Addiction and Boredom

When was the last time you said, “I’m bored”, and when was the last time you used drugs because of it?

Everyone gets bored sometimes; it’s only natural. But let me tell you something about boredom, and the dangerous apathy that creeps into the minds of men. Man is the only one of God’s creatures who is capable of being bored. No other living thing can ever be bored with itself or its environment.

Boredom is one of the sure ways to measure your own inner emptiness. Like mercury in a thermometer, it accurately measures just how hollow your inner spirit really is. Each person who is thoroughly bored is living in a vacuum, and nature requires that all vacuums be filled. Like “what goes up must come down”, it is one of the unfailing rules of the universe. But it is entirely up to us how the vacuum is to be filled.

Most people choose their vacuums with activities such as recreation, literature, education, better living, pleasure, and worship. Why do we choose to fill our vacuums with substance abuse? If we knew the answer to that question, maybe we would not have to be in recovery—there would be no necessity for it.

Most of us do not know why we choose drugs and alcohol as a filler, but it floods with great ease into minds and hearts of those who are empty and waiting, and the Jackal waits with us on the desolate road that lies ahead.