VinnyMcM

28 days sober today and I’ve found that I am just bored all the time. I will just assume this is normal. Physically I feel great. I’ve never felt better. Besides getting easily irritated (lifelong issue not due to alcohol), I’m mentally more stable than ever. Sobriety really has been great but I just can’t find anything I enjoy doing without the crutch of alcohol. I have no desire to drink. It honestly doesn’t even cross my mind.

I’ve taken on exercise as a new hobby. I’ll fully admit I don’t enjoy actually doing it but I love seeing the results and knowing I’m doing something that’s beneficial to my well-being. I won’t list them all but I’ve tried several new and old hobbies and nothing has stuck. It doesn’t help that it’s the middle of winter here either.

I’m not looking for suggestions on new hobbies. I’m just wondering if anyone has or is experiencing the same thing? How did you get out of it? I need to get out of this weird funk.

abgator

Exercise was something that took me a solid month to begin to enjoy and look forward to and then miss if I didn't get it. At first it seems like a chore. It just has to become a part of the routine you like. Although I also got that benefit by joining a bad ass gym with every amenity possible (at $56/mo).

Get hobbies, man. Actually I hate when people say that. It can be hard to find things you're interested in and often, hobbies take money. I'd love to learn to play the piano, but I damn sure don't have the money for a piano or lessons lol.

abgator

So yeah sorry, I only read your first paragraph before responding. But hey, I didn't actually suggest a hobby LOL.

Your free time is what you make of it.

cantsleep123

I imagine it will eventually if you keep trying new things. Also do you have any sober friends? Having people you like to be around sure would help.

Anna

Here you go:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ething-do.html (Looking For Something To Do?)

Railtek

Same problem

I found I was always bored from 10 years old. I remember I always complained that I was bored.

Then the smartphone came along and that saved me for a abit. But iam still a bored person, I literally have 0 sense of adventure .

If I drink, iam not bored

Although I've learned bordem is also associated with laziness.

August252015

I think this feeling and calling it "boredom" is really normal. I had to connect that I wasn't actually bored, I just didn't know how to do stuff w/o alcohol bc everything had alcohol involved by the end!

Identifying what I really am - restless? Uncomfortable in my skin? Tired? Or, an ultimate: just being "OK." Not high, not low, just...ok. Not used to that either but learning to trust it has been awesome.

Remembering that feelings pass helps too. You're doing great and you're really early. The only way thru all this stuff is to keep sober and trust that things improve and level and make sense bc life has become clear.

abgator

I think this is accurate and well said.

VinnyMcM

My friendships these days are through text only. Lol. I’ve gotten the drinking friends out of my life for a while now. It’s just me and all my responsible friends all have life keeping them busy. Kids, marriage, job, etc. But yes, you are correct. Being around other people does help. Currently, I spend most of my time with my kids. I love them more than anything but those conversations usually aren’t thought provoking intellectual talks.

VinnyMcM

I think there is a lot of truth to this. Everyone needs some lazy time but how much is the real question.

abgator

For me, 1 day.

For a while, if I didn't have my kid, I was at the gym or AA or somewhere every single night and I eventually started to feel really burned out.

Now I'll either take 1 work night a week to just watch tv or do whatever I want or if it's a weekend, maybe do a few chores, an AA or gym, but spend the vast majority of the day being lazy as I want to be. That downtime to recharge is important, imo.

VinnyMcM

This. This exactly. This should’ve been my title to the thread. It’s such a weird feeling for me. When I was drinking, there was never a middle. Feeling low? Drink. Feeling ok? I’m not drunk enough yet. Feeling high? I feel great!

Thanks that really hit home for me.

Surrendered19

I am still in awe of the feeling of calm that I have. I sit there often and enjoy that feeling. I guess "bored" would be a way to describe it. But having a quiet mind is still such a luxury for me. Not needing to be entertained every moment is something I am consciously trying to work on. Living here in Day 55.

ScottFromWI

Boredom is a state of mind, not a symptom or condition of quitting drinking.

It is very normal for your addiction to make you feel this way though. Think of the logic it's trying to use: "I'm bored, and I"m not drinking..therefore the solution to my boredom is to have a few drinks, right? "

Being "in a funk" is a normal part of life. As addicts, we have a propensity to want instant gratification - and seek substances to alter our mood. The hardest part of getting sober ( in my opinion ) is learning how to deal with life at face value. In my old days i'd just get drunk and hope all the bad stuff went away. Now I have to accept that there are problems I will need to address, ever single day. Problems at work, problems with my family, health issues, politics, feeling "bored", etc.

How do you deal with it? Certainly adding healthy activities to your day is good - exercise is great for both physical and mental well being. Developing a new routine for your day and practicing mindfulness has been helpful for me. Even the simple act of making a gratitude list can really go far to help you start seeing things in a different light.

VinnyMcM

Exactly. I struggle with living in the present and tend to look at the future more than anything. It’s a work in progress.

MacCouv2020

I hear you on that. When I got out of treatment I felt great mentally but life just seemed so boring. I was kind of emotionless, feeling like a zombie just going through the motions. It does go away eventually, one thing that helped me was to make a list of all the issues that have accumulated during my drinking and just start going after them one at a time. Like I had huge amounts of debt and I would create spreadsheets and plans to tackle it, then go out and do it, working out, reading and learning things I had neglected, etc. It's fun and challenging.

The hard part is to list off all the issues, I did some serious damage to my mind, body, and life during my drinking.

Good luck to you!! It does get better.

VinnyMcM

[QUOTE=ScottFromWI;7358531 The hardest part of getting sober ( in my opinion ) is learning how to deal with live at face value. In my old days i'd just get drunk and hope all the bad stuff went away. Now I have to accept that there are problems I will need to address, ever single day. Problems at work, problems with my family, health issues, politics, feeling "bored", etc. [/QUOTE]

Same here. All my problems and “boredom” went away when I started drinking. Until the next morning.

Mary88

Well done on getting to Day 28.

Yes, I'm feeling a sort of emptiness too. I'm letting go of friendships. They were drinking friends. I've haven't found a new hobby to replace drinking just yet. Or any sober friends

I'm exercising even though I don't feel enthusiastic about it. A flirty man at the gym told me I've a great body but we are not supposed to date for a year so I tried to ignore him.

Anyway, yes, we probably need new hobbies.

Derringer

I came to realise that it wasn't boredom, it's missing the drama.

Living the alcoholic lifestyle is a ton of hard work, we all feel that relief when we get sober that we don't have to plan our day anymore around our drinking, hiding it, justifying it, trying to stay under the radar at work when we have a blitzing hangover etc etc

But then in the most bizarre way, we miss all that too and a kind of "is this it?" feeling sets in.

After being on the hamster wheel, takes time to get used to being relatively still.

Military personnel get it when they stop operating in survive mode and return to civilian life

MLD51

I thought I was bored for a while in early sobriety. Really, I was unused to the lack of chaos and drama. It was a weird feeling, and it took me a while to quit looking for that (bad) buzz of stuff being a mess or of having to fix problems all the time. I was so used to life on the edge and I was fidgety and out of sorts. Getting my act together for the first time as an adult was just strange for me. After a while I figured out that it was GOOD to have not that much to do, and I learned to be ok sitting still for a while.

I went for a lot of long walks early on. Tried out some different hobbies. Spent a fair amount of time on my phone playing games. Did a LOT of reading of recovery books, went to a lot of meetings. Slept a lot. I managed to fill up the time. Still felt oddly "bored" until I figured out that what I was feeling was actually calm and serenity. That was a pretty awesome realization.

I don't know if any of that resonates with you. It's just my experience.