Alone Again, Naturally

Isolate:  To set apart from others; place alone.


Alcoholics are pretty surprised when we find out that The Rooms are full of people who think like we do.  I always suspected that I was insane, which I found pretty discouraging.  It wasn't like insanity was something that I aspired to.  And it's not like The Program refuted this suspicion; it simply showed me that I had a pretty common form of insanity and that there were places where I could hang out with other insane people.


For instance, I frequently held arguments in my head with people who weren't actually there.  The arguments started out politely enough but started to get heated, eventually leading to violent physical confrontations.  I usually won the fights despite the fact that I've never won a fight in my life.  I argued brilliantly, leaving my tormentor tongue-tied.  I thought I was the only person in the world who did this.


"Oh, yeah," a friend said.  "I do that all the time."
"Whew," I thought.


Recovery means an end to that awful isolation that plagues most of us.  We never felt like we belonged anywhere despite our ceaseless efforts to fit in.  We would assume the appropriate persona that would help us fit in wherever we happened to be.  We felt alone when we were alone and we felt alone when we were in a throng.  It was an awful kind of isolation.


Awful.