Ideas on hobbies and healthy living

I’ve only been clean for 65 days today. This is the first I’ve been clean in 13 years. I’m not sure I know how to occupy time and life without getting high. I need ideas what can I do to get past the lonely state of mind I’m in to stop myself from falling into a relapse.

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Don’t settle for a hobbie. Hobbies fill time. Find a passion. Passions become lifestyles.

For me, it’s martial arts, specifically boxing, muay thai, and Krav Maga. The physical, mental, and spiritual benefits have had a hugely positive impact on my sobriety. Better health. Stress reduction. Mental focus and the self-discipline to train every day.

Find your passion and seek to master it. In doing so, you will learn to master you, because you will have learned self-discipline. Maybe it’s ballroom dancing, or sculpting, or long distance running. Maybe it’s hiking or cycling or rock climbing. Maybe it’s learning to speak Mandarin Chinese. Maybe it’s learning to cook Mandarin Chinese.

Fix your eye on something and begin walking towards it.

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Congrats on 65 days! Great job.

For the first six months of sobriety I did very, very little other than go to work and watch hours of crappy tv. At six months I got a Fitbit and started walking every day. I would set destinations like local parks or parts of the city I had not been to. The walking was a good way for me to process my thoughts, lose weight and to begin to notice all of the beauty I had forgotten on my way to the bars and back. Check out sunsets and sunrises. Local parks. Botanical gardens. Oceans and or rivers near by. It’s spring where I am and everything is coming alive and is surprisingly beautiful. I had completely lost track of that when I was drinking. It’s really fucking beautiful out there.

I also began to rekindle old passions. As a kid I loved going to the ballet and dance in general. I loved plays. Now I go to theater and dance all the time. It takes me out of the negative places my mind likes to dwell in.

I went back to reading again. And started writing a bit again. It’s amazing what you can do when you’re not writhing in pain from a hangover.

Try things on and see if they work. I made a few attempts at new hobbies that didn’t stick but others have.

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Hiking and weight lifting were mine. Hiking cause I would be too far from a liquor store and weight lifting cause I would tire myself out and no be able to go out. The two force you to eat and drink better or you can’t pass barriers that come up. To finally hit 405 deadlift I was stuck at 315 and not going up cause id give a week to recover from drinking. When I became serious I was able to inch to it. I could only do that by consistently being sober. Good luck

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Learn a new language, find an online language exchange partner :+1:

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Join a Dungeons and Dragons group! :smile:

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Seconded. Nerds unite! :joy:

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Exercise is a good one, ive thrown myself into that pretty hard. Or how about some kind of art? Painting can be pretty cheap especially if you go for water colours instead of oils.

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Yoga, weight lifting, dance classes, pottery, painting, knitting

Thank you everyone!

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Eat and hydrate well, helps your mind and body perform to its best ability and of course exercise :muscle:t3::+1:t3:

How do you get an online language partner? I’ve been trying to relearn my Spanish!

Congratulations on the 65 days! I’m not too far ahead of you. 78 days here. I totally feel you! I just spoke at my meeting 2 weeks ago on this topic, it’s exactly how I felt…lonely, restless etc. I was cleaning my house every day, doing laundry etc. I started walking my dogs more frequently, started getting out of the house more but I still have all those feelings. I get sooooo bored and am trying different things, cross stitching (finishing an old project that my mom had started years ago so it’s kind of cool!) I journal a lot, cook different dishes, i am trying to connect with sober, like minded people but it’s hard especially when my home group, everyone but me has been there and knows each other for 2-3 years already. I just keep looking at all of my reasons why sober is the best choice, it is just hard. I know it will be every day forever but we can overcome it! You can message me anytime if you just want a chat or need to vent. Have a good day and just keep finding yourself, I’m finding out so much about me and who I am still, through sober eyes.

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I use mylanguageexchange.com. Its cheap, and with a bit of work you can find a good conversation partner. I’ve met some awesome people on there :+1:

Cutting in but I used to do it via skype. There are lots of spanish speakers on the skype forums that will happily speak in spanish to you for an hour or so and then you repay the favour with english