It’s easy to see how recovery can be hard. There are days that are hard for me and I’m not fighting relapsing. Life can be boring. It isn’t always exciting, busy and fun. That’s a hard thing for me so how much harder is it for someone in recovery. I like to be doing things, constantly on the go, but that isn’t always the way it is.

My husband is on disability and can’t do all the things I want to do. There are nights that he is just asleep from the time I get home from work til the next morning. So I understand boring, I understand not knowing what to do with your time, I understand getting so frustrated sitting by myself. Until about 6 weeks ago I was blessed to have my daughter and granddaughter living with me. I always had activity going on around me and I’m happy that my granddaughter still spend 1 night a week with us. She is so much more to us than a granddaughter because she lived with us her whole life, all 3 1/2 years. We are so happy that our daughter has gotten on her feet and is out of the nest. We are proud of her. She is expecting baby #2 and they are living with her boyfriend. It still leaves an empty spot in our lives.

I can’t imagine, if I was an addict in recovery, what I would do. I understand why it is so important to be busy, to go to meetings, to work, to work out, to just keep your mind and body busy. Especially early in the recovery process, it’s important to fill your days and not give yourself time to think about using. It’s so easy to revert to old habits if you are bored. So recovering addicts must stay busy.

At some point we all have to learn to be bored and to be ok with it. When you’re bored there are other things that can fill your time that aren’t always in your best interest. How about shopping because you don’t have anything else to do? If I could shop as much as I liked, I’d never be bored. I have to think before I buy another thing for my grandkids. I love to surprise  people with gifts. I know that I need to stop. Their parents are capable of taking care of them, but I spend as much on them as I did for my kids. I guess that this could be called my addiction. I want to make everyone happy and giving things to them does that. But so does spending time with them, which I also do.

This post seems to be going in several different directions but I think being bored is what ties it all together. We all get bored but what we do while we are bored is important. Directing our attention in different ways is important for all of us to learn. If we want our lives to change then we need to make changes. We need to force ourselves to do things that aren’t always fun but are necessary. That s life and life isn’t always exciting busy and fun.