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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. Drinking out of boredom is how some choose to deal with the dull moments life throws at us. In more severe cases, drinking out of boredom can lead to severe alcohol abuse disorders.

• A lot of people experience anhedonia when they quit.
• When we’re bored, the first thing that pops into our minds to alleviate the boredom is alcohol.
• We read books with it, we go on dates with it, we see friends with it, we have weekends away with it.
• Sure, having a single drink while alone might not seem like a problem if you eat well and exercise.

Why do people treat anxiety with alcohol?

Also know what you are going to drink and select from alcohol alternatives. Bars are more frequently providing alcohol-free beverages to help encourage safe drinking habits and reduce risks of accidents caused by driving while intoxicated. Always have a backup soft drink just in case you reach the bar and they are out of stock. Drinking out of boredom can reinforce negative feelings and self-medicate. Boredom is a natural state or emotion that’s part of the spectrum of things we feel as humans, and we all experience boredom in different forms and at different times.

Tip 1: Get conscious about what’s driving your drinking out of boredom

For many people, an antidote to boredom is picking up their knitting, grabbing a book, or writing in their journal. These healthy diversions fill a gap that drinking might otherwise fill. Sure, having a single drink while alone might not seem like a problem if you eat well and exercise. But if you add it to the drinks you have with friends and that everyday glass of wine with dinner, your total number of weekly drinks can increase rapidly.

Being Bored When You’re Quitting Drinking

If you must dig WAY back into childhood for this answer, then do that. Sometimes boredom in sobriety looks like not wanting to be around anyone. We want to isolate and sit with our feelings.

They improve your overall sense of well-being. Bored drinking might elevate your mood briefly, but it won’t ever match the satisfaction of mastering a hobby. The reality is there are other, healthier ways both to celebrate that milestone and deal with the boredom trigger. The solution is some form of stimulation, which can be healthy or potentially unhealthy. Helping business-owners and professionals get control of their drinking.

And not just in essential oils and bubble baths, which by the way I adore and long walks with podcasts, but also in things that are fun. Because those are the things that are going to keep your sobriety going. You need to follow the divine breadcrumbs of things that spark some joy in early sobriety, you need to follow joy and pleasure drinking because of boredom that exist without substances, creativity and ideas. This podcast episode is about feeling bored in sobriety. And what to do about it, there seems to be a common theme around what women worry about when they’re about to quit drinking. Some of the things they experience in early sobriety that may lead them to go back to drinking.

Use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to identify triggers.

The course includes the exact step-by-step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one-on-one coaching. And The Sobriety Starter Kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it, when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time. This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step-by-step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol.

Why Am I Bored Without Alcohol?

Learn about opportunities to help change the conversation around mental health. About 50% of people who drink in this group have alcohol use disorder. Heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause brain damage and other serious problems in the baby. Because it is not yet known whether any amount of alcohol is safe for a developing baby, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not drink.