The brain associates alcohol with entertainment when you’re bored or looking to pass the time.

Drinking gives you something to do and makes certain situations more tolerable.

This archetype commonly appears during unstructured time, major life transitions, or when you dislike what you’re doing or who you’re with.

The Hourglass tends to show up when:

• • Spending time by yourself.
  • Undergoing shifts related to work, family, relationships, or where you live.
  • Feeling obligated to participate in certain activities.
  • Socializing with people you have little in common with or dislike.
  • Traveling frequently.

When The Hourglass is activated, saying no interferes with your desire to avoid boredom,making it hard to abstain or moderate.

“Drinking is better than doing this.”

Rather than keeping you entertained, the opposite happens. You become bored faster and less able to tolerate uncomfortable situations.

“The Hourglass teaches the brain that boredom is a problem that must be immediately solved.”

Humans have a long history of using alcohol as a form of entertainment.

But the faster you reach for a drink when you’re uninterested in what you’re doing, the quicker you’ll feel bored.

Here’s an example of the thoughts, feelings, and actions associated with The Hourglass.

Together, they create a learned behavior and influence your relationship with alcohol.

Circumstance: You lack interest in your current activity.

Thought: I might as well drink.

Feeling: Desire

Action: You reach for a drink, hoping alcohol will make things more entertaining. Notice what you’re not doing:

• You’re not normalizing boredom. The human brain is not meant to be constantly stimulated or find everything endlessly enjoyable. In fact, the constant need for stimulation leads to bigger problems. 
• You’re not leveraging boredom. New ideas, insights, and epiphanies are only possible when your mind has the space to think and make new connections. 
• You’re not designing a path forward. Removing constant stimulation reveals the parts of your life that aren’t working and clears space to brainstorm solutions.  
• You aren’t pursuing what lights you up. There’s a difference between consuming and creating your enjoyment. Creating takes more upfront energy, but the payoff is so much bigger.

Result: Short-term: the feel-good hormone dopamine stimulates the brain. Long-term: you’re less able to tolerate boredom and find yourself getting bored faster.

Here’s why:

• Alcohol makes things more “entertaining” by stimulating the brain’s reward center. The lack of interest or dislike feels less acute when you drink because of the feel-good hormone dopamine.
• But for every high, there’s a corresponding low, and the entertainment your brain gets from alcohol is short-lived. A single serving is unlikely to radically change your mood, making you more likely to overdrink. 
• In addition, you’re likely experiencing negative emotions about your boredom, such as annoyance (“I hate having to sit through this”), anxiety (“I guess this is my life now”), or shame (“I have no reason to be bored with my life”). 
• Because of this, alcohol has more to compensate for, which is why you may find yourself reaching for more. The more you drink, the more likely you are to develop a tolerance to alcohol. 
• Once a tolerance is developed, you’ll need to drink more to produce the same effect. In other words, it takes more alcohol to replicate the good feeling you used to get from a single glass. Because of this, you may find yourself drinking more in a sitting.
• At the same time, your brain has learned to expect the reward of alcohol during specific times or during certain activities (e.g., after the kids go to bed or while you’re watching TV). If the reward doesn’t come, these moments become doubly unpleasant.  
• Without healthy ways to manage boredom, you may start to believe—whether consciously or unconsciously—that alcohol is necessary during your downtime or when engaging in activities you dislike. The idea of trying to manage these moments on your own can trigger anxiety. This added layer of anxiety makes boredom feel even less tolerable.  
• Even though you don’t like experiencing a lack of interest, your brain is now incentivized to maintain this state. Your brain will devise a laundry list of reasons why change is too hard. Your brain knows that a lack of interest in what you’re doing makes you more likely to drink. 
• Because alcohol creates a relatively large dopamine response and takes very little energy or effort to consume, your brain will prioritize alcohol over spending time on activities that require more energy or effort but are in alignment with your dreams and goals.
• The more you reach for things to create quick, easy, and large dopamine responses, the more anxious you feel without it, and the less you can tolerate a lack of entertainment or neural stimulation. In short, you feel bored faster, and moments without stimulation feel less and less tolerable. 
• Meanwhile, you’re not pursuing what lights you up or learning healthy coping mechanisms for when you feel uninterested or dislike what you’re doing.
• As a result, you keep believing the thought, “I might as well drink,” which reinforces The Hourglass archetype. In reality, alcohol is making you less able to tolerate boredom.    

The Hourglass often uses restlessness to sabotage rules, drink plans, and Dry Januarys.

Keep in mind, not all obstacles will apply to everyone with this archetype:

• • You don’t enjoy spending a lot of time on your own.
  • You’d love to go out, but you have little kids and can’t leave the house.
  • You used to have so much to do; now you’re unsure how to fill the time.
  • You’re bored by your daytime activities (work, childcare, etc.) and don’t want to be bored at night.
  • You feel like you have no right to be bored by your life.
  • You travel frequently and are often too tired to explore your surroundings.
  • There’s nothing to do where you are.
  • You’d like to go out but don’t know anyone, so you end up staying in.
  • You compromised, and now you’re watching something you’re not interested in.
  • You find yourself wondering, is this all there is?

The Hourglass’s deeper desire is discovery.

The deeper desire is what the drink represents.

Discovery is the idea that there’s so much more to explore in the world, and so much inside of you is still untapped.

It’s the joy of rediscovering the mystery of being alive.

Here’s what discovery sounds like: 

• I find myself endlessly fascinating.
• The world is forever astonishing me. 
• My existence is miraculous.

Humans crave awe and wonder.

But when this is lacking, you can easily divert this desire into a drink, which only intensifies your boredom.

This is why, with The Hourglass, it’s essential to foster a sense of discovery alongside managing cravings.

“Boredom is only a pointless emotion when I fail to look inside it.”

Letting go of The Hourglass will fill you with purpose.

Here are some of the superpowers waiting to be unlocked:

• • Going after what you really want in life.
  • Easily tapping into wonder and awe all around you.
  • Enjoying spending unstructured time alone.
  • Feeling at peace in the moments most people rush to find something to do.
  • Enjoying watching your mind wander.