If you’re moving out of rehab and into recovery or even have been in recovery for some time, you’ll often have to re-plan, rebuild, and rewrite how you live your life. That means not just the stuff you do to maintain your sobriety but also your friendships, your hobbies, and the activities you turn to in order to keep yourself entertained and engaged. As summer turns to fall, you’ll have to pick up new activities and new ways to have fun.
The good news is there are nearly endless things to do if you’re creative. The smaller the town you live in, the fewer organized events or outings you’ll have to choose from. However, there will always be plenty of fun, sober fall activities to look into.
What Makes a Fun Sober Activity?
Anything is an activity. You could sit down at your kitchen table and start scrapbooking and it’s an activity. The thing is, if you do too much of that, especially alone, you’re not going to be having fun. You’re going to be feeling bored, disconnected, and probably alone. It’s important to make sure you’re having fun with your friends or taking steps to make friends – because that’s where you’re going to feel fulfilled and happy.
You also want to balance how you spend your time. If you’re investing all of your time in a new activity, you want to make sure it fills some of the daily checkboxes you have to make for maintaining your recovery. Think exercise, social life, meditation or time for silence, time to feel, etc. If you’re just doing something once or twice, it doesn’t have to do any of that and you can do it “just for fun”.
8 Fun Sober Fall Activities
Any activity is an activity if you’re having fun, getting social time in, and hopefully even getting to exercise your mind or your body. This list of 8 fun sober activities for fall will hopefully provide you some inspiration.
1. Look for Local Fall Activities
From festivals to pumpkin patches, haunted houses, and corn mazes, most areas have local fall activities. Look around, pay attention to newspapers, and look at bulletin boards in your local grocery store. You’re sure to find opportunities for outings like hay rides, fall festivals, pumpkin picking, and more.
Tip: Take your friends or family, it’s more fun. If you’re not ready for that, try taking a few people from your sober group or organizing an outing with them.
2. Try Fall Crafts
From carving pumpkins to candle-making or designing your own Halloween costume, fall is popular for crafts. You’ll have a wide range of opportunities to get creative and express your creative side. This is also a great activity to do by yourself or with friends. If you have plenty of other social activities, try saving crafts for time when you want to be alone but still want to be doing something.
Still, carving a pumpkin can be a lot more fun with a group or a good friend.
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The weather is cooling off and that means two things. The first is that you’ll need a better sleeping bag if you go camping. The second is that all the mosquitoes are dying. Early fall is the perfect time to go camping and hiking. Or, if you’re into that kind of thing, fishing and hiking. Going outdoors can be about having time to socialize and have a relaxing time with friends and family. It can also mean quiet time to yourself to get thoughts, emotions, and yourself together. Whatever you need at the time.
4. Join a Sports Club
Fall is time when many sports are just starting up, so it’s the perfect time to join a local league or club to get involved in their next season. Options will vary depending on where you’re at but almost everywhere football and soccer start in the fall and you can move to basketball and hockey as the weather gets even colder.
This is also a great way to get exercise in, make new friends, and get to engage with people in a meaningful way all at once.
5. Sign Up for Classes
As the weather gets colder, you’ll want to spend more time indoors. That means it’s a great time to sign up for classes to make spending time indoors more fun. Whether that’s cooking, dancing, pottery, or indoor rifle doesn’t matter – pick something that sounds fun, try it out for a few lessons, and then decide to commit or not based on whether you’re having fun. Classes are also a great way to improve your quality of life over time because even if cooking is just for fun now, it means you’ll enjoy your everyday meal a lot more in a year. Win/win!
6. Volunteer
Volunteering isn’t always fun but it can be and it can be significantly rewarding. As autumn approaches, volunteer groups kick up with initiatives for everything from building animal shelters, building tiny homes, knitting blankets for the homeless, running soup kitchens, and much more. Depending on your state of recovery, you might have to be careful about volunteering in positions that could put you in close proximity to people with a substance abuse problem. However, there are often plenty of places where you can volunteer and contribute and feel good about yourself.
7. Have Campfires
Fall is a great time to enjoy an outdoor fire. If you have a yard or private space, you can easily start making weekly fires and enjoying being outside a thing. If you don’t, try looking for a park with a communal fire or grill area or look around for someone you know who would like to do so with you. Campfires can also be as social or as solitary as you want – but they’re usually better with friends.
8. Host Dinner Parties
It’s getting cold outside so it’s the perfect time to take socializing indoors. A dinner party means you have something to do and talk about, you can cook together with your friends and family. Having weekly dinner parties also means you’ll get in social time and you’ll regularly have people over to spend time with you. Of course, if you’re not great at cooking or if budget is an issue, you can always try having a potluck or asking others to contribute. And, this activity is great for family, friends, people from your sober recovery group, etc. Just make sure everyone is aware that you aren’t drinking and they should not be bringing alcohol.
Eventually, there are thousands of things you could be doing with your fall. What those things end up doing depends on your health, mental health, physical and mental capabilities, resources, and location. Just make sure you look for things that offer opportunities to be social, spark your creativity, and give you opportunities for calm and contemplation. It’s not good to be too busy so don’t over plan your days. You’ll also want to make sure you clearly communicate sobriety to everyone going with you on activities – just so you don’t get a nasty surprise of someone handing around alcohol or bringing beer to your sober event.
Good luck and have fun!
