Sober means not drinking or drugging and not being bored.

For years I joked that when Moses broke the first set of commandments and had to redo them, there was an eleventh commandment that got left off. It read, "Thou shalt not be bored." I pretended I thought it was funny, but in truth it was one of the driving philosophies of my existence. I lived my life in such a way that proved to everyone, including myself, that I would rather be in pain or trouble than bored. I couldn't stand silence. I couldn't sit still. The little everyday minutia of life was a torture for me. I hated my life unless I was in the midst of some excitement or chaos, and if there was none to be found, I would create some. One of the truest statements anyone ever said of me was that when I got bored, trouble soon followed.

But it wasn't so much that I hated boredom, as I believed, but that I was addicted to chaos. Hello, my name is Dalyn, and I'm a chaos junkie. I say it didn't truly have anything to do with boredom, because what is boring is abstract and subjective. At the same time, it had everything to do with boredom. Boredom remains my biggest enemy.

As a young man there was little I found more boring than sitting in a deer stand freezing my butt off. I hated it. I did it because I was also addicted to people pleasing, and I felt it would gain me approval from my father who enjoys to hunt. But at the very least I would sneak a book into the stand with me. I enjoyed reading, and it didn't really matter where I did it. But my little brother loved to hunt and could gladly sit on a deer stand for hours. On the other hand make him read philosophy while he was up there, and he would have been bored out of his gourd.

Webster defines boring as causing boredom. Ok, that's helpful. I hate it when people define a word with the same word. But they are right. If I definitely understand the meaning of boredom then I know the meaning of boring. It is whatever causes me to feel or experience boredom. So, what does Webster say boredom is? Webster says that it is the state of being weary or restless due to a lack of interest. How perfect is that? There is a quote that I feel puts it even better.

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." (Thomas Szasz)

One thing I love about this quote is that it doesn't just tell me what boredom is but also serenity. This is important to me, because this helps me with the transition from just talking about how much trouble I had with boredom to what I needed to right about this morning.

I realized sometime yesterday that I don't get bored very often anymore. I do a lot of the things I used to consider boring, such as work and just sitting on the porch meditating, and I do a whole lot less of the things I used to do to attempt to evade the state of boredom. But I am still bored less than I have been for most of my life. How is that? Why is that?

Well, it is definitely a surprise to me. I also used to say that reality was boring, and, according to Webster, I was right. I was right because I had a serious lack of interest in reality, and that lack of interest caused me to feel weary and restless when faced with it. So when faced with reality I drank, I drugged, I avoided. So it surprised me to discover that I could enjoy reality and a "normal" life.

When I first got sober, boredom was one of my biggest fears. I could not imagine a life without chemical enhancement in which I was not completely bored and miserable. Even today, I must watch out for those feelings of irritable restless discontentment. Once they manifest in my life, if I don't correct what is causing them, it won't be long before I am drinking or drugging again. The truth is that I still can't stand to be bored. I still can not handle feeling tired and restless because whatever I am seeing or hearing or doing or what situation I am in is not meeting the need that I have and therefore I have lost interest.

If I quit drinking and become dry, the restlessness, the boredom, takes a few days to really start driving me crazy. That is why the beginning of my recovery was so rough for me. Because I wasn't doing any drinking or drugs, but I was still restless and discontent. So, what has changed?

For one, I am not dry but sober. What's the difference? Being dry is not drinking or drugging, while be sober is not drinking, drugging, or being irritable, restless and discontent. Dry means not drinking. Sober means not drinking or drugging and not being bored.

As I worked the steps of recovery, really worked them, a miracle happened. The hole that I had in my life that I tried for all my life to fill with anything and everything, including drugs and alcohol, got filled. The emptiness was gone. The isolation within myself ended. I no longer felt alone when I was alone, and more importantly I no longer had the life crushing loneliness and emptiness when surrounded by people. Fear no longer ruled my life causing me to live with a constant need for escape. When these things happened, the miracle happened that the obsession to drink and drug was removed from me. But I realized this morning that the removal of the obsession wasn't the miracle but the result. The true miracle was that my boredom was removed.

Sure, there are television shows that bore me. I turn the channel. There are speakers that I find hard to listen to, and I still don't have much desire to sit for hours on a deer stand. Some things just don't hold my interest. I still have boredom in my life, I just don't have BOREDOM. That all consuming, over bearing, driving restlessness and discontentment is gone, and with it went the desire to drink and drug. Because the reason I did drugs and drank in the first place was to try to kill the boredom in my life. Reality bored me. Fun stuff like roller coasters and sex bored me after a few times on the same ride. Quietness and nature bored me. God bored me. Hell, I bored me. Everything in my existence bored me after a while unless it allowed me to escape my feeling of just being tired of visiting this rock in space and feeling restless and discontent. I was dying of a terminal case of ADD because nothing could hold my attention long, because nothing filled the hole in my life I so desperately needed filled. Not people, not activities, and after a while, not even chemicals.

I filled the hole, and the boredom was buried. The obsession for chemicals is buried with it. So today, when I feel myself becoming restless and discontent, I realize I am beginning to allow that black hole to reenter my life. I fill it back up before I have to try to cover it with drinking or drugging. I do that by working the steps of recovery and through conscious contact with my Creator.

Are you dying of boredom and the things that you do to attempt to stop the boredom? Fill the hole and find freedom. Work the frigging steps. It works if you work it.