Unemployment
Becoming unemployed means many things for a person, most of them stressful. It can mean isolation, boredom, poverty, feelings of failure and not knowing what to do with your time.
Structure your day so you’ re not left with too much free time. Meet other people regularly – for instance, in a local unemployment resource centre. Although it cannot solve money problems, become involved with a voluntary organisation. It helps to fill your day and brings you into contact with other people, and you are doing something worthwhile. Being in contact with other people can lead to information about jobs. Taking up meaningful distractions from drinking is a big step towards recovery.
Change habits
When you give up one harmful habit, it’ s easy to replace it with another. Smokers trying to give up sometimes replace their tobacco addiction with an addiction to food. They put on weight and this gives them an excuse to start smoking again. Similarly, when you give up alcohol you may be tempted to gamble more, or to replace alcohol with tranquillisers or sleeping tablets. Each of these carries its own risks. To avoid problems, put your time and energy into more positive activities. For you, drinking alcohol is a negative activity because it is harmful to your health and your relationships. Activities such as hobbies can be enjoyed and don’ t lead to problems.
Look up your friends
Loneliness causes anxiety and unhappiness. If you’ re lonely or isolated, think of how you can meet people without drinking. Are there friends you’ ve drifted away from? Look them up again. Friends are an important support and re-establishing broken relationships is part of recovery. This may not always be successful, but where you do get a positive response from friends, value it; without them recovery is made harder. Don’ t cut yourself off from your friends.
Whatever the problem, heavy drinking makes the problem worse.