Understanding Loneliness Edited

Here is why you still feel lonely even though you've quit using for a long time. Because you haven't done the actual real work in recovery. Here's how loneliness happens. Here you are as a baby. You were a whole person, right? Then life happened to you. Maybe Mommy said, you're so dramatic, you're too much. Then you have to reject the part of you that is too much, or that you deem is too dramatic. Maybe dad says, I'm too busy for you. Emotional neglect. You reject the part of you that seems to get in the way or need too much. Bullies might say, what a— Slur word. And then you reject the part of you that's effeminate. That represents you being gay. Now that you've rejected these parts, you bury them somewhere deep, deep in your subconscious, somewhere far away, and that leaves you fragmented. Not lonely, but fragmented. You've been— parts of yourself have been fragmented off that stand between you and the love of people who are important to you, like Mom, like Dad, like friends at school. So you have altered yourself for society. Now in recovery, you have distanced yourself from parts of yourself so much that it feels lonely. You're disconnected. People will tell you, go to a meeting, join kickball, do this, do that, increase your social circle in order to feel less lonely, and you still feel lonely. That's because There are parts of you who are so far away, you're never going to feel connected to anybody on the outside. So the work is called integration, and that's on the inside, is accepting these parts, accepting the part of you that's gay, accepting the part of you that might be too much, accepting the part of you that you feel like is not enough. When you accept those parts, you stop judging those parts. They come closer to you because you're loving them. Not rejecting them. Hope that helps.