Boredom in Sobriety

 Yesterday, I was so bored. After work, I didn't have a book to read, chores to do, or a show that I wanted to watch. I was as bored as this poor cat. 

Moments like this in sobriety are tough for me. I'm someone who always needs a project and not having the "I'm going to have a drink and 'unwind' right now" thoughts would take over during these moments when I was drinking, and I could always justify them or explain the drinks away because I was bored and needed "me time." Now that I'm alcohol-free, I find that I have more time for projects and hobbies, but I can't pick a hobby to save my life right now. I've looked into diamond art and puzzles (I had a whole love affair with puzzles for awhile, it helped with my anxiety but then they started making me more anxious, and once I finished a puzzle, I needed it to be complete, so I couldn't put it back in the box, I had to puzzle glue it and frame it and then I ran out of places to put my framed puzzles - even my mom took some off my hands and now she's pretty tapped out with my puzzle art, I'd imagine). I looked into candle making and bracelet making, and nothing really is grabbing my attention. So then I became obsessed with reading - I read all of Colleen Hoover's books in a matter of about eight weeks. 

I've tried different authors, and aside from a series here and there, or a new quit lit book, I'm just not feeling the reading vibes right now either. 

I'm simply bored. 

And that doesn't always sit well with me. 

One of the keys of combatting boredom in sobriety is to find things that increase your dopamine and serotonin levels. Working out or going for a walk is one of the easiest ways to do that, but it's pushing 100 degrees here by mid-day right now, so that one's a bit tricky for me. Eating something that boosts your dopamine levels is another easy fix, but I have to be super careful with my diet since sugar levels can make me feel really ill after my gastric bypass surgery.

So what's a girl to do? I'm considering signing up for a class, doing an enneagram study, or getting more involved with the women's ministry at church. But do you want to know what's different now in my alcohol-free era than it was in previous times of my life when alcohol was a numbing agent and would cloud my decision-making? I'm not jumping into anything impulsively. I'm considering things, and dabbling in reading or journaling, or buying an adult coloring book to pass the time. But I'm not impulsively clicking links online to join a new something (anything) to fill the void. I'm allowing myself to be uncomfortably bored for a couple hours here and there. I'm thinking about ways that I can fill my cup without overwhelming myself and then quitting because it's too much or too hard. 

One of the greatest lessons sobriety has taught me so far is that it's ok to be bored. It's ok to feel like there's something more in my future, something I'm supposed to be doing. It's also ok to just rest and not have to fill up every hour of my day. I'm learning to be uncomfortable in the boredom, and I'm also learning to try new things and be ok with failing or not loving a new hobby I pursue. I'm ok with all of it, because I know it's just a blip in the big scheme of life, and I'm paving a new path for myself by simply choosing to sit in the boredom and not have to fill it with something just for the sake of it being filled. Open spaces on the calendar, sitting outside on a cool evening to just breathe and listen and be is just as necessary sometimes as all of the other stuff that life requires of us.