From Isolation to Connection: Tackling Hyper-Independence and Loneliness in Recovery

But we need people to go through life with and we need people like so my best friend we met when we were 16 and that we're now 50 and we're uh she sings the song at the opening and um we so many of our conversations are about being 50 year old women and the menopause and and it's like we just know each other so well it's like oh I read this what do you think and like oh my god should we try this and and it's like I can't imagine not having that companion to go through life with and it's also the same with sobriety yeah like we need people to go through sobriety with yeah like we just we need people to and we're gonna have to let people in and when you're hyper independent this is probably going to be the hardest thing you've ever done is to consistently show up somewhere it doesn't have to be a 12-step meeting can be there's lots of choices consistently show up somewhere so and and and and to let people in and and wait for the do you want to grab coffee or we're going for a walk after or whatever it's consistently show up and wait for that opportunity and just say yes to it and just go yeah yeah because all of the reasons in your head as to why you can't 99 of them are made up they are just made up you don't need to get all these things done you don't you know all of that kind of stuff we we are not we are human beings we are not human doings we last in september uh there was the there was a big she recovers event which they do these big events for 500 sober women and they have speakers and and i've only ever gone like the speakers are a bonus for me sometimes they're good sometimes i'm indifferent sometimes they're whatever I just go because I know so many people and I just have random great conversations getting coffee in the elevator sitting next to someone at lunch like it just it fills me up I just feel I leave there and I feel filled up with goodwill and affection and I lots of my clients were there and it was just fabulous to see them and we danced there was a side of disco yeah like so the bit that I'm paying for I'm not really bothered about I'm there just because it's just loads of sober women and we just have really really and the connection just fills me up and yeah and and we every person needs this this is not there's no one who doesn't need this yes i mean i always know when she recovers him because the sober for website is full of photographs of things and it's not photographs of people sitting in rows in rapt attention listening to a speaker it's groups messing about and they're all smiling their heads off. Yeah, yeah. And then I got sober and he didn't. inseparable and then I got sober and he didn't and he died about 10 years later and I was really sad that he didn't join me in recovery because we could have had such a great time and then I developed another friendship with somebody uh who and, Rob became my, I think you knew Rob Sinclair, actually. Knew Rob, yeah, he was one of the trustees, yeah. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. And so I've had to kind of, I've got a friend who got clean the same day as I did, and he's a very, very dear friend. I don't know what I'd do without him. But there was a sadness there because there's something about, a very very dear friend i don't know what i'd do without him um and then i have my friend but there was a sadness there because there's something about i hear so many people go oh well all the people i was at uni with all the people i was at school with i don't have any of that connection at all and i've got nothing i mean same yeah yeah yeah my husband my husband has like his best friends are his fraternity brothers that he met when he was at university and they're all in their 60s. I went to university, but I was such a train wreck that I {