Sep 4, 2019 | By Tim Stoddart

Is Sobriety Boring?

Sober Videos

What’s up everyone. Tim Stoddart here with Sober Nation, happy Monday. I hope that you guys are all doing great. I hope you enjoyed your weekend. The topic today. I was on a podcast this morning, it’s called Self-Made and Sober. I really enjoyed it. It was a great conversation. And in the podcast I briefly mentioned that when I first got sober I was really terrified, probably more than anything, that I was going to be bored. To me in my mind at the time, not being able to do drugs, not being able to drink, not being able to party and be reckless and always put myself in terrible situations meant that my life was gonna be boring.

And you know, I really mean when I say that that fear caused me more anxiety and like more terror than anything else. To me it was like, what’s the point? You know, like what’s the point? I don’t want to do all this work and get sober just to be bored. Like, I’d rather keep having fun and like, sure sometimes I’ll be miserable and my life will be in shambles, but at least I’ll be enjoying myself some of the time.

Is Being Sober Boring?

And that’s like a real thing to talk about because I have learned the longer that I’ve been sober, that I’m not the only person that felt that way. That in fact a lot of people are anxious and fearful and scared that they’re gonna be bored. And so here’s the deal. Is being sober boring? No.

The question is, are you boring? Are you a boring person? Are you capable of finding ways to have fun? Are you capable of having good conversations with people? Do you want to get the most out of your life? Because if you do, then drugs and alcohol aren’t going to change anything. But if you’re just kind of a person that wants to sit around and do nothing, then you’re going to be bored.

But I have the feeling that you would be bored anyway. You would just be like, high while you were bored. Or you would just be wasted while you were bored.

Okay, so I’m joking a little bit. Not really but a little bit. Because here’s some context. My first year in sobriety wasn’t the most exciting time of my life, especially the first six months. You know what I’ll say the first six months of my sobriety, it wasn’t all that exciting. I spent a lot of time reading, I spent a lot of time just sitting around in kind of anxiety, trying to figure out exactly what I was doing and like what my place in the world was. I spent a lot of time going to meetings. I spent a lot of time standing in parking lots, huddled around in like small groups, talking to other guys. I drank a lot of coffee. I still drink a lot of coffee.

It’s not all fun and games in the beginning because it takes work to get sober. It takes work to dig deep and like have the courage to see those parts of yourself that may have been causing you pain. So much pain that you were taking drugs and you were taking alcohol to kind of numb it and to escape it. So yeah if you’re watching this and you’re thinking to yourself, “Man, I really needed to get my act together, but I’m afraid to be bored.” I’m not going to be like, “Look, you’re going to get sober and your life is going to be like full of fucking roller coasters and you know, like really exciting moments.” Because that may not be the case. I’ve talked to people where like the first year was really uneventful. And if that’s your experience, that’s okay because like it’s better to have calmness and still in this and self-reflection than it is to live in a world of turmoil and excitement at the expense of your own destruction.

Becoming Comfortable With Yourself

But here’s what I will say. Over time… And this is the important part. I wish I didn’t take so long to get to this point because this is the real point that people need to hear. And that that I’m trying to make. Over time, as you become more comfortable with yourself, you’ll find this stuff that you genuinely love doing. It took me a little bit to discover how much I love doing the things that I love to do now. It took me some time to discover how much I love to travel. And it took me some time to discover how much I love building websites, and how much I love working on my companies. It took me some time to get comfortable enough to talk to people to discover that I genuinely enjoy talking to people.

It doesn’t always mean that like I’m the most extroverted person in the world. Like I think I’ll probably still to my core a bit of an introvert, but if I never would’ve gotten sober, I’d never would have had the courage to step out of myself. I always would have been like that quiet awkward kid in the corner that was just so terrified to talk to people. I never would have gotten married because I never would have had the courage to like actually approach that beautiful girl. And that stuff is way, way more exciting than all the other fucking nonsense and like destructive behaviors that I used to put myself through.

It’s true. It’s really true. So to wrap this up, I guess when we need to do is we need to define while we’re talking about. Does boring mean less grandiose? I shouldn’t say that, cause my life is pretty crazy. Does it mean less destructive? Does it mean more peace then? Yeah, it’s boring. My life is way more peaceful than it was 10 years ago. But does it mean that I don’t enjoy myself more? Absolutely not. I enjoy being myself a gazillion times more today than I ever did when I was getting high.

I hope that helps somebody. If you have any questions, if you want to talk to someone, please feel free to reach out to me. You can email me at tim@sobernation.com. This is an important subject and please take this shit seriously. You’re not going to be bored forever.

Do what you gotta do in the beginning. Grin and bear it if you need to. Work with somebody, talk to a therapist, go to treatment, do whatever it is that you gotta do to get to that point where you’re not obsessing over drugs and alcohol anymore. And once you cross that threshold, once you cross that barrier, you will enjoy your life way more. 100% guaranteed. You can bet the house on it. And if it’s not true, email me and you can bitch and moan at me and I’ll help you find that part of yourself that you’re missing. All right, thanks for watching. Talk to you next week, sobernation.com. Check me out. Later.