February 29, 2024 • 15 mins
In this episode, we talk about one of the main enemies of the addict - boredom.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Hello there everybody.
This is M and we are back withanother episode of thoughts of
an addict.
I think I uploaded one, twoweeks ago and I promise you a
weekly episode.
But.
The best laid plans of mice andmen after glee.
Said somebody.
I don't really know what thatmeans, but I think what I'm
(00:33):
trying to say is I got COVIDlast week or something.
Some kind of.
Some kind of bug or virus, ifyou will.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going aroundright now.
I went to class this week andevery single person in there,
coughing, sneezing, farting,don't know what's going on, but.
If you're sick.
Stay home.
Don't get everyone sick.
(00:54):
Thank you.
That's the PSA today.
Anyway, I'm feeling bettertoday.
I know that any day sick as adog stuck underneath the covers.
Sure.
As hell.
Pete.
Any day of active addiction.
But with some sleep soup.
Healing.
I don't know.
I don't know what Kira stuff.
(01:15):
I'm no doctor.
I'm better now.
Let's go baby.
So today I woke up thinking, allright.
It's time to turn, to push itout.
And.
I was waiting for someinspiration on what I was going
to talk about today.
And I took a look at mycalendar.
And there was nothing on therefor the weekend.
(01:37):
Yeah, I know it's Thursday.
It's the weekend for me.
That's business school, baby.
Everyone should do it.
Just kidding.
And I actually had a surf tripplanned for this weekend.
I always try to have some shiton my calendar to fill my time.
And I got absolutely dunked.
By this nor Cal weather.
Man you nor Cal NATO's.
I don't know how you do it.
(01:57):
But so that trip went completelysideways.
And now I look at my calendarand there's nothing on there.
Pretty much nothing.
Friday Saturday, Sunday, and.
No, you're thinking, oh, I'mwhat was you?
You have a lot of free time.
And this is exactly the subjectthat I wanted to talk about
today.
(02:19):
I wanted to talk about.
In some ways.
What the root of all evil is forthe addict.
We could say it's selfishness.
We could say, I don't know, it'sa brain fuck up some kind of
dopamine issue, but today I'mgoing to say one of the roots of
all evil for the addict is.
(02:41):
Boredom.
That's right.
The melancholy state.
Of boredom.
And it's not just me sayingthis.
This is written in a lot ofliterature in narcotics
anonymous.
But it was actually talked about300 years ago.
I think I mentioned this before,but I was a philosophy major
(03:03):
when I was in undergraduate.
Mainly because I was high 98% ofthe time, but.
Not withstanding that there wasthis.
Dutch Danish philosopher.
Named Soren Kierkegaard.
And he genuinely thought.
That boredom.
Not money boredom.
(03:23):
Is the root of all evil andpeople in today.
I'm going to expound a bit.
On why boredom is so goddamneddestructive, at least for the
addict.
So having been an addict formost of my formative years.
I never actually learned.
How to deal with boredom orreally what it was like to be
bored.
(03:44):
I was never bored when you're inactive addiction, you aren't
bored that much.
You know, why.
Cause you getting fucked up.
Oh, God, I have nothing to dotoday.
And I'm hi.
And when you're high, you're notbored.
That's usually why you get high.
To avoid that sense of boredom.
So I was so used.
(04:04):
To just being high all the time.
And being okay with it, havingnothing on the calendar, but
being totally, totally fine withthat because I knew that my mind
was going to be in some kind offucking days.
Doubt, hazed out dopamine.
Endorphin induced state.
And if you're an addict that issuffering or you are an addict
(04:29):
that is just becoming clean.
You are going to noticesomething.
You're going to notice.
That you have suddenly beenblessed.
With the most importantcommodity.
Than any human could have.
Now you got time.
Oh, man, you got lots and lotsof time.
(04:49):
Relative to when you were inactive addiction.
I remember I was planning mydays.
My weekdays around my drug use.
Oh, okay.
Sunday.
