That word “loneliness” was dropped into conversations with a number of people. It made me stop and think this morning. It’s an awesome word that loneliness. I know that for myself, when I came in, and a lot of other people I’ve talked to over the years, that word has caused an awful lot of trouble.
What the old timers told me was that I never had to be alone again, if I didn’t want to. But there’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I’ve been alone many times in my sobriety, but never felt lonely. I did in the beginning, but it went away over time. And the same happened for many others, who came in with me.
My guess is that the word loneliness causes us fear. Fear of never having someone, who cares in our lives. That kind of fear can lead us right back out the door and into a barroom. Wait a minute. I thought I came in here to stop drinking and not get into a relationship. I’ve seen many go down that road and they did end up drinking again. Fortunately, I got hooked up with winners, who led me into a relationship, but not with someone of the opposite sex. Under their directions I was helped into a relationship within me. Not with me, but with a Higher Power.
I was to learn that, if I wanted to stay sober, I was going to have to fill, what they used to call “the God hole”. That was that feeling of emptiness within me. They pointed out to me that I had been trying to fill that empty space within with all kinds of things from the outside. Money, relationships, cars, you name it. My sponsor told me that I could throw all kinds of things down there and never find anything fulfilling. He told me that I would begin to fill up from within as I worked this program, step by step, into my life. And that’s what I have done since I began to follow his advice and directions…or, if you will, his suggestions.
This didn’t happen overnight. It took time. It’s a process. But during that process, I began to lose that lonely feeling. It was replaced by Something, which I began to seek more and more. At first it was a growing enthusiasm for this way of life. It came out in the early times as growing at ease with the recovering alcoholics around me. I began to form friendships and fellowship. As I participated more in the groups, a sense of excitement began to fill my days. I wanted more of what these people had and became willing to do what it took to get it.
But something else above all of this was beginning to happen. I was slowly becoming God conscious. With each little “miracle”, which began to push the thought of a drink out of my life, I started to begin to realize that it wasn’t me, who was doing this. That’s when I started to develop an attitude of gratitude.
None of this was without mistakes. I made a lot of them and often still do. Today, I was thinking how amazing this journey has been. A journey from “terrifying loneliness”, as Bill W. once described it at the end of our drinking, to one of being at comfort with myself. This past Friday, I sat at lunch with a group of old timers. I couldn’t help but notice how much at ease and how comfortable we all were with one another. Some I knew, but hadn’t seen for a while, and others I just met. We did nothing but talk, but the enthusiasm and the happiness was so evident. Who would have thought years ago this would be the way it was?
I remember many years ago that my sponsor and I were going on a twelve step call. We had to delay it for an hour or so and stopped in to visit a couple in the program. We were sitting in their kitchen having coffee, when the man’s wife stopped us and said, “Who would have thought that on this July 4th we would be sitting here and talking about God?” Who indeed.