This is where the real work of sobriety is – facing up to your own mind. As humans, we’re meant to experience the full spectrum of positive and negative emotions – that’s how we’re designed. There can be a bit of stigma around boredom, but it can also fuel so much creativity.
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And you need to stay the course and you do need to try, it won’t always fall in your lap. And you actually need this space, you need the blah, you need the quiet time between your drinking life and what is going to fill it up. And suddenly you look over and they’re doing something that you couldn’t even imagine that they would do because the thing that they were obsessed with was put down and put away.
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After managing that program for six years, Danny moved to AspenRidge and now leads the clinical team. Kayla earned a master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Liberty University (August 2024) and completed Brainspotting Phase 1. She draws on DBT, CBT, Brainspotting, solution-focused work, and motivational interviewing—tailored to the person, not the label. Nate Denning is the Lead Admission Representative at AspenRidge Recovery.
You start to experience a reduction in reward sensitivity.
It typically occurs when we find ourselves disengaged from what’s going on around us or when there’s a lack of interest or enjoyment in our activities. Before finding her calling in the sober space, Jeanette once owned a tattoo shop in Beijing. These days, you’ll find her sipping tea with a good book in hand — and zero interest in hangovers. Frankl believed that existential boredom signals a crisis of meaning—what he called the “existential vacuum. That’s how uncomfortable boredom and stillness can be. Most of us would literally rather zap ourselves with pain than sit quietly with our own thoughts.
Many ex-drinkers find that boredom after quitting alcohol is one of the hardest emotions to deal with—especially when alcohol used to be their go-to solution for downtime or restlessness. If you’re like most people I work with, you may have been told that changing your relationship with alcohol is simply about “just drinking less.” But that’s misguided advice. And frankly, after years of drinking, I was really out of shape. And I wanted to get more healthy while I was not drinking. So it hit everything I needed to do to keep me amused.
Eventually, this leads to an unhealthy pattern of emotional drinking that is much harder to quit. But when dopamine levels artificially spike (like what happens when we drink alcohol), that’s when trouble starts. Get started today before this once in a lifetime opportunity expires. Get your 15-day free trial of Sunnyside today, and start living your healthiest life. These small tasks offer miniature dopamine hits that build momentum.
- Every month, we launch fun challenges, like Dry/Damp January, Mental Health May, and Outdoorsy June.
- This can be another way to inspire you, for a healthy and exciting life without alcohol, but also to not focus on everything that’s going on in your life that you’re not partaking in.
- The dreams that you had that you’ve never gone after.
We’re wired to avoid boredom because it Sober living home feels deeply uncomfortable—so much so that many people would rather endure physical pain than sit quietly with their own thoughts. That discomfort makes alcohol feel like a quick, easy escape. Jeanette Hu, AMFT, is a decade-long daily drinker turned psychotherapist and the creator of the Empowered Alcohol-Free 4-Pillar System.
Does anyone else drink out of boredom a lot of the time?
Various addiction treatment drunk and bored programs are available for those struggling with alcohol use disorder and boredom drinking. These programs should address substance use and any underlying co-occurring mental health disorders to ensure the most successful outcome. The best approach to treatment includes access to follow-up therapy, management of skills, group or peer support, strategies to prevent relapse and prescribed medications if needed. Such a comprehensive treatment is most effective in achieving recovery.
The Kindling Effect: Why Quitting Alcohol Gets Harder Every Time
However, this temporary fix masks the real issue rather than addressing it. When you join Sunnyside, you’ll start by completing a 3-minute private assessment so we can learn a bit about you. Once that’s done, you’ll get a 15-day free trial to test out everything, including our daily habit change tools, tracking https://ecosoberhouse.com/ and analytics, community and coaching, and education and resources. It’s a full package designed specifically to adapt to your goals, and help you reach them gradually, so you can make a huge impact on your health and wellbeing. Sunnyside is a mindful drinking and alcohol moderation app that can help change your habits around alcohol using a proven, science-backed method. Whether you want to become a more mindful drinker, drink less, or eventually quit drinking, Sunnyside can help you reach your goals.
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This can be another way to inspire you, for a healthy and exciting life without alcohol, but also to not focus on everything that’s going on in your life that you’re not partaking in. I mean, literally, stop following the winery that you’ve been following forever. 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.