You need to reset your reward pathways and that’s not going to be possible as long as you are drinking alcohol. Any of these activities are natural mood lifters and a much better option than drinking to pass the drinking out of boredom time. This is what happened to me towards the end of my drinking days, I didn’t want to do anything that didn’t involve getting drunk. That would just get in the way of being able to drink as much as I wanted.

Additional resources to fight boredom in sobriety:

Look for local Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, find counselors that fit their insurance plan, and research treatment facilities. Explain how their drinking could be affecting their health and how it will continue to cause harm. Express your concern for their well-being as someone who cares for them. When you’re concerned that someone you love drinks too heavily, it can be hard to know what to do. You may not know what to say or how they’ll react if you bring it up.

Ways to Stop Eating When You’re Bored

In fact, alcohol sales outside of bars and restaurants surged 24% shortly after stay-at-home orders began. The reasons people start drinking alcohol is very different than the reasons they continue to drink alcohol. Boredom and isolation are known relapse triggers for people with substance use disorders. An important way to safeguard your sobriety is to be aware of this and take steps to mitigate it. Ignoring the harmful effects of alcohol consumption and regularly indulging can have short-term and long-term effects on your health.

How can I identify my boredom drinking triggers?

This continued through the holiday itself, as the government dashed the public’s plans around like pinballs. After the first lockdown, I got sick of mornings spent with foggy headaches, and as the days got longer and restrictions eased a little, it became easier to cut down. I began to drink on days when normally I wouldn’t, finishing half a bottle or more in the evenings, when usually I’d just have a glass. Think of it as planting a seed that will blossom into new, healthy habits. Here are a few specific ways you can tailor your environment to discourage yourself from boredom eating when the urge strikes.

Find a hobby and/or social activity to get involved in.

If you have someone you trust, let them know if you are feeling down or lonely – so they know you won’t mind if they check in with you more often. See if there are organisations around you where you could help out, that would love to use your skills and talents. If you want to change something, you first need to understand what it is. This might be a bit uncomfortable, as we often drink to reduce the noise of our own thoughts.

Read this next

If you’re drinking out of boredom, read on to learn more about what this means. If you’ve reached a point where you can’t experience joy in anything and use alcohol as a way to escape, don’t brush it off as a rough phase. The sooner you get help and start working on it, the sooner you can break free of it. Talking with a trained therapist, especially one who understands substance abuse, is important. They can give you tools and resources for navigating everything you’re feeling (or not feeling) right now. The contrast between the heightened emotional state while drinking and the flatness of mood when sober can make everyday life without alcohol seem uninteresting – sometimes unbearably so.

#2 Keep a List of Supportive Contacts

• There are many reasons why you might be eating when you’re bored.
• This might explain why, in such moments, we impulsively reach for distractions, like the remote or a social media scroll.
• If you like gin and tonic when you’re vegging on the sofa, swap it for fizzy water with lemon.
• Feeling bored, sad, lonely, or anxious about something are all very human things to feel.
• Sunnyside is not designed to treat alcohol use disorder (AUD).

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