[theatraine]

I'm 2.5 months sober and this has been my experience as well. I'm now much more wary of getting myself into situations where I might be bored. I'm naturally extraverted so I still enjoy the social aspect of parties but I've cut back on the amount of dates that I go on since the risk of being bored is too high.

I've started meditating to try and raise my "boredom tolerance". It's too early to say if it has made any difference but I've met people who swear by it. I'm also trying to get more curious about other people and essentially rely on my extraversion to deal with boring situations.

In terms of substances to fill the niche I don't think there's anything that exists. Coffee is nice during the day but drinking it past a certain time leads to insomnia. I've mostly just taken to drinking a wide variety of non-alcoholic beverages LaCroix and non-alcoholic beer.

Pharmacologically speaking the closest drugs would be GABA receptor agonists (e.g. phenibut, benzos, GHB) but those can be quite nasty and even more addictive than alcohol. I have not personally tried them and don't plan on it.