A God Shaped Hole

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I know I've already made a blog post about being alone and loneliness but it's honestly something I can't seem to stop struggling with.

I am so uncomfortable. I'm afraid of not being enough, being unlovable, being alone, being myself, my feelings...

I'm one of those people that feels alone even in a room full of people. The longer I'm sober it's not so much anymore that I feel like I'm alone because I'm different or unique, I'm learning there's a lot of people like me in the world. But I feel alone because I feel like no one has space for me.

When my boyfriend and I recently broke up (we're back together and trying to make it work), it was because he told me that I overwhelmed him when I came to him with my problems. This is not to say this isn't completely valid or not-understandable. It's to say that I was crushed. I truly felt like the one person who I thought would always love and have space for me, outside of my family, no longer held an open door to my needs and wants. I had been doing better about reaching out when I was struggling, about being rigorously honest.

Since then, I've been having a really tough time reaching out. I've been good about my needs mentally and physically-- taking time off working, changing my schedule, trying to pursue my passions and education further. Yet, there's still this void in me, the void I used to fill with alcohol that I don't know how to fill. It's a spiritual and emotional hole that I know can only be filled with meaningful relationships, yet I'm finding it virtually impossible to engage in those. I always feel like a burden.

In meetings, everyone shares about their own problems which I love to hear... However, when it comes to my turn, I feel that I'm supposed to say something positive, have some keep coming back twist to it, to give other people hope. Truth is, lately I feel completely hopeless and alone. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. I just wake up every day and do the same damn things and I keep to myself because there's no space. There's no more space in the world, or even in my schedule to feel any other way than fine or better than.

I know what the solutions to these are; going to more meetings, praying, reaching out. I know that when I reach out I'm helping to keep other people sober but I feel like I can't reach out anymore. When I do often my texts go unanswered or I get a simple reply such as "just don't drink" or "yeah." These are totally valid answers, I know everyone who I'm reaching out to has or still does feel the same way. When I receive those answers though, all I feel is burdensome. Like I shouldn't have reached out. I feel like I'm meant to just go through this journey alone.

Right now, I'm really white knuckling my sobriety, like barely hanging on by my fingernails. Everyday is a constant battle, fighting tooth or nail just to hit the pillow sober that night. Looking at an eternity of being sober, even though I'm supposed to take it one day at a time, is so incredibly daunting and threatening. It makes it so hard to make plans or want to travel or even pursue things I used to be passionate about. The whole time all I can think is "this would be more fun with alcohol." These are feelings not facts, I know that maybe for a while or on occasion those things would be more fun with alcohol, but more often than not they wouldn't. Yet, I obsess, I feel paralyzed by the void and the missing piece in everything I do.

I don't know what to do, I just keep taking baby steps and not drinking and I'm praying that it gets better soon, that I see that light at the end of the fucking tunnel, and it's not a train because I'm holding on by a thread. Loneliness and hopelessness are consuming me. The void inside seems to be growing and encompassing all of me.