LONELINESS

~elden

WNELINESSFirst published March, 1986.

Copyright @ 1986, Hazelden Foundation.All rights reserved. No portion of this

publication may be reproduced in any mannerwithout the written permission of the

publisher.

Ftzelden

Loneliness is part of being human. No one isexempt. There are times when, no matter howstrong our faith is, or how much spiritual orpersonal growth we've experienced, lonelinesswill flood our lives. The loss of a loved one, thecritical illness of a child, making a tough deci-sion, supporting an unpopular position, andsometimes just doing what we know to be rightcan isolate us from others in a painful and yetunavoidable way. Sometimes we can find no di-rect trigger for our feelings - we just feel dis-connected from the flow of life around us.

We may be tempted to escape the discomfortby running to work, friends, or activities in thesame way we used to run to chemicals. Whilethis may provide some temporary relief, it usu-ally increases our sense of isolation. As is truewith any emotion, the attempt to deny or con-trol the isolation will only give it more power.The willingness to experience what we are feel-ing often reduces the intensity of the feeling.

While few would consider loneliness enjoy-able, it can encourage us to reach out to others,and to seek a power beyond. Calling our spon-sor or a friend, getting to a meeting, and shar-ing our pain can help us get out of ourselves in a

ISBN: 0-89486-369-X

Printed in the United States of America.

Editor's Note:Hazelden Educational Materials offers a vari-

ety of information on chemical dependency andrelated areas. Our publications do not necessar-ily represent Hazelden or its programs, nor dothey officially speak for any TwelveStep organi-zation.

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healthy way. Reading recovery or inspirationalliterature may help us regain a sense of perspec-tive. If we have suffered a major loss or arefeeling grief, we may be able to find a supportgroup which deals with that specific issue.

Many recovering people lead such busy andfull lives that the feelings of loneliness may becoming from isolation from themselves. The so-lution might be to spend more time on our-selves. We may need to schedule daily timewhen we can center and work on our daily re-covery program. We may be spending so muchtime and energy on work and service that wedon't leave any quality time to spend with fam-ilyand friends. We need to protect our mutuallynurturing relationships by continuing to investourselves in them.

The paradoxical nature of loneliness is notnew to recovering people. In our drinking andusing days, we believed we were unique and be-yond the understanding of mere mortals. Yet,we could not honestly let others know who wewere, for we did not know ourselves. We wouldswing from a grandiosity that told us we werebetter than others to a deep sense of shamewhich made us feel unworthy of any relation-ships. We drove people away, felt rejected bythem, and then rejected ourselves. While wor-shipping chemicals and believing they would

solve all our problems, we defiantly denied theexistence of any Power greater than ourselves.

Our journey away from loneliness is equallyfilled with paradox. We learn we are neither per-fect saints nor perfect sinners. We are simplyhuman. Although we are capable of greatwrongs, there is also a basic goodness in each ofus. As we begin to accept ourselves and others,we discover it frequently is by sharing our weak-nesses and vulnerability that we gain mutual un-derstanding and connectedness. By sharing ourpowerlessness and brokenness with others, weare confronted with the need. of a Power forgood, for unity, for healing - a Power greaterthan our mutual selves - to restore. us to asense of belonging.

The TwelveSteps and the fellowship of recov-ery groups bring us into a relationship of har-mony and connectedness with ourselves, others,and God. These relationships lead us fromaloneness to solitude and from isolation tocommunity. As we look at some of the ways inwhich this restoration occurs, we must keep inmind that it is not an either/or proposition. Wecannot be reconciled with ourselves unless weare also working toward healthy relationshipswith others.

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Ourselves. . .For those of us for whom a complicated lie

was easier than a simple truth, who kept secretsnot only from others but from ourselves as well,or who lied to God and knew it and lied aboutknowing it, getting honest is a formidable task.However, to reach a point where we are com-fortable being alone, we must come to knowourselves. We must replace our old lies of whowe are and are not with some new, hard-fought-for truths. It is through working the inventorySteps that we begin to know who we really are.

The First Step tells us we are powerless andunmanageable. The Fourth Step shows us ourstrengths and weaknesses, our motives, feel-ings, and values. Many find it helpful to repeatthe Fourth Step inventory periodically as wegrow in honesty and as our insights change ourunderstanding of our past.

A friend who had done her first Fourth Stepat the end of her $econd year of sobriety hadgreat difficulty finding her shortcomings as shesifted through an overwhelming amount of neg-ative emotion from childhood: pain, loss, grief,and fear. In a later inventory, she was amazed tofind a tremendous amount of love given andreceived in that same childhood. She realizedmuch of the remembered loneliness was self-inflicted through her childish demands and self-

centeredness. She had believed others existedsolely to meet her needs. Her efforts were re-warded with a new sense of healing of old mem-ories as well as new freedom in her relationshipstoday.

