A drink or two while bored might make you too tired or too wary of driving to meet your friends. A sure sign of problematic bored drinking is failing to achieve hobby-related goals. There are plenty of situations where having a drink is a great way to celebrate an accomplishment. Unfortunately, problems can surface if you use “I deserve it” to justify bored drinking.
Stupid Mistakes I Made When I Tried (And Failed) To Quit Drinking
Bored drinking might elevate your mood briefly, but it won’t ever match the satisfaction of mastering a hobby. Sure, having a single drink while alone might not seem like a problem if you eat well and exercise. But if you add it to the drinks you have with friends and that everyday glass of wine with dinner, your total number of weekly drinks can increase rapidly. Bored drinking takes place when people reach for alcohol to kill time, simply because they have nothing else to occupy their minds.
- Here are 5 tips to help you make changes to your drinking habits that could help you feel better, for good.
- When you use alcohol (or any substance) to artificially boost serotonin and dopamine levels in your brain, you create an imbalance in the brain.
- Addressing how someone feels when they experience boredom or have time to think, possibly with the support of a mental health professional, may help them avoid emotional eating.
- Reflect on your drinking patterns and keep track of them to identify your boredom drinking triggers.
Addiction Therapy Programs
A person should examine their diet and how it influences when and why they snack. The following dietary tips can help a person avoid overeating when bored. So I think the very first step here is to simply assess your relationship with alcohol. Are you just feeling overindulgent, the way we just said? You know, write down these things in a journal or just in the memo section of your phone.
Using PLEASE Skills to Support Your Sobriety
You decide to crack open a bottle of wine and scroll on your phone, maybe message some people you haven’t spoken to in a while, just passing the time. After her symptoms went drinking out of boredom away for several months, the patient upped her carb intake, and symptoms of drunkenness returned. Again, antifungal drugs and a low-carb diet eliminated the symptoms.
Practice mindful drinking.
Caffeine is also often found in medications designed to treat headaches. So if you are giving up caffeine, you want to be sure to read labels if you are planning to treat your caffeine withdrawal headache with over-the-counter medications. This way, you can avoid accidentally taking in caffeine by using the medication.
- I decided to stop drinking in July of last year after self-medicating with beer every night for 5 years.
- The horrible irony to all of this is that alcohol amplifies loneliness.
- Many people say that they drink alcohol to manage anxiety – to numb it or take the edge off difficult feelings.
- This is where the real work of sobriety is – facing up to your own mind.
The Boredom Drinking Loop
- Find a support group and make contact with them regularly.
- Talking with a trained therapist, especially one who understands substance abuse, is important.
- “It’s important to remember that managing stress is not a one-size-fits-all approach,” Dr. Nathan Brandon notes.
- The basal ganglia, a part of our brain involved in habit formation, strengthens the association between drinking and the context in which it occurs.