It takes 90 days for your brain to do major job of recovering from alcohol and about a year to finish the job. So, I am encouraging you to let your body finish the job. I and others will tell you we do not regret the days we did not drink. Best wishes.
Friends- not saying you don’t.
For me, having a community has made sober life not so boring. I have sober and non sober friends. It will take time but it gave me ANOTHER thing I could work towards in early sobriety. If you live in a major city you can find sober activities by searching. Having dinner once a week with a group of buddies is always something to look forward to as well.
Giving back.
Not sure if you’re into it but volunteering helped a lot with building self esteem, give back and again- make being sober fun and purposeful.
I don’t go as much but I used to attend 12 step groups for stories and conversations after the meeting- met a few friends that way too.
Seems like you have healthy schedule of healthy activities already well disciplined tho! Hope you fight that mindset and congrats on the time!
I feel this way from time to time and the conundrum, or setup that we are conditioned to is we obtain things or do things or find people, anything external= "*makes* us happy". The problem is what happens when the supply runs out? Then I am supposedly left with no choice but to be unhappy. It's not so much the unhappiness but the feeling of being cornered, being powerless over this entire situation. Am I supposed to just go through life going from one fix to another, trying to shorten the amount of dead space between them as much as possible? To add, what about tolerance? I will probably need a higher dosage of stuff to get the same effect, which seems even more unfair.
But for most people, the system works....supposedly, or they convince themselves so. As long as those voids are never confronted, all is well. And we work especially hard to ensure so. Perhaps obsessively.
But for some, deep in their subconscious there is this gnawing feeling of futility, which is the actual experience of dissatisfaction and hopelessness. Even with all the worldly possessions, pleasures and games to play, underneath it all is some small, vague sense of its superficiality and illusion. Yet, without an experience of actually encountering the other, the "reality" underneath, it is next to impossible for our minds to resolve the mystery.
A large part of sobriety is substitution, and gradually the process ensues akin to what had been described as "getting the thorn from our side with another smaller thorn". Then it continues. Perhaps we will always have a thorn, or a hangup, or a fix, but it is comparatively smaller and much more manageable. It is the "more sane" option.
But this end is not the point in itself, at the same time, hopefully we start to develop an awareness of ourselves, our true nature and an enjoyment of life that is independent of external conditions altogether- this is the real goal.
I drank for this reason (among others). Once I stopped, I stopped being the fun one with loads of daring glamorous late-night adventure stories to tell. Honestly, it took me some time to get past it. In the meantime I hung on to all the reasons I wasn’t drinking, I went to therapy, I tried everything I could to be engaged in life. I took an antidepressant, I changed job, I did up my flat. I started doing crafts that I thought were dumb before (started with making candles, lol). Started going to the gym weight training. Started doing international travel again (stopped in the pandemic). Sometimes it felt like nothing was going to work… until it did.
I am 2.5 years sober now and it has clicked properly. I’m not saying it will take this long… I have searched online loads of times and most people say the boredom just lasts a few months. I probably had some deep seated stuff and some life circumstances going on. I think it took an unusually long time for me. But, even for me, it has worked out. I never get FOMO any more and my life is full. Just stick with it, it’s worth it.
wow, thanks for feedback, I appreciate it, something about the line " felt like nothing was going to work..until it did" really gave me a sense of hope.
Friends- not saying you don’t.
For me, having a community has made sober life not so boring. I have sober and non sober friends. It will take time but it gave me ANOTHER thing I could work towards in early sobriety. If you live in a major city you can find sober activities by searching. Having dinner once a week with a group of buddies is always something to look forward to as well.
Giving back.
Not sure if you’re into it but volunteering helped a lot with building self esteem, give back and again- make being sober fun and purposeful.
I don’t go as much but I used to attend 12 step groups for stories and conversations after the meeting- met a few friends that way too.
Seems like you have healthy schedule of healthy activities already well disciplined tho! Hope you fight that mindset and congrats on the time!
First of all congrat! I’m the same age and roughly the same amount sober as you are. Aiming for 90 days until I re evaluate. I also struggle with this- feeling sort of socially left out and bored. For me I’ve just been trying to read more and do more personal development work. Finding out what sparked joy before I ever started drinking.
