It’s hard to explain. I do get bored, but I think I also have some form of malignant attitude issues that could be coming from depression (I don’t really enjoy anything anymore). It’s really hard to kill boredom in that state without resorting to alcohol (which makes anything fun).
My most favorite thing is feeling sleepy and going to sleep. So yeah, intoxication and sleep are pretty much my go-tos now days.
I debated replying to this because it'd involve revealing something about my past that I'm not very proud of/may not want searched by my name, but I don't think I've ever seen someone put so bluntly exactly how I felt while I was going through my "drinking years". For folks who don't know what alcoholism is really like, I think you've done a perfect job of describing what alcohol addiction really feels like.
I was there in my 20s (I'm more than a decade over). Boredom leads to depression which leads to self-medicating. Unfortunately, alcohol increases depression a thousand-fold, so it feeds itself. For about five years I drank every afternoon until I was drunk enough to fall asleep. Despite agonizing over my behavior/choices, I couldn't stop myself and getting motivation to seek help when you're in that state would have been impossible for me. After a lot of reading on the subject, I decided to try an approach that reduced my consumption over time (about a month) until I had zero desire to drink any longer. I haven't consumed anything (except for a dessert or two, maybe) with alcohol in it since.
Let me state clearly: I loved drinking. LOVED IT It was something, in the early days of drinking, that I looked forward to every afternoon. It sounds sad to write, but it's completely accurate -- being drunk is fun if it's not "a career". I couldn't imagine life without drinking. Well, I could -- I imagined I'd spend every day missing it and be more unhappy than I was. I was also depressed, but I realized the cycle was no longer "I'm depressed because of X, Y, and Z", those were all entirely overridden by the "I'm depressed because of alcohol" despite that not being obvious to me at that time.
The typical advice didn't work for me: "find something to do that makes you happy", yeah, that's drinking. I could not find anything other than drinking that made me happy, or even close to as happy as drinking did. Plus, it's an easy, effortless, fix. "Exercise" - who are these alcoholics who are so self-motivated that they can get themselves to the gym or even enough energy to do light exercise at home? If that's your think, but I hated exercising. Basically all of the advice centered around "doing something that was impossible to do/rationalize about while I was still a drunk". I knew I couldn't "find anything to replace drinking with" (other than, maybe, another drug, but I was unwilling to go there) while I was still drinking, so I took a different approach, first.
I had to internalize that "drinking was the near-total cause of my depression." I had no idea how to do that so I thought about the problem and stumbled upon an idea. If I actually believed "alcohol directly caused my depression", I might be able to trigger that negative feeling early enough to stop drinking more.
My approach was simple, I drank as soon as I was able[1] but each sip, I took mental note of where I was at emotionally and rationalized the connection with drinking -- would I feel this way if I hadn't drank (no, but I believed I'd probably feel worse, just different forms of awful)? I didn't punish myself for choosing to drink and I tried to rationalize that "it's part of the process...I expect to backslide right now -- that's normal -- I can take the time to focus on what the backslide caused for me, emotionally"
I started noticing that I would begin feeling depressed way before I started feeling the effects of alcohol. Over a few weeks, that started producing outright fear -- I'd literally think "I really don't want to feel the way I felt yesterday and I know if I have this next drink, that's what's coming". It didn't stop right away, I'd test it[2], and sometimes I'd drin...
I started a new habit back in 2016: anytime I felt bored or felt an impulse to just open a browser and navigate to a news site, I would instead tab to my word processor and write little character scenes or plan out the plot of a new chapter in my book.
I actually finished an entire manuscript for a murder mystery book this way.
i rarely get bored, b/c i'm always trying to make my own life as difficult as possible, but when i'm actually bored it's prob time for some nba on tv, or youtube -- there's always some intellectual-type debate or something -- or one of the international tv news channels, or hn or one of the 100 news sites i have bookmarked, or 'spin' thru my 8,800 bookmarks, or walk/audiobook time, or bar.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 45.9 ms ] threadI also try to practice mindfulness.
... I should probably get back to work.
My most favorite thing is feeling sleepy and going to sleep. So yeah, intoxication and sleep are pretty much my go-tos now days.
I was there in my 20s (I'm more than a decade over). Boredom leads to depression which leads to self-medicating. Unfortunately, alcohol increases depression a thousand-fold, so it feeds itself. For about five years I drank every afternoon until I was drunk enough to fall asleep. Despite agonizing over my behavior/choices, I couldn't stop myself and getting motivation to seek help when you're in that state would have been impossible for me. After a lot of reading on the subject, I decided to try an approach that reduced my consumption over time (about a month) until I had zero desire to drink any longer. I haven't consumed anything (except for a dessert or two, maybe) with alcohol in it since.
Let me state clearly: I loved drinking. LOVED IT It was something, in the early days of drinking, that I looked forward to every afternoon. It sounds sad to write, but it's completely accurate -- being drunk is fun if it's not "a career". I couldn't imagine life without drinking. Well, I could -- I imagined I'd spend every day missing it and be more unhappy than I was. I was also depressed, but I realized the cycle was no longer "I'm depressed because of X, Y, and Z", those were all entirely overridden by the "I'm depressed because of alcohol" despite that not being obvious to me at that time.
The typical advice didn't work for me: "find something to do that makes you happy", yeah, that's drinking. I could not find anything other than drinking that made me happy, or even close to as happy as drinking did. Plus, it's an easy, effortless, fix. "Exercise" - who are these alcoholics who are so self-motivated that they can get themselves to the gym or even enough energy to do light exercise at home? If that's your think, but I hated exercising. Basically all of the advice centered around "doing something that was impossible to do/rationalize about while I was still a drunk". I knew I couldn't "find anything to replace drinking with" (other than, maybe, another drug, but I was unwilling to go there) while I was still drinking, so I took a different approach, first.
I had to internalize that "drinking was the near-total cause of my depression." I had no idea how to do that so I thought about the problem and stumbled upon an idea. If I actually believed "alcohol directly caused my depression", I might be able to trigger that negative feeling early enough to stop drinking more.
My approach was simple, I drank as soon as I was able[1] but each sip, I took mental note of where I was at emotionally and rationalized the connection with drinking -- would I feel this way if I hadn't drank (no, but I believed I'd probably feel worse, just different forms of awful)? I didn't punish myself for choosing to drink and I tried to rationalize that "it's part of the process...I expect to backslide right now -- that's normal -- I can take the time to focus on what the backslide caused for me, emotionally"
I started noticing that I would begin feeling depressed way before I started feeling the effects of alcohol. Over a few weeks, that started producing outright fear -- I'd literally think "I really don't want to feel the way I felt yesterday and I know if I have this next drink, that's what's coming". It didn't stop right away, I'd test it[2], and sometimes I'd drin...
You can streetview in Finland and American Samoa, what's "bored"...?
I started a new habit back in 2016: anytime I felt bored or felt an impulse to just open a browser and navigate to a news site, I would instead tab to my word processor and write little character scenes or plan out the plot of a new chapter in my book.
I actually finished an entire manuscript for a murder mystery book this way.
https://youtu.be/yK2__WGmhPw