Make boredom great again

Bring on the ideas. Bad ones too.

Every now and then, I forget my headphones at home.

So I’ve got nothing to listen to at the gym. No podcasts. No music. Just the steady clank of machinery, whirring wheels that go nowhere, and so many sighs. Everyone seems to be sighing all the time. Except for the guy who sings falsetto at the weight bench.

All I’ve got to look at are people — I'm a creep — and instructions for properly using the machine I’m dying of boredom on.

But am I really dying? After I circle back to the operating instructions a few times, I fall into a trance-like state. I start getting ideas. Low-frequency stuff, mostly.

I debate whether I should use the weight bench next. The last guy acted like it had violated him in some way. Would I go straight to the coffee shop after this? I have a gift card! And the jasmine lavender tea sure is yummy.

Mom probably wants me to pick something up for her at Costco. What time is it, anyway? I stare at the digital clock on the wall, trying to predict when the number will change. Now! Nope… NOW! No…

I’d better not look at my neighbor again. Last time, there was eye contact. It was weird.

Finally, after exhausting every external possibility, this wandering mind starts to look inward.

What’s really going on in there? In recovery, we’re urged to distract ourselves from thoughts of using. There are all kinds of handy techniques: snapping fingers, slapping faces, mumbling a few words of self-affirmation.

Maybe that worked in the early days, when cold water could reach into my mind — like long, icy fingers — and pry it from a crack den fantasy.

The thing is, a distraction doesn’t grapple with root cause — it only draws a curtain over it.

After a while, the drapes get worn and thin. What I stashed behind them remains.

Did I really want to spend the rest of my life, channeling a mental circus every time my thoughts wandered to the pipe? I see those people at meetings all the time. Some of them have been clean for years — they seem to have mastered a state of self delusion that leaves them forever fighting cravings. And, of course, policing everyone else in recovery.

“Language!” they might caution, if you dare refer to ‘crack’ as anything but ‘drug of choice.’ And, heaven forbid someone should talk about their past — how they used to live in a tent with psychotic roommates, and ripping people off just to get 15 minutes of crack-induced euphoria.

“Please don’t glamorize drug use!” that pillar of the recovery community might warn.

What about those dreams? How do I stop waking up with an imaginary crack pipe in my mou—

“Language, please!”

“Try submerging your face in ice water.”

But for all that, the high priests of recovery often seem like they’re one dark alley away from a binge. Like one hand is reaching for the pipe, while the other is forever slapping it.

Better, I think, to figure this out — even if it means grappling with these troublesome thoughts. I don’t think I could be clean for very long if my only strategy was to run away from the contents of my head.

Besides, if there was one major theme to my career as a junkie, it was running away — from pain, from difficult situations, and eventually from anything that seemed even a little inconvenient.

If I’m looking to re-engineer myself, why carry over unhealthy behaviours from my days as a drug-doer?

No, the only way this could work is if I address the fundamentals. And keep having these conversations with myself.

Not bothering with social media has also helped clear space in my head. These days, it's just Substack. And, around the holidays, I use Elfster to tell friends and loved ones what I want for Christmas. (Shoot me a DM. Let's connect!)

My phone is always on silent. I check in on it from time to time. It never checks in on me.

Boredom shouldn't create a gap in my head for inserting other people’s thoughts. It presents a precious and increasingly rare opportunity to entertain — or suffer — my own. As long as I don’t forget to stop at Costco on the way home. Mom really needs sauerkraut and — shoot, I accidentally gazed toward my neighbor. Eye contact, again! One more time and I’ll need to leave the gym.

What time is it, anyway? The clock is going to turn… NOW!

Nope…