Holidays are usually pictured with joy, lights, loud laughter, gatherings, and celebrations. But this season brings a sense of quiet loneliness for many of us who are in recovery, almost to a phenomenon that would be hard to describe.
Before recovery, I blended in easy in every celebration. I drank with everyone else, numbed with everyone else. I laughed louder, stayed later, tried harder to look sane. I seemed to belong to the group. But deep down, I felt emptier than I had ever felt.
Now, the loneliness feels different in sobriety. Not the kind that comes from being surrounded by people who do not see you, but the kind that comes from choosing to walk a path that many do not understand.
While others toast with champagne, I am holding a glass of water.
While they get loosed with the next couple of drinks, I am alert.
While they drop into the drunken ease, I am painfully aware and anchored in clarity; and sometimes, that clarity feels like isolation.
It is comforting and scary to feel so alone in a room full of people you love.
I pause occasionally to marvel at those who drink with ease and find myself wistful- not for the substance but for the ease with which one might blend in.
And then I remember what blending in cost me.
It cost me my peace.
It cost me my presence.
It cost me pieces of myself I have tried to gather back together since those days passed.
Yes, recovery can be lonely. But it is a clean loneliness. A transparent loneliness. A loneliness that does not bring me to my knees the next morning.
I am mainly depending on my recovery group during holidays. I feel they understand sitting with feelings that the world at large might attempt to drink away. I think they haven’t the advantage of walking around covered by the shadow of “normality.” Those people recognize and appreciate the strength it takes to remain sober, with every commercial, party, and occasion alike painting alcohol everywhere.
Meetings give my loneliness a safe embrace. A place of belonging where loneliness is met with understanding rather than dismissive rejection. My friends in recovery become the family I choose for myself. And the solitary moments I spend with loneliness become brief reminders that manage to say solitude and emptiness are not the same thing.
I am creating new holiday celebrations. Hot tea instead of shots. Early morning instead of hungover afternoons. Real conversation instead of fading memories. Self-care instead of self-annihilation.
Loneliness does find me sometimes. I no longer push it away. I sit with it. I let it teach me something. And I let it pass like a cold winter breeze—something that is uncomfortable but temporary.
But sobriety has given me a different kind of connection. I am connected to myself. I am connected to the future never seemed to be mine. I am connected to a life that is very real even when it is hard.
I’d choose to stand alone most of the times, but I stand firm. I stand clearly. I stand in my recovery. And waking up sober — especially during the holidays — is worth every lonely moment.
The holidays may never look the way they used to, but they don’t have to feel empty. Learn about beating holiday loneliness in recovery.
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