That'll be a good Oxycontin day.
Ah, Saturday.
I got my weed dealer.
I'll get high that day.
But then when I got clean, I waslike, holy shit.
(05:12):
Not doing those things anymore.
Now I got time.
And.
You might be thinking, oh, well,Um, that's a really good thing,
right?
To have all this free time.
But for the addict.
We don't really know.
What to do with free time.
(05:33):
I mean, our free time before itwasn't so free, our free time
before.
Was actually constrained by ouraddiction.
We never got to experience thatfreedom because we're always
controlled by a mind.
That just wanted to use.
So now.
We're left.
Wondering.
(05:54):
What do we do with all this freetime?
And.
It can be crippling.
It can kind of be crippling insome ways to have all this free
time.
You ever heard of this idea ofchoice, anxiety?
Probably hear about it a lotnowadays as well.
If you have the abilitysuddenly.
Okay.
I just had a work week.
Now, your Saturday is wide open.
(06:16):
What can you do?
You can do anything.
You can go golfing.
You can hang out with friends.
You're not gonna be doing drugs.
There are so many options outthere that it could actually
feel kind of crippling in someways.
You don't really know what to doanymore.
I certainly didn't know what todo.
Remember sitting there waking upSaturday.
It's like, what am I doingtoday?
Well, I'm not getting high.
(06:39):
So, what am I going to do now?
And the addict's mind duringboredom because what's happening
when you're experiencing boredomis not much dopamine going on.
You're not feeling particularlygood.
So what the addict once during astate of boredom, His drugs,
they want that hit.
They want that fix for theirboredom.
(07:02):
And if we're left bored for toolong we're going to relapse.
Eventually.
We're just going to cave.
I don't know how long anindividual.
Can stay in a state of boredomfor before, before they just
lose it.
And.
The addict might find other waysto deal with boredom that are
not productive and hell thisisn't even an addict.
(07:24):
This could be anybody right.
You're bored.
So what do you do?
You pick up the phone, you pickup social media, you start
flipping through.
Duh.
Ticky ticky talk and Instagramand whatever the hell
everybody's using nowadays.
I don't know.
And you're just looking for thatquick little dopamine hit.
Right?
Exact same thing is using drugs.
But eventually.
(07:45):
That's going to go away.
Using these social mediadevices, it's just like using
drugs, right?
Like, You're just going to beusing it, using it, using it,
and then you're going to, you'regonna build a tolerance and then
you're going to get bored fromthat.
So that's not a cogent solution.
But it raises the question.
What about drinking?
(08:06):
Six red bulls.
And then just masturbatingfuriously all day.
What about just trying tomaximize your dopamine, trying
to trick your brain.
Without technical, using a mindaltering substance.
I mean, are you really clean atthat point in time?
I guess you're not technicallyusing drugs.
But you're still beingcontrolled.
(08:27):
You're still being controlled bythis endless ceaseless desire.
To just have this dopamine hit.
And I don't know.
I don't even think you're cleanat that point in time.
You're certainly not free.
So then the question becomes,and what I want to answer today
is.
New addicts.
(08:48):
New people recovering.
How do we deal?
With boredom in our lives withall of this time that just
opened up.
What I did.
His eye.
Reflected on everything that Iwanted to do.
When I was younger.
That I was totally just unableto do because I was an addict
(09:10):
because I didn't have time.
To do.
Anything productive.
So these can be really simplethings.
They don't, you don't have to goout and save the world.
You don't have to go out andbecome an astronaut.
Uh, for me, it was, I wanted tolearn how to golf.
That's something that I could doto fill my free time.
And I fucking suck naturally.
(09:31):
That's not the point.
There's something to do.
So I would highly recommendchoosing something.
That you can actually seeyourself improving in.
Because if you find even minimalimprovements, Then you're going
to be, you're going to be morecommitted to the craft.
And now's an excellent,excellent time for you to start
(09:54):
getting good at things.
It was probably really fuckinghard for you to get good at
anything while you were in astate of active addiction.
