I am pleased you have a great social life without drinking. But many people's lives become grey and boring when they loose social life as they stop drinking. It should not be so. Hence, please, could you provide like a concise week diary of your social life (exclude online life though). Please, gift us an example of your week's social sober life and anyone could mimic and bring light and variety in the lives.
Certainly. I will mention when I first got sober I had no clue what normal healthy people did, so I got on Facebook and friended just about everyone I went to high school with, whether I liked them or not. I wanted valid examples, and so many people post every aspect of thier life online I figured that was a good dataset. I studied them, I took notes, and noted down activities that were appealing to me. I don't have human children (do have kitties), so I am not as restricted as most other people my age.
I keep a set schedule where I wake up and go to bed at the same times. My life is routine, which keeps me healthy. I have free time in the weekday evenings from 6 until 10, unless there is a special event. The weekends I have free time from 12 until 10, unless I have big projects, but I plan those. The free time is when I socialize.
I enjoy cooking so I frequently make dinner and invite people over. Every other Sunday my parents come down and visit for two hours. Afterwards my husband and I go grocery shopping and we talk to people as we shop. We may go to other stores once in a while. Sunday night I get the food for the week prepared, fruits and veggies washed, eggs hard boiled, plan out lunches and dinner for the week. Monday evenings we have ballroom dance lessons after work so we dance and then do dinner. Tuesday - Thursday we go for an hour walk on the golf course and through the neighborhood and chat with people on the way, we have a circuit so it may take longer than an hour depending on how many people we meet. We alway tend to the vegetable gardens. Friday we go out to dinner and then go to a dance. If we're lucky we can schedule a couples massage late, but that seldom happens as they're always booked. Saturday I worked around the house until noon - now lawn, tend all the gardens, I have medicinal flowers and other plants that look pretty but serve a purpose (echineachia, chamomile, poppies, herbs, etc). In the afternoon we play a round of golf. We usually go for a walk and then I get dinner prepped so it's ready when we get back from massages. We schedule those late so we can come home, eat, and just relax.
This is an average week, not too exciting, and reading it sounds kind of dull but it's really not. We do a lot of manual labor. We do everything around the house ourselves, from yard maintenance to pressure washing to renovation. A few months ago I painted the entire house myself...it took a month working on it 8 hours a day. Part of my staying healthy is to be active, and work is not enough. I have to wear myself out so I go to sleep at a reasonable hour as my addict brain is always ready to stay up all night doing stuff I shouldn't. The massages help me deal with stress, and there are many times that we go out to dinner with friends in lieu of massages. Sometimes we drive down to Myrtle Beach and go one one of those five hour gambling cruises and spend the afternoon playing craps.
Since I have gotten sober I have not had a well paying or steady job so money is always tight, so our activities have to be low cost. We get ridiculous deals on golf and massages, and we collect golf balls at night from the course (our walk) so we never buy them, and actually sell some every now and then. I learned how to coupon so a lot of our staple groceries are free, and I sell stuff on Craigslist. I'm almost embarrassed to post this I'm certain that this isn't the type of life most people would want. Im an extreme introvert sober so I can only be around groups of people for a short period of time lol.
Part of the dullness of sobriety for people in recovery is lack of dopamine stimulation. We trained ourselves to want that instant rush of dopamine whenever we want it, and unfortunately sober life doesn't work this way for most of us. It takes time to retrain our brains to find pleasure in smaller amounts of dopamine. I think this is why I look forward to dinner so much as its one of the few things in my life that trigger a dopamine response. Some people also get that with exercise, I wish I was one of them but sadly I have to force myself to do it in the mornings.
I hope this helps. I do recommend connecting with a lot of people and Facebook and see how they live, and mimic the stuff that is attractive to you. It does get better with time
Take care!