Social relationships are a major source on novelty and positive reinforcement for most human beings. In fact, it may be the major reason why women
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be less boredom prone than men and why individuals with psychological disorders that are
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by poor and unstable inter-personal relationships, such as individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, are also
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high levels of boredom.
I cannot
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strongly enough how important it is for an individual in recovery to educate the members of their social support
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as to the importance of their role in helping ease boredom. By providing the members of the social network with information from their Boredom Map and information about when and where their boredom is likely to be most
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and sustained, they can begin to
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on developing patterns of interaction that anticipate and
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potential periods of intense and sustained boredom. Far too often the person in recovery is left to their own devices by family members and friends who typically assume that as long as the individual goes to meetings regularly, their role is limited to making sure that they are not enabling
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behavior. The irony here, of course, is that they seldom do very much to enable the boredom-coping strategies that are needed to replace the very effective strategy that they hope to discourage. Indeed, the most effective way that a social network can help someone stay
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is to become interested in their boredom.