Because it was hard to maintain,focus on anything at a time, but
now.
Now you've got that time.
And now you got that focus.
And.
Not only that.
Not only are you going to getthe enjoyment of seeing yourself
(10:16):
improve at something?
But it's also going to help youstay clean and for you,
non-addicts out there.
It's going to help you stay offof Instagram.
It's going to help you.
Stop masturbating all day,whatever you're doing.
To just fill that free time.
If you see yourself making 1%point, 1% improvements to.
(10:37):
The things that you want to do.
That is one serious way toescape boredom.
My second advice on how toescape boredom.
It's volunteer.
There is nothing out there inthe world.
And I think this is proven bypsychology or something.
(10:57):
That will make you feel better.
Then helping other people.
You're looking for that.
You're looking for that dopaminehit.
Well guess what volunteer isgoing to give you that?
But it's also going to besustained.
It's called the warm gloweffect.
So you addicts out there lookingfor a way to get high.
This is this, my friends.
(11:18):
This is the most natural highthat you can get.
Giving of yourself, volunteeringyour time.
Not only is it going to helpyou?
Not be bored anymore.
But it's going to help restoreyou to sanity a lot too.
Finally, I would recommendworking on mindfulness
practices.
Meditate.
(11:39):
Journal.
Do yoga.
Practice gratitude.
Not only is this going to makeyou feel good?
Not only is this going to giveyou that natural dopamine hit.
But, and this is key.
It's also going to make it soyou're less bored more often.
When you're able to live.
(12:01):
More fully.
In each moment to moment.
You're going to find that you'renot bored as often.
So definitely practice some ofthese.
Some of these mindful practices.
And I know, I think out in thelast part, I prac I promised you
all that.
I'm going to give you some ofthese and I'm cooking something
up.
Don't worry.
(12:21):
But.
Yeah, definitely work on some ofthese.
They're going to help with theboredom a lot.
I know when I saw that I hadnothing going on this weekend,
actually.
Put me into a bit of a state ofanxiety.
Because there's always thatfear.
There's always that fear of ohshit.
(12:42):
If I'm doing nothing for two,three days on end.
I know what my fucking addictbrain's going to start doing.
but.
The way that I stave that off.
It's to keep myself busy andhere's my message.
To the addict today.
Do something.
Just fucking do something.
(13:05):
Anything.
Anything beats active addiction.
And.
Most anything beats just fuckingstaring at a wall.
Because if you allow yourself tobe bored for too long, you're
going to relapse.
It's just going to happen.
We see it time and time again.
So you need to figure out foryourself, what do you want, what
(13:27):
do you want to do?
And, maybe you don't have thatanswer right now.
And that's okay.
Just be honest with yourself.
Try new things, try new fuckingthings.
The world is your fuckingoyster.
Now.
Okay.
You've got time.
You've got your freedom back.
You got your freedom back, man.
So just go try new things andthen eventually you're going to
(13:49):
find.
These little things calledhobbies.
Oh man.
And once you have your hobbies,My hobbies are what keep me
clean today.
It's a huge, huge part of it.
And you're not going to havehobbies the day you get clean.
You're not going to havehobbies, maybe even in the month
or the year after.
But just keep trying new thingsand then you're going to find
(14:11):
things that you love and thosethings that you love.
Those are going to replace thedrugs.
Now.
I crave.
Surfing I crave golfing.
I'm not craving fuckingOxycontin anymore.
And surfing and golfing or sure.
A lot more healthy.
(14:31):
Then fucking, just degeneratingmy brain on drugs.
So hopefully this podcast todaydidn't bore you.
That would be horribly ironic.
Hope this didn't go over like afart in church.
And if you're listening to thisright now, because you're bored.
Fuck it, go do something.
Go have some fun.
(14:52):
You probably deserve it.
Just don't be destructive.
I love you all so much.
Thank you for listening.
This is Anne with thoughts of anaddict.
Try to get more of a routinenow.
