“Loneliness”

One of my good friends in Recovery, someone I was actually ‘out there’ with who got clean a few months before I did, often shares about loneliness. It’s not a subject I share a lot about. In fact it’s pretty rare for me to talk about it. The reason why isn’t that I never feel the feeling, in fact it’s a feeling I have far more experience with it than I wish I did.

Remembering what it was like, I can go back to just about any relationship I’ve ever been in and recall a moment (or many) where I was lying in bed with my partner and felt lonely. Not just lonely, but desperately lonely. I remember thinking to myself many, many times about how fucked up it was to be lying next to a woman--oftentimes one I loved--and yet still feel isolated and alone.

Even after getting into Recovery, I still felt the pain of that feeling way more often than I care to admit. It’s been one of the more difficult feelings to learn how to deal with, and definitely one that’s taken longer to address and work on. I’ve had a lot of ‘my part’ to sort through when it comes to loneliness, not the least of which has been all the relationships I’ve gotten myself into out of fear that I’d always be alone.

I can feel lonely as fuck, even laying right next to someone. Something I’ve discovered in Recovery, though, is that I can also be by myself, not in a relationship, not even seeing someone, and not feel lonely at all.

This is the part where I’m supposed to launch into a big ol’ diatribe about the emptiness inside all us addicts, how it’s just another part of the God-shaped hole that we can only fill with the love of our higher power and a genuine love of ourselves. And that’s all true, but not quite the point I’m wanting to make. Not that it isn’t a huge, valid, really really important point. But having made it, I’m going to go over here.

Loneliness sucks, there’s no doubt about it. Not knowing how to handle this feeling can get us into all kinds of bad situations. Getting loaded so that we don’t have to feel it is one. Going to a bar and getting drunk enough we don’t care who we go home with is another. Staying with an abusive partner. Allowing ourselves to be used by “friends”. Keeping unhealthy people in our lives just so we don’t have to be stuck alone with ourselves. These are all unhealthy ways, and none of them truly address the emptiness inside.

I’ve made some really poor decisions in the past because of my loneliness. Some of that shit, only my sponsor knows about. It’s better now, but it’s still one of the ways my disease can fuck me over. I have to remember certain things: that I am loved by others; that my higher power loves me more deeply and richly than I could ever possibly imagine or understand; and that trying to fill the emptiness inside with anything else--using, relationships, or one-night-stands--doesn’t work.

Something else I’ve found helpful for dealing with this feeling is acceptance. When I feel lonely, I accept it. It sounds kind of like this: “Hmm. I feel lonely. This shit really sucks. I really wish I didn’t feel this way, but I do. How ‘bout that?”

Loneliness is something we all deal with. Even that persistent feeling that we don’t belong or will never fit in, or even that we’re not like ‘normal’ people, that’s still loneliness, and it’s just a feeling. It may be one we don’t enjoy, but it won’t kill us. And it will pass.