Alcohol is probably not the only indulgence in your life. Once your downtime ends, and you’ve made progress on your hobby or taken a walk, enjoy a piece of chocolate before your next activity. As part of your daily “boredom prevention plan,” schedule a reward for not drinking when you otherwise would. If “for no reason” drinking out of boredom pops up frequently in your list, it might help to seek a CBT professional to understand your why in those situations.
Socialize Without Alcohol
Journaling, self-reflection, and mindfulness can help you gain an marijuana addiction understanding of your triggers for boredom drinking, enabling you to take proactive steps to prevent boredom drinking and stay sober. Stress, anxiety, and loneliness can all be potential triggers for boredom drinking. People may turn to alcohol as a way to cope with these negative emotions, but in doing so, they may be putting their mental health at risk.
Why do I drink alcohol out of boredom?
If you’re having trouble making this change alone, Sunlight Recovery offers programs like individual therapy, group therapy and medical detox to help you with drug and alcohol treatment. If you’re drinking out of boredom, read on to learn more about what this means. It also opens up space to approach your internal world differently. One of the biggest impediments to my sobriety during my relapse days was my inability to avoid getting consumed by emotions. Not on its own, but maybe it starts a conversation and a friend comes over just to sit with you and make sure you’re good. Your friends are out getting drunk, the same as they always do.
The Boredom Drinking Loop
When combined with counseling, this approach is proven highly effective. I’m not drinking every night, and it’s generally not a big deal to not drink if I’m busy. I work weekends until about 11 and have to be up early, so I don’t generally drink on those nights. But I’ve been creeping up to about five nights a week of post work/workout drinking.
The only true thing that can fill the void of existential boredom is meaning. And paradoxically, meaning often lies on the other side of boredom. Like treating a broken bone with painkillers, the vacuum of meaning can’t be healed by numbing or noise. When we keep reaching for distractions, we end up living a life filled with unfulfilling. But little did we realize that the real answer lives on the other side of boredom. Suddenly, the urge to find a distraction—any distraction—rushes in.
- Simply asking these questions might be enough to take the edge off the urge to drink.
- We’ll also teach you healthy coping skills that support long-term abstinence from drugs and alcohol.
- If you want to reduce the amount of alcohol you drink, it makes sense to avoid busy bars and thirsty friends.
- In this article, we’ll unpack bored drinking and help you figure out whether boredom is a drinking trigger.
It’s not about having nothing to do, but about not knowing why you’re doing anything. Maybe it’s a slow Sunday afternoon, or a weekday evening that’s unusually quiet. When the noise of the day settles, it can feel like something is missing. Often, it really comes down to being willing to do something that doesn’t entertain you or make you feel good immediately. In other words, it’s about suspending the need for instant gratification.
- These activities can help you stay busy, improve your mental health, and provide a healthier alternative to boredom drinking.
- They’re like bite-sized sober curious snacks that go perfectly with your morning coffee—no overwhelm, just small sparks of clarity to help you drink less without losing the joy.
- If you have a willing friend or family member, take them along.
- Most people drink to fill some sort of void, like boredom, loneliness, an unhappy relationship, job-related stress or anxiety.
- It’s essential to understand the link between boredom and alcohol consumption to take control of your life and prevent drinking out of boredom.
Boredom can indeed lead to cravings for alcohol, but it doesn’t have to be this way. With understanding and a few targeted strategies, you can retrain your brain to seek healthier, more fulfilling ways to escape boredom. While it doesn’t automatically indicate alcohol use disorder drinking out of boredom can expose users to the extensive list of short- and long-term health effects due to ongoing alcohol use. According to Medical News Today, the average adult in the United States experiences around 131 days of boredom per year. How we react to the state of boredom is critical to our ongoing mental health, experts state.
Join the Sober Curiosity Insider
Drinking out of boredom is how some choose to deal with the dull moments life throws at us. Though boredom in early recovery can be challenging, remember that many before you have figured out how to sustain the changes they want for themselves. Each person who succeeds at modifying, ending, or improving their relationship with alcohol must find ways to handle boredom, and any other unpleasant feelings connected with new habits. By taking the time to explore new activities, you can open yourself up to the possibility of finding a meaningful and fulfilling sober life.
Our reward system gets recalibrated to account for the frequent dopamine hits coming from the alcohol. Our brain starts needing more and more alcohol to experience the same level of reward or pleasure, resulting in increased alcohol consumption. Learning healthy coping skills, unfortunately, is not as intuitive as it might seem. Dealing with monotony and underlying mental health issues typically requires self-awareness and outside assistance through various forms of therapy addressing underlying conditions. However, because it’s so common, we can fail to recognize the importance of addressing it. Boredom can cascade into serious issues like battling loneliness, uncovering deeply seeded shame and self-loathing, and even feelings of high stress can become prevalent.
- Pile on some sobriety struggle, and it’s a recipe for madness.
- If you are aware that you have a problem with alcohol, there are several available treatment options and methods to help you.
- Instead, you should find ways to cope with your boredom that keep you productively occupied and are more fulfilling.
- But now it just feels like I’m doing them to avoid drinking and not for the fun of it.
- It’s essential to remember that this is a normal part of recovery and that it will disappear with time as your body adjusts.
Boredom can be scary, but incredibly essential in recovery and is an essential step in recovering from substance abuse. Alcohol has been shown to artificially boost serotonin and dopamine in your brain, which are two of the main neurotransmitters responsible https://envantermedya.com/samhsa-reverses-cuts-to-mental-health-substance/ for mood regulation. It’s really common to attribute all ennui in sobriety to missing booze and thinking that the main way you (and everyone else) enjoy yourself is by getting wasted. Learn how to get control or stop drinking with this mental model called First Principles Thinking. If you want to access my free video training on how to make stopping drinking effortless and enjoyable, click here. There is nothing wrong with being bored after stopping drinking.
Melody is here to help as you adjust to a life with less (or no) alcohol. Understanding this connection is the first step towards breaking the cycle. In Clinical Mental Health from Adams State University (May 2025). Before AspenRidge, she spent six years in substance-use and mental-health roles. Jasmine takes a person-centered approach—humanistic and narrative—blending brief solution-focused work and elements of Internal Family Systems to build compassionate, collaborative change. Nate Denning is the Lead Admission Representative at AspenRidge Recovery.