Have a beautiful rest of yourday.
Hello there everybody.
This is M and we are back withanother episode of thoughts of
an addict.
I think I uploaded one, twoweeks ago and I promise you a
weekly episode.
But.
The best laid plans of mice andmen after glee.
Said somebody.
I don't really know what thatmeans, but I think what I'm
(00:33):
trying to say is I got COVIDlast week or something.
Some kind of.
Some kind of bug or virus, ifyou will.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going aroundright now.
I went to class this week andevery single person in there,
coughing, sneezing, farting,don't know what's going on, but.
If you're sick.
Stay home.
Don't get everyone sick.
(00:54):
Thank you.
That's the PSA today.
Anyway, I'm feeling bettertoday.
I know that any day sick as adog stuck underneath the covers.
Sure.
As hell.
Pete.
Any day of active addiction.
But with some sleep soup.
Healing.
I don't know.
I don't know what Kira stuff.
(01:15):
I'm no doctor.
I'm better now.
Let's go baby.
So today I woke up thinking, allright.
It's time to turn, to push itout.
And.
I was waiting for someinspiration on what I was going
to talk about today.
And I took a look at mycalendar.
And there was nothing on therefor the weekend.
(01:37):
Yeah, I know it's Thursday.
It's the weekend for me.
That's business school, baby.
Everyone should do it.
Just kidding.
And I actually had a surf tripplanned for this weekend.
I always try to have some shiton my calendar to fill my time.
And I got absolutely dunked.
By this nor Cal weather.
Man you nor Cal NATO's.
I don't know how you do it.
(01:57):
But so that trip went completelysideways.
And now I look at my calendarand there's nothing on there.
Pretty much nothing.
Friday Saturday, Sunday, and.
No, you're thinking, oh, I'mwhat was you?
You have a lot of free time.
And this is exactly the subjectthat I wanted to talk about
today.
(02:19):
I wanted to talk about.
In some ways.
What the root of all evil is forthe addict.
We could say it's selfishness.
We could say, I don't know, it'sa brain fuck up some kind of
dopamine issue, but today I'mgoing to say one of the roots of
all evil for the addict is.
(02:41):
Boredom.
That's right.
The melancholy state.
Of boredom.
And it's not just me sayingthis.
This is written in a lot ofliterature in narcotics
anonymous.
But it was actually talked about300 years ago.
I think I mentioned this before,but I was a philosophy major
(03:03):
when I was in undergraduate.
Mainly because I was high 98% ofthe time, but.
Not withstanding that there wasthis.
Dutch Danish philosopher.
Named Soren Kierkegaard.
And he genuinely thought.
That boredom.
Not money boredom.
(03:23):
Is the root of all evil andpeople in today.
I'm going to expound a bit.
On why boredom is so goddamneddestructive, at least for the
addict.
So having been an addict formost of my formative years.
I never actually learned.
How to deal with boredom orreally what it was like to be
bored.
(03:44):
I was never bored when you're inactive addiction, you aren't
bored that much.
You know, why.
Cause you getting fucked up.
Oh, God, I have nothing to dotoday.
And I'm hi.
And when you're high, you're notbored.
That's usually why you get high.
To avoid that sense of boredom.
So I was so used.
(04:04):
To just being high all the time.
And being okay with it, havingnothing on the calendar, but
being totally, totally fine withthat because I knew that my mind
was going to be in some kind offucking days.
Doubt, hazed out dopamine.
Endorphin induced state.
And if you're an addict that issuffering or you are an addict
(04:29):
that is just becoming clean.
You are going to noticesomething.
You're going to notice.
That you have suddenly beenblessed.
With the most importantcommodity.
Than any human could have.
Now you got time.
Oh, man, you got lots and lotsof time.
(04:49):
Relative to when you were inactive addiction.
I remember I was planning mydays.
My weekdays around my drug use.
Oh, okay.
Sunday.
That'll be a good Oxycontin day.
Ah, Saturday.