It may be helpful for us to do a special FourthStep when loneliness becomes a problem. Do wehave grief issues that are blocking intimacy?Were there some things we were unable to tell inour Fifth Step that are still fueling our sense ofshame? When has loneliness been a problem inour lives before? What was happening in termsof situations and feelings? Can we see patternsemerging? What was our part in it? How can weuse our program to work through this. situationin a healthy way? What can we learn from it?

Recovery is slow, but as it continues we cansee progress. In addition to admitting when weare wrong as we work Qur Tenth Step, we alsoneed to admit our progress, to gratefully incor-porate positive growth into ourselves. Sharingour developing understanding with a sponsor isa good way to reinforce our insights as well as tokeep honest. Using a sponsor increases oursense of being okay, while being a sponsor in-creases our sense of usefulness.

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Others.. .We discover in recovery that we are not the

self-sufficient creatures we once thought. Formost of us, relearning how to establish satisfy-ing relationships with others began at meetings.Our disease led us to a fellowship of people whounderstood and accepted us without reserva-tion.

A friend tells of arriving at an A.A. meetingone night and being overcome by feelings ofisolation and loneliness as he stood by the doorwatching the other members laughing and talk-ing together. It was then that he knew, for thefirst time in his life, that he really belonged.This group of people was truly his family. Evenif they ran away, he could run with them. Hewas not alone.

It is said that hearts are opened from the in-side. For many of us in whom the sense ofshame was so great that we were incapable ofeither venturing out to others or of receiving thewarmth that was so freely offered, our heartsopened very slowly. It was in the environment ofdeep commitment to mutual recovery that webegan to trust.

We are responsible for the hand of our recov-ery group to always be there, and that is a two-way responsibility for each of us. We must bewilling to extend our hand to the newcomer, to

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share our experience, strength, and hope.We must remember that we, too, are always

"newcomers" in that we have only a daily re-prieve from our active disease. Where is ourtrust level today? Are we going to enough meet-ings? Are we bringing up our concerns when weget there? Are we still using our sponsor? Arewe sharing our feelings of loneliness with othersor is false pride keeping us in the role of "old-timer"? Unless we keep our group experiencealive through active participation, it will be-come a memory which lacks the power tostrengthen our lives today.

In order to extend to other relationships thefeelings of comfort and connectedness we expe-rience in the Fellowship, we must "practicethese principles in all our affairs." We mustbring that same openness and honesty, accept-ance and trust, to our families and friends andinto the workplace. What we learn about thehuman experience in recovery must become thebasis of all our relationships. If we wish to feelconnected to others, we must be willing to be-come vulnerable. We begin by making amends.

We may discover some real harm we havedone in an active, concrete way or we may dis-cover the harm came as a result of our unrea-sonable expectations or demands. We may havewanted others to have more power than humans

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God...Few of us were on speaking terms with God

when we first came into the Program. We mightnot have doubted that He could restore us tosanity, but feared He wouldn't. Old understand-ings ranged from the "white-robed, candy storeman in the sky," somewhat passive and indul-gent, to the "angry, punitive, arbitrary judge"

who accepts no excuses for not following thelaw to the letter. With few exceptions, "God aswe understood Him" was not someone towhom we would want to turn over the care ofour life and our will.

Most of us reached a point in sobriety whenwe could no longer remain "unconscious" inour contact with God. We had to bring the samerigorous honesty we found so vital with self andothers into our relationship with our HigherPower. We came to believe that our unwilling-ness to share our feelings and our vulnerabilityblocks relationships with both God and man.We had to struggle with such questions as: Whois God as I understand Him? What is His actionin my life? Is my understanding consistent withthis action? What are my feelings regardingHim, positive and negative? Who am I in thisrelationship?

As sobriety continued, we came to believethat our very existence is a free gift from ourHigher Power - not as we once "understoodHim," but as we have come to understand Himthrough the awareness of His action in our lives.When we are experiencing pain we often need tolook at the lives of others, particularly those wesponsor, in order to see His action clearly. Fewof us would have survived our drinking and us-ing days without God's aid.

are capable of and solve our problems. We mayhave wanted them to let us act as the "fixers"and controllers of their lives. When thingsdidn't turn out the way we planned, we perhapshurt both them and ourselves in our disappoint-ment.

