The Loneliness Epidemic and Why Recovery Requires Connection

The US loneliness epidemic is confirming what we have always known in the substance use and mental health treatment field: Recovery is about community and belonging and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

The Convenience and Cost of Digital Connection

As individuals, families and communities increase their reliance on digital communication and social media, we relinquish emphasis on in person or even vocal interaction. This happens for reasons like convenience, increased privacy, ability to avoid unwanted dialogue and increased control of timing or length of a conversation. These are all reasonable, or even empowering, motivators, but what’s the trade off?

When left unchecked, these once useful tools start to become the preferred, or only, way we communicate with one another. The idea of socializing in person becomes uncomfortable, even untenable, as our tolerance for discomfort drops.

In the absence of body language or word inflection, we are left to freely interpret what others say without context clues to guide us. If we take offense, there’s no need to settle the disagreement. We can simply block that person from our lives with the click of a button.

A Complex Reality

Like most things, this is not a black-and-white issue. There are multiple shades of grey. There are circumstances in which this is lifesaving and there are ways in which the digital world serves to connect us with each other in previously unimaginable ways.

But we’re in danger when it becomes a way of life and we’re left to think in circles with no one to help us make sense of things. And it can be lethal when our best thinking got us somewhere we don’t want to be, our social skills have atrophied and we can simply delete anyone who tried to challenge us.

Where Isolation Becomes Dangerous

Substance use disorders and mental health conditions aren’t always caused by loneliness, but isolation is where they gain strength. These issues have a way of distancing the person who is suffering from the people who love them. They cause us to act irrationally, rearrange our priorities and convince us that we are unworthy of love from others.

So, when we’ve already withdrawn ourselves from true intimacy via digital tools, most of the work is already done for the disease, and the suffering person has fewer people who notice the change or offer accountability.

Recovery Thrives in Community

If these diseases thrive in the dark, we must face them in the light.

That’s why recovery is synonymous with community. Getting well happens when we change the patterns that have kept us sick. We need others to help us recognize those patterns and help hold us accountable for building new habits.  

In my experience, success comes when people practice letting others love them so they can learn how to love themselves . Recovery thrives when we achieve a level of intimacy that yields trust, community and belonging.

When this happens, people practice new habits because those who love them say they should, they learn to show up consistently because their community worries when they don’t and they learn what it’s like to be someone others can depend on. Sometimes it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable, but I’ve never met anyone who would trade it for the life they left behind.