I got my weed dealer.
I'll get high that day.
But then when I got clean, I waslike, holy shit.
(05:12):
Not doing those things anymore.
Now I got time.
And.
You might be thinking, oh, well,Um, that's a really good thing,
right?
To have all this free time.
But for the addict.
We don't really know.
What to do with free time.
(05:33):
I mean, our free time before itwasn't so free, our free time
before.
Was actually constrained by ouraddiction.
We never got to experience thatfreedom because we're always
controlled by a mind.
That just wanted to use.
So now.
We're left.
Wondering.
(05:54):
What do we do with all this freetime?
And.
It can be crippling.
It can kind of be crippling insome ways to have all this free
time.
You ever heard of this idea ofchoice, anxiety?
Probably hear about it a lotnowadays as well.
If you have the abilitysuddenly.
Okay.
I just had a work week.
Now, your Saturday is wide open.
(06:16):
What can you do?
You can do anything.
You can go golfing.
You can hang out with friends.
You're not gonna be doing drugs.
There are so many options outthere that it could actually
feel kind of crippling in someways.
You don't really know what to doanymore.
I certainly didn't know what todo.
Remember sitting there waking upSaturday.
It's like, what am I doingtoday?
Well, I'm not getting high.
(06:39):
So, what am I going to do now?
And the addict's mind duringboredom because what's happening
when you're experiencing boredomis not much dopamine going on.
You're not feeling particularlygood.
So what the addict once during astate of boredom, His drugs,
they want that hit.
They want that fix for theirboredom.
(07:02):
And if we're left bored for toolong we're going to relapse.
Eventually.
We're just going to cave.
I don't know how long anindividual.
Can stay in a state of boredomfor before, before they just
lose it.
And.
The addict might find other waysto deal with boredom that are
not productive and hell thisisn't even an addict.
(07:24):
This could be anybody right.
You're bored.
So what do you do?
You pick up the phone, you pickup social media, you start
flipping through.
Duh.
Ticky ticky talk and Instagramand whatever the hell
everybody's using nowadays.
I don't know.
And you're just looking for thatquick little dopamine hit.
Right?
Exact same thing is using drugs.
But eventually.
(07:45):
That's going to go away.
Using these social mediadevices, it's just like using
drugs, right?
Like, You're just going to beusing it, using it, using it,
and then you're going to, you'regonna build a tolerance and then
you're going to get bored fromthat.
So that's not a cogent solution.
But it raises the question.
What about drinking?
(08:06):
Six red bulls.
And then just masturbatingfuriously all day.
What about just trying tomaximize your dopamine, trying
to trick your brain.
Without technical, using a mindaltering substance.
I mean, are you really clean atthat point in time?
I guess you're not technicallyusing drugs.
But you're still beingcontrolled.
(08:27):
You're still being controlled bythis endless ceaseless desire.
To just have this dopamine hit.
And I don't know.
I don't even think you're cleanat that point in time.
You're certainly not free.
So then the question becomes,and what I want to answer today
is.
New addicts.
(08:48):
New people recovering.
How do we deal?
With boredom in our lives withall of this time that just
opened up.
What I did.
His eye.
Reflected on everything that Iwanted to do.
When I was younger.
That I was totally just unableto do because I was an addict
(09:10):
because I didn't have time.
To do.
Anything productive.
So these can be really simplethings.
They don't, you don't have to goout and save the world.
You don't have to go out andbecome an astronaut.
Uh, for me, it was, I wanted tolearn how to golf.
That's something that I could doto fill my free time.
And I fucking suck naturally.
(09:31):
That's not the point.
There's something to do.
So I would highly recommendchoosing something.
That you can actually seeyourself improving in.
Because if you find even minimalimprovements, Then you're going
to be, you're going to be morecommitted to the craft.
And now's an excellent,excellent time for you to start
(09:54):
getting good at things.
It was probably really fuckinghard for you to get good at
anything while you were in astate of active addiction.
