live is fine for a drinker but really lacks something for a sober guy.

None of these problems are easily fixed.

It takes a little time, a little energy...and a little faith that recovery will lead eventually and inevitably to better things,

When it sounds like the best thing in the world to drink, you need a plan, and a support network, to stay on recovery road.

D

August252015

IME, my mind needed some sober time to clear. Things began to look VERY different as my mind really had a chance to clear up and clean out....and subsequently finding what I DO enjoy doing, need to do, can do....followed and continues.

I had to take the chance on sobriety because it was the life-saving decision for me. After that, the rest is small potatoes and my program (AA) has helped teach me what to do when I am "restless [bored could work here too], irritable and discontent." Other than drink.

I hope you decide to quit for good. There really is a much better, bigger and definitely engaging and exciting life on this side.

LadyBlue0527

canguy, this is a huge reason as to how we got away. There has to be acceptance of the reality that quitting is not going to be easy and to be firmly committed to take on whatever challenges it presents.

It truly is a retraining of the brain to stop heading to our normal go to which is drinking or using drugs. That path can no longer exist, even when your head tells you it does.

Boredom is a falsehood in addiction. It's another feeling invented to lead us back to using. Everyone gets bored but we, as addicts, will invent a way to become bored to invent a reason to drink. It's always an excuse we can use when nothing else is available.

Make a plan right now as to what you'll do the next time you head in that direction. Remove the option to drink, there is no reason that is plausible, now or ever.

What is your plan for the next time you get bored? If you shy away from the answer to that question, believe it or not, your brain is already planning to drink again.

You CAN do this, what is your plan?