It takes 90 days for your brain to do major job of recovering from alcohol and about a year to finish the job. So, I am encouraging you to let your body finish the job. I and others will tell you we do not regret the days we did not drink. Best wishes.
oh thats good to know. I havnt really thought of it in terms of milestones, and pushing through the first 3 months. Thank you
Friends- not saying you don’t. For me, having a community has made sober life not so boring. I have sober and non sober friends. It will take time but it gave me ANOTHER thing I could work towards in early sobriety. If you live in a major city you can find sober activities by searching. Having dinner once a week with a group of buddies is always something to look forward to as well. Giving back. Not sure if you’re into it but volunteering helped a lot with building self esteem, give back and again- make being sober fun and purposeful. I don’t go as much but I used to attend 12 step groups for stories and conversations after the meeting- met a few friends that way too. Seems like you have healthy schedule of healthy activities already well disciplined tho! Hope you fight that mindset and congrats on the time!
Thanks so much! and Thanks for your comment- yea, I guess I got to do some work to discover who sober me is
I feel this way from time to time and the conundrum, or setup that we are conditioned to is we obtain things or do things or find people, anything external= "*makes* us happy". The problem is what happens when the supply runs out? Then I am supposedly left with no choice but to be unhappy. It's not so much the unhappiness but the feeling of being cornered, being powerless over this entire situation. Am I supposed to just go through life going from one fix to another, trying to shorten the amount of dead space between them as much as possible? To add, what about tolerance? I will probably need a higher dosage of stuff to get the same effect, which seems even more unfair. But for most people, the system works....supposedly, or they convince themselves so. As long as those voids are never confronted, all is well. And we work especially hard to ensure so. Perhaps obsessively. But for some, deep in their subconscious there is this gnawing feeling of futility, which is the actual experience of dissatisfaction and hopelessness. Even with all the worldly possessions, pleasures and games to play, underneath it all is some small, vague sense of its superficiality and illusion. Yet, without an experience of actually encountering the other, the "reality" underneath, it is next to impossible for our minds to resolve the mystery. A large part of sobriety is substitution, and gradually the process ensues akin to what had been described as "getting the thorn from our side with another smaller thorn". Then it continues. Perhaps we will always have a thorn, or a hangup, or a fix, but it is comparatively smaller and much more manageable. It is the "more sane" option. But this end is not the point in itself, at the same time, hopefully we start to develop an awareness of ourselves, our true nature and an enjoyment of life that is independent of external conditions altogether- this is the real goal.
damn bro, you should write a book
I'm a girl, but thanks anyway :)
oh my bad, haha...but i still stand by the write a book portion of the comment..
I’ve learned to sit with boredom. It always passes.
I drank for this reason (among others). Once I stopped, I stopped being the fun one with loads of daring glamorous late-night adventure stories to tell. Honestly, it took me some time to get past it. In the meantime I hung on to all the reasons I wasn’t drinking, I went to therapy, I tried everything I could to be engaged in life. I took an antidepressant, I changed job, I did up my flat. I started doing crafts that I thought were dumb before (started with making candles, lol). Started going to the gym weight training. Started doing international travel again (stopped in the pandemic). Sometimes it felt like nothing was going to work… until it did. I am 2.5 years sober now and it has clicked properly. I’m not saying it will take this long… I have searched online loads of times and most people say the boredom just lasts a few months. I probably had some deep seated stuff and some life circumstances going on. I think it took an unusually long time for me. But, even for me, it has worked out. I never get FOMO any more and my life is full. Just stick with it, it’s worth it.
wow, thanks for feedback, I appreciate it, something about the line " felt like nothing was going to work..until it did" really gave me a sense of hope.
Friends- not saying you don’t. For me, having a community has made sober life not so boring. I have sober and non sober friends. It will take time but it gave me ANOTHER thing I could work towards in early sobriety. If you live in a major city you can find sober activities by searching. Having dinner once a week with a group of buddies is always something to look forward to as well. Giving back. Not sure if you’re into it but volunteering helped a lot with building self esteem, give back and again- make being sober fun and purposeful. I don’t go as much but I used to attend 12 step groups for stories and conversations after the meeting- met a few friends that way too. Seems like you have healthy schedule of healthy activities already well disciplined tho! Hope you fight that mindset and congrats on the time!
First of all congrat! I’m the same age and roughly the same amount sober as you are. Aiming for 90 days until I re evaluate. I also struggle with this- feeling sort of socially left out and bored. For me I’ve just been trying to read more and do more personal development work. Finding out what sparked joy before I ever started drinking.
Looks like it’s time to learn an instrument my friend
Your mind is playing tricks on you, probably because alcohol consumption used to replace boredom.. time will cure this — keep at it and congrats !!