Because it was hard to maintain,focus on anything at a time, but
now.
Now you've got that time.
And now you got that focus.
And.
Not only that.
Not only are you going to getthe enjoyment of seeing yourself
(10:16):
improve at something?
But it's also going to help youstay clean and for you,
non-addicts out there.
It's going to help you stay offof Instagram.
It's going to help you.
Stop masturbating all day,whatever you're doing.
To just fill that free time.
If you see yourself making 1%point, 1% improvements to.
(10:37):
The things that you want to do.
That is one serious way toescape boredom.
My second advice on how toescape boredom.
It's volunteer.
There is nothing out there inthe world.
And I think this is proven bypsychology or something.
(10:57):
That will make you feel better.
Then helping other people.
You're looking for that.
You're looking for that dopaminehit.
Well guess what volunteer isgoing to give you that?
But it's also going to besustained.
It's called the warm gloweffect.
So you addicts out there lookingfor a way to get high.
This is this, my friends.
(11:18):
This is the most natural highthat you can get.
Giving of yourself, volunteeringyour time.
Not only is it going to helpyou?
Not be bored anymore.
But it's going to help restoreyou to sanity a lot too.
Finally, I would recommendworking on mindfulness
practices.
Meditate.
(11:39):
Journal.
Do yoga.
Practice gratitude.
Not only is this going to makeyou feel good?
Not only is this going to giveyou that natural dopamine hit.
But, and this is key.
It's also going to make it soyou're less bored more often.
When you're able to live.
(12:01):
More fully.
In each moment to moment.
You're going to find that you'renot bored as often.
So definitely practice some ofthese.
Some of these mindful practices.
And I know, I think out in thelast part, I prac I promised you
all that.
I'm going to give you some ofthese and I'm cooking something
up.
Don't worry.
(12:21):
But.
Yeah, definitely work on some ofthese.
They're going to help with theboredom a lot.
I know when I saw that I hadnothing going on this weekend,
actually.
Put me into a bit of a state ofanxiety.
Because there's always thatfear.
There's always that fear of ohshit.
(12:42):
If I'm doing nothing for two,three days on end.
I know what my fucking addictbrain's going to start doing.
but.
The way that I stave that off.
It's to keep myself busy andhere's my message.
To the addict today.
Do something.
Just fucking do something.
(13:05):
Anything.
Anything beats active addiction.
And.
Most anything beats just fuckingstaring at a wall.
Because if you allow yourself tobe bored for too long, you're
going to relapse.
It's just going to happen.
We see it time and time again.
So you need to figure out foryourself, what do you want, what
(13:27):
do you want to do?
And, maybe you don't have thatanswer right now.
And that's okay.
Just be honest with yourself.
Try new things, try new fuckingthings.
The world is your fuckingoyster.
Now.
Okay.
You've got time.
You've got your freedom back.
You got your freedom back, man.
So just go try new things andthen eventually you're going to
(13:49):
find.
These little things calledhobbies.
Oh man.
And once you have your hobbies,My hobbies are what keep me
clean today.
It's a huge, huge part of it.
And you're not going to havehobbies the day you get clean.
You're not going to havehobbies, maybe even in the month
or the year after.
But just keep trying new thingsand then you're going to find
(14:11):
things that you love and thosethings that you love.
Those are going to replace thedrugs.
Now.
I crave.
Surfing I crave golfing.
I'm not craving fuckingOxycontin anymore.
And surfing and golfing or sure.
A lot more healthy.
(14:31):
Then fucking, just degeneratingmy brain on drugs.
So hopefully this podcast todaydidn't bore you.
That would be horribly ironic.
Hope this didn't go over like afart in church.
And if you're listening to thisright now, because you're bored.
Fuck it, go do something.
Go have some fun.
(14:52):
You probably deserve it.
Just don't be destructive.
I love you all so much.
Thank you for listening.
This is Anne with thoughts of anaddict.
Try to get more of a routinenow.
Have a beautiful rest of yourday.
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