Why does boredom make us want to drink?

Have you ever craved a drink when you were bored?

If the answer is yes, you are not alone. Many highly functional drinkers trying to take a break from alcohol find it boredom It is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with when it is free of alcohol.

Whether it’s a slow, Sunday afternoon or a particularly quiet night, the idea of “a glass of wine makes this even better” often creeps up when the nagging feeling of “something missing” hits out of nowhere.

And you know how the rest of the story goes. In a moment of weakness, you succumb to your desires and reach for the bottle. For a while, it will help. It will make you feel better and the discomfort melt away. You’re not bored anymore.

But the next night rolls again, it returns to its old cycle and soon comes back.

Boring drinking is a loop that many highly functional drinkers know well. And you may wonder: Why do we drink from boredom in the first place?

To answer that, you need to understand first. Why do we hate boredom so much?

Why boredom causes the urge to drink

The truth is that boredom is an incredibly uncomfortable state for many of us and the length of time people go to avoid people might surprise you.

A few years ago, researchers at the University of Virginia A truly interesting experiment. They asked people to sit alone in a quiet room for 15 minutes, both on their own and their thoughts, whether it was a phone call, a book or a distraction.

The prompt was “Enjoy your thoughts.”

Before entering the room, participants were given mild electric shock and were asked if they would pay to avoid this. Most said yes.

But here’s a twist. There was nothing left to do in the room alone, two-thirds of the men and a quarter of the women intentionally shocked them. Just to feel something.

It’s how boredom and tranquility are. Most of us will literally zap ourselves in pain rather than sit quietly in our own thoughts.

The evolutionary route of boredom: how it drives behavior and cravings

From a survival perspective, boredom may have served a real purpose. It took our ancestors of exploration, hunting, innovation, or connection rather than satisfaction. If someone from the tribe just sat down and did nothing all day, they wouldn’t be helping the group flourish.

Therefore, boredom may have evolved as a motivational signal. “It’s more convenient, more exciting and connected to your purpose and survival.”

In that sense, boredom was a survival tool.

The Social Stigma of Boredom: What We Still Taught

From a cultural perspective, boredom is not only uncomfortable, but also wrong.

Many of us grew up being told we shouldn’t get bored. I still remember when I was a kid. If I caught me sitting without doing anything, my mother would say, “If you’re bored, I’ll give you something!”…and I’ll be sent to do chores that I absolutely didn’t want.

We live in a culture that admires Productivity I condemn the tranquility. Boredness is often associated with laziness and lack of direction.

It’s no wonder that brain scans show that boredom activates parts of the brain that are associated with discomfort.

We’ve been taught that feeling bored means something is wrong. That we are doing life wrong.

The existential fear behind boredom (and why we drink to avoid it)

Finally, there is an existential layer. Most people don’t talk. Boredom can make us feel scared as it keeps us face-to-face with something deeper fear:

“What is the point of all this?”

Often referred to as the father of existential psychology, Victor Frankl believed that humans were driven by two powerful instincts: the will to survive and the will to find the meaning of their survival.

At the time, our ancestors had no time to be bored. They constantly hunted, gathered, fired, and protected themselves from wildlife and rival tribes. Survival was their purpose.

But in modern times, most of us don’t have to fight for food or shelter. We are relatively safe and our basic needs are met. So what happens when survival is no longer our focus? There is still a problem of meaning.

And boredom can become an empty space where that question becomes the loudest.

Boredness as a signal: a new way to understand your drinking urges

It’s no wonder many of us avoid boredom at all costs, including mild self-controlled electric shocks when drinking, shopping, scrolling, or anything else failing.

But boredom isn’t a problem in itself.

Just like the rest Feelingsboredom is not essentially “bad” or “wrong.”
All emotions serve a purpose. They are signs and point us towards what we need Note.

In ancient times, boredom tweaked our ancestors into actions that serve survival. In modern life where survival is almost guaranteed, boredom gently jogs us, looking for meaning and a deeper sense of purpose.

Brain scans show that during boredom, areas of our brains are associated with self-reflection. Creativity It becomes more active. Many great thinkers and artists share that their best ideas were born in “boring” moments. And research suggests that children experience unstructured and “boring” times, in fact, they become more imaginative and self-directed.

It can be argued that boredom may be responsible for some of the greatest works of art, literature and invention in human history.

How to break the boring drinking cycle and get back into the evening

If you are a high-performance drinker and want to break the boring drinking cycle, my invitation to you is easy:

Start by shifting the relationship with boredom.

What many don’t realize is that they need more than simply “stop drinking” as they are free from the old drinking patterns. With calm curiosity, I believe that we need four pillars to build a truly thriving, alcohol-free life.

To break boring drinking, you need to:

• Rewrite the story of talking about boredom (this lives on the pillar of belief).
• Rather than escape it, we learn how to go about boredom with curiosity (this lives on the pillar of skill).

To explore this further, try this Three-stage boring drinking interruption strategy And then we take the first step towards a more intentional life.