In making amends to others, we sometimesneed to do a specific restitution, or give a verbaladmission of wrong and an apolog,. Often,however, our amends must include a consciousamending of our view of the others. We come toa deep sense of relatedness when we can extendto all of the people in our lives the same right tobe human, the same right to be wrong, that weextend to ourselves and to our recoveringfriends. The ability to acknowledge our com-mon humanity, the ability to share our loneli-ness openly and honestly with another as a partof that common humanity, enables us to formtrue community.

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We came to understand a God who is power-ful, yet gentle. We came to understand a Godwho loves us just the way we are but too muchto leave us that way. As our cOflscious contactwith God develops, it has the power to trans-form our painful loneliness into joyful solitude.

It is through the Eleventh Step, the practiceof prayer and meditation, that we maintain andimprove our conscious contact with God.

To do this we must come to that relationshipanew each day. We must be willing to let go ofthe old ideas of who God was yesterday in termsof our understanding, and search continuallyfor who He is in our lives today. A consciouscontact embraces not only the known, but alsoacknowledges the mystery and the unknown aswell. We also need to bring to prayer a con-scious awareness of who we are by beginning anevening session with "a constructive review ofour day" as the Big Book suggests.

The simplest way pf describing the differencebetween prayer and meditation is that prayer isspeaking and meditation is listening. Any sim-ple, spontaneous, honest sharing of who we areand how we feel about the God of our under-standing is prayer. Perhaps we are most familiarwith prayer formulas like The Lord's Prayer andThe Serenity Prayer. Yet the problem of uncon-sciousness can slip into these quite easily. A

helpful practice is to "journal" with our favor-ite prayer formula from time to time - to sitdown and write the prayer out in our ownwords, or to go through each phrase to discoverwhat we mean by the words we are saying. Inusing our daily meditation books, we mightread a passage to see what words strike ourhearts instead of reading with our intellect. Dothese words have something special to say to usabout our journey?

Meditation for most of us takes much pra~-tice, but it is worth the effort. Being quiet, par-ticularly in times of stress, is unfamiliar to mostof us. Bill W. speaks often of "walking to seren-ity," and indeed a mile or so of walking can bemeditation in itself as well as preparation forquiet time.

Finding a place with a comfortable chair andminimal stimulation is important. Many findsoothing music aids in blocking out other inter-nal and external distractions. Balancing the in-halation and exhalation of our breathing andgently, silently repeating a word such as"peace" or "love" are widely used techniques.For someone new to meditation, the TwelveSteps and Twelve Traditions offers some goodsuggestions in its discussion of the EleventhStep. There are also many fine meditationguides available.

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There are times when our attempts at prayerand meditation seem empty and unrewarding,and this can heighten our sense of loneliness.The "dark night" experience is common to allspiritual men and women. Someone described itas God's unwillingness to allow us to becomeaddicted to Him, as surely we would if we re-ceived nothing but peak experiences. The dryperiods give us the opportunity to develop ourfaith and trust that He is with us even when weare not directly aware of His presence. Theyalso give us a greater appreciation for the gift ofprayer when it does flow freely.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to the practice ofthe Eleventh Step is forgetting to pray and medi-tate. Another problem is that some of us havedifficulty in disciplining ourselves to set asidethe time required. We allow other areas of ourlives to invade our prayer time. We are fre-quently shy about discussing our prayers withothers and fear we',re not doing it "right." Al-though we can always improve and expand ourprayer and meditation, most of us quite natu-rally discover what works best for us. As ourconsciousness of God deepens, we receive thepromised sense of belonging. We are neveralone.

. It is the tradition of Twelve Step recoverygroups to share stories and make suggestions. It

is hoped that these stories can be identified withand that some of the suggestions may be foundhelpful in seeking ways to deal with loneliness.

Loneliness is not an option. It may enter ourlives for good reasons or for no reasons. Somany of us are affected by it, yet we are oftenembarrassed to mention it. Perhaps we feel weshould be doing better. The adage of "painshared is halved" is true, but we sometimes for-get. Keeping secrets prevents us from receivingthe mixed blessing of loneliness: lonelinessshared brings us into closer relationship withthose with whom we share.

Pain acts as an effective catalyst for growth.It forces us to review and strengthen our recov-ery program. As is often said, "The program issimple, not easy." Our experience is that walk-ing through pain - with honesty, openness,and willingness - leads to new freedom andhappiness.

May the loneliness you are now walkingthrough bring you to greater awareness and ac-ceptance of self, to deeper fellowship and inti-macy with others, and to a growing experienceof God's presence and love in your life.

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