Isolation is to Addiction as Contentedness is to Recovery

Being a part of something bigger than myself was never something I ever felt I could truly achieve in active addiction and alcoholism.  Like so many other soul soothing miracles I have now been blessed to experience, perhaps there is no other feeling quite like connecting in love, service, and gratitude in an effort far greater than any one of us.  It is often said that addiction is a disease of isolation; that has certainly been my experience based on my own and the countless stories of addiction I have been exposed to both on this very podcast as well as in the rooms of 12-Step fellowships.  

The definition of isolation is to be or to remain alone or a part from others.  Synonyms of the verb “to isolate” include: separate, to set or keep apart, to segregate, detach, cut off, shut away, to keep in solitude, and withdrawal.  I spent over 20 years of my life from age 11 to the day I truly surrendered to this disease in some degree of isolation from others and from the God of My Understanding.  Those of us who know the isolation that accompanies our disease; oft preceding full and active addiction, and increasing in degree and intensity as the disease progresses until, if left unchecked, the painful aching of separation has in fact manifested itself as a reality.  You are truly alone, and then as the Big Book says you’ll know loneliness as only few of us do.  This feeling we wouldn’t wish upon our most bitter enemy, yet somehow we’ve managed to make this self-fulfilling prophesy come to be a cold and empty reality.  Life increasingly loses meaning the less connected we are to the people we love and our spiritual selves; which is precisely why being a part of a stunningly imperfect collection of  beautiful souls sharing the miracle of their own recoveries is perhaps the greatest gift The God of My Understanding has bestowed upon me as I traverse this journey as a recovered addict and alcoholic.  

I lived a lifetime of fear and loneliness, feeling less than  - desperately making every effort to fool myself and the world into believing I wasn’t absolutely dying inside.  Today I haven’t been more sure of anything in my life that I am on the right path, with an increasingly larger and utterly amazing recovery family that I love in a way that transcends sufficient superlatives with which to justly describe.  This is indeed a life you should NOT miss my brothers and sisters; and you don’t have to so long as you’re willing to go to any length to recover from your seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.  

Also recorded as the Recovery Revealed Segment in The Way Out Podcast Episode 68 http://ow.ly/7Tex30gyI5V 

Charlie LeVoir
Host
The Way Out Podcast

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