Boredom and Monotony in Recovery

Boredom and Monotony in Recovery

Boredom & Monotony were a chief activator of my urge to drink and drug throughout my active addition and alcoholism.  In my early years; I hated being bored or in a state that wasn’t in some way chemically enhanced through any number of substances.  I used them just as often as an escape from boredom as I did to numb overwhelming feelings.  As my disease progressed, I began to acquire a learned fear of boredom as I began, at some level anyhow, to understand that my idle hands truly were the devil’s playthings.  If I left myself alone with myself; the obsession to drink, use, or indulge in otherwise addictive behavior was unvaryingly soon to be breathing down my neck.  Since the death of my mother at 11 years old; my relationship with the mundane has been one of dysfunction, fraught with poor choices after succumbing to the insidious and unrelenting obsessive nature of my disease.  I can intimately recall time after time literally hating the feeling of boredom because experience had proved that it would inevitably result in the all too familiar feeling of self-loathing after loosing the battle of wills to my addiction; a feeling we addicts and alcoholics know all too well. 

It’s no surprise then, to come to realize that boredom in Recovery is an often overlooked yet incredibly challenging aspect of learning to live in long-term recovery.  Early recovery is often marked by the recovering person being overwhelmed by all of the things we must do and learn for the first time; often we’re in treatment, or a sober house, or both and have a surplus of support around us.  Many of us were also on the proverbial pink cloud of early recovery for the first six to twelve months; which may have sugar-coated the dull times of recovery; at least in the beginning.  We all however, will at some point or another, be faced with having to deal with boredom and monotony in recovery – as even the “full throttle” recovery approach isn’t sustainable for the long haul, as social media favorable as it may indeed be.  The reality is that boredom is bound to set in at some point in our recovery; for any number of reasons, and the first step I must do is recognize it for what it is and allow myself to accept that boredom is a normal human experience.  Refusing to acknowledge the fact that boredom is setting in does not in fact make it disappear.  Next, I can understand that I have choices on what I am going to do with these feelings and this experience.  I can choose to accept it as a normal part of the recovery process.  I can call or reach out to a friend or a sponsor.   I can use the time to meditate; or pray – to connect with the God of my understanding.  I can seek help if I come to understand the boredom is becoming a more than occasional visitor in my life.  Often; we may become a bit rudderless in recovery and lose sight of or lack any long-term goals for which we can spend time each day working toward.  Many psychological and behavioral experts concur; actively seeking a fulfilling goal is quite effective in staving off boredom – case in point I give you this very podcast which has indeed been a God send in my own recovery. The mitigation of the monotony monster is just one more reason I have no plans of prematurely ending this weekly production; as it helps keep yours truly much less bored – and I need all the help I can get to continue to be clean and sober 24 hours at a time.


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