For example, you can commit to having a smoothie at breakfast to increase your daily fruit and veggie intake. This is where a healthy diet steps in, helping to replenish these lost nutrients and boost your overall health and well-being. The food you consume can play a pivotal role in your recovery from drinking. Another easy sobriety win is improving your diet. Alcohol takes a toll on us, both physically and mentally.
Practice mindful drinking.
Some of the things they experience in early sobriety that may lead them to go back to drinking. And even once you’ve quit drinking, there is a time between when your life was filled with alcohol, and with drinking events. And with the connections that you made and had the adventures that you had, while drinking and the period of time before your life is filled, and joyful and exciting without alcohol.
- Boredom is what can occur when you feel like you’ve got nothing to do and no real agency in changing that fact.
- Leaving mental health problems untreated when you’re trying to quit drinking can be a recipe for relapse.
- Letting go of the walls that other people and circumstances have helped you to create starts now.
FOR YOUR FIRST MONTH ALCOHOL-FREE
If your job represents a form of security but is painstakingly boring, explore new possibilities for employment even if you never fill out an application or get a job interview. One can form a habit out of being bored because it can present a degree of comfort and safety. Eventually, since no one expects anything from you, and you don’t expect anything from yourself, drugs or alcohol can seem like an acceptable choice and the easiest and quickest fix. Boredom takes some perseverance to shake off.
- Moderate alcohol consumption has the potential to enliven social situations.
- I now diarise rest time as if it’s an event.
- Then we’ll show you how to better manage boredom and avoid unhealthy drinking patterns.
- Depending on how much you drank and for how long, it can take time for your brain to start producing higher baseline levels of dopamine.
Default Behavior
Repeatedly drinking in this way Twelve-step program can lead to a condition known as alcohol use disorder (AUD), which is characterized by an inability to control alcohol consumption despite negative consequences. The more often someone drinks to cope with boredom, the more likely they are to develop an unhealthy reliance on alcohol. The normalization and accessibility of alcohol certainly doesn’t help when you’re struggling to stay sober.
Take a Break From Alcohol and Seek Help
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. Early sobriety is a critical period when community and support networks are https://aquacultureacademy.co.ke/hes-choosing-marijuana-over-me-5/ critical.
You may need to make other changes
But there’s also a risk that your loved ones drinking out of boredom won’t understand or be supportive. This is especially true of your drinking buddies. Please know that this is temporary and, if it gets too intense, please reach out for additional help and support via mental health counseling.
