Being Alone is Healing For the Soul

There have been a ton of things I’ve wanted to post but not the brain energy to do so up until now. For the first three weeks this year, I had just about every COVID-19 symptom, but no fever and all negative COVID tests. My body ached so much that I did not leave the house. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I was afraid something serious was going on. Considering that I have mostly cut out alcohol, I thought I’d be feeling a hell of a lot better. It could very well just be allergies, fibromyalgia, or simply the weather; nevertheless, it still feels like flu symptoms every single day. For now, I feel as if I’m slowly coming out of whatever funk I had, and it’s time to buckle down and get things done, including building up my immune system to the powers of Wonder Woman. 😉

Due to not feeling well, focusing on things that require brainpower has been quite the challenge. I decided to focus more on doing physical things, such as fixing up my home, so that instead of looking like an exploding art gallery, it looks more like a welcoming and cozy place where a writer can work. I’ve set some new obtainable goals, made some life-changing decisions, and started working out, losing weight, meditating, and eating properly again.

Over the past month, I’ve been antisocial, introverted, and mostly a recluse – even when I’ve felt fine. Some of my friends have been trying to get together, but I’ve been completely unavailable – mostly from not feeling well, but also extremely busy or just wanting to be alone. Except for going to the store, the doctor, or my mom’s, I managed to leave the house two other times to attend events. I’ve bought two six-packs of beer in the past 30+ days, and there are still 5 beers left in the refrigerator. Drank wine at one event last weekend and was extremely sick from it, so I have no desire to even smell alcohol at this moment.

Simply being alone helps to cut out alcohol, and now I realize that I really do like being alone more than not. By going through this healing process, being alone is the best thing for me right now; otherwise, it’s like opening old wounds that never heal and continuing unhealthy habits that further self-destruct. Being alone allows me to continue learning self-love, establish boundaries, conduct self-