once i quit drinking i needed to find new things to do.... mostly i went to 90 meetings in 90 days and that sure was a new experience for me, but i learned a lot listening to people who had years of sobriety to my 30 days.  it was hard for me to learn to watch TV or read a book without my huge glass of wine.  AA literature, the 12 by 12 and the Big Book are good reading material and help my brain focus on healthy things. and another thing that helped me was doing volunteer work for our local medical center and my church.  when watching TV,  instead of having a glass of wine i would mix juice and club soda for my drink.  little by little i made new habits and new friends.
  thanks for helping keep me sober.
jj/sheila

It has been my experience in getting sober that over time ( one day at a time ) my life has taken on new meaning. I have found more joy in my job, my family, my hobbies, and even the little menial things I do on a day to day basis. I have also found that by getting involved in the fellowship of AA via service work and other activities ... district meetings, AA workshops and the like have a tendency to take up a fair portion of my time.

I no longer think about drinking or how it use to be such an important part of my life. I fill my life today with the things I was really missing out on when I was drunk.

I dont have time to be bored today with all the obvious blessings in my life

In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous we find chapter 11 "A VISION FOR YOU" which is posted in part below.  We have an answer to boredom.

You can read the whole text on-line at: http://anonpress.org/bb/

Larry,
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Drinking didn't drown my problems, it irrigated them


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                                                        Chapter 11

 

A VISION FOR YOU

 

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt - and one more failure.

The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did - then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen - Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!

Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time." As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He will presently try the old game again, for he isn't happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish for the end.

We have shown how we got out from under. You say, "Yes, I'm willing. But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?"

Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you.

"How is that to come about?" you ask. "Where am I to find these people?"

You are going to meet these new friends in your own community. Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds. High and low, rich and poor, these are future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of "Love thy neighbor as thyself."