Being alone can be an opportunity to participate in activities you enjoy, like reading, writing, meditating, or listening to music. If you think your loved one in recovery MASH Certified Sober Homes is suffering from loneliness, approach them with the least judgement and most compassion possible. Help them find the social outlet and/or professional help they need.
Recovering addicts often state that overcoming loneliness in addiction recovery is sometimes harder than detoxing. While in medical detox, addicts receive medications to help relieve withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Instead, ex-addicts must learn to be comfortable with themselves without escaping into drugs or alcohol. They must learn to take advantage of solitude and enjoy being with the human being they are and have always been. Existential loneliness is characterized by a disconnection from oneself as well as others. Feelings of isolation, alienation, emptiness, abandonment, and fear are common in this category.
Loneliness and Addiction
If that feeling of isolation becomes too great, it can be a factor in the presence of suicidal ideation. Loneliness, mental health and addiction often go hand in hand, and it isn’t until recent years that medical professionals started to realize and pay attention to the risks. As these behaviors take hold, and you become lonelier, substance https://accountingcoaching.online/transactional-writing-letters-that-heal/ abuse also increases. Over time, alcohol and drug use become chronic, and addiction takes over. When this happens, you may continue to engage in worse behaviors, further affecting your physical, social and mental well-being. In turn, loneliness increases, and other negative behaviors flourish, causing you to sink deeper into addiction.
- Realize that feelings of isolation are a part of the process of addiction recovery, and remember that being alone is different from being lonely.
- Bridges of Hope is a Joint Commission-accredited dual-diagnosis substance abuse treatment program.
- People are also looking into addiction treatment more since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
- Having someone by your side during such difficult times can make it easier to seek help in the first place.
Therefore, working in shelters and soup kitchens or volunteer rehab groups probably isn’t a great idea at first. Volunteering is a great way to get out and to meet new people in contexts where you get to feel useful and like you’re adding something for others. That can reduce many of the problems people in early recovery have with making new friends. Making amends to those you hurt while addicted can allow individuals who love you to come back into your life. Addiction can cause people to avoid you for many reasons, so try to mend the relationships. Feeling abandoned in recovery is normal because you have removed toxic relationships from your life.
Overcoming Loneliness with Patience
At the same time, it’s important to steer clear of helping people with substance use disorders while in early recovery. Limiting your exposure to drugs and alcohol will improve your ability to stay in recovery. With the social distancing involved with the COVID-19 pandemic, people feel increasingly lonely.
