SOBER AND SEXY BLOG, ADDICTION RECOVERY AND LONELINESS

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LONELINESS AND ADDICTION RECOVERY

I think about all of the isolating that I did in my active  addiction. Is it any wonder that a lot of us experience a sense of loneliness in addiction recovery?

In addiction you have distanced yourself from almost all of the positive people in your life and have instead chosen to surround yourself with people who have the same addictive qualities as yourself.   Once you enter into recovery and have cut ties with the “wrong type of people” you may be left with the feeling of loneliness.

In know in my own life during different periods of my using I either hung with people just like me or I totally isolated.  At the end of my addiction I became very isolated and was very successful in my isolating. When the time came when I was clean there wasn’t that much change in the number of people I was around (0), just a change in how it affected me.

When I was using drinking or drugging I didn’t mind being by myself. I was able to deny to myself that I was feeling lonely…the drugs helped me out with that. So when I wasn’t using the alcohol and drugs anymore the sense of loneliness was crushing.

The biggest obstacle in my early recovery was  myself. I guess you take someone who over their entire life has been burned a few times by getting close to people, doesn’t feel comfortable enough to show emotion in front of other people, and who has an addictive thought pattern and you have the perfect recipe for the defense mechanism called…isolation.

The way that I began to bring myself out of isolation was by keeping busy.  I attended meetings, any type of meeting, my entire personality had flaws if I can even consider myself ever really having a personality that was not some sort of facade. Even though sharing my thoughts and emotions with a room of strangers went against every instinct in myself, rationally I knew I needed to.  I volunteered my time to feed the homeless sometimes spending my last dollar to buy the food.  I read books, took walks, researched the internet everything I could about addiction and recovery to gain knowledge.  Just about anything to keep my mind occupied and out of myself and my thoughts.

What I found out was after I would open up to others I felt a whole lot better. Just saying the words out loud sometimes  freed me up inside.  Today I can actually say God is the first one I speak to.  I have learned to set bounderies and not let people take advantage of me which gets rid of the distrust of people.  You will no longer attract those types of people.  I have learned to wake up every morning with a clear head knowing I am never alone again and am in my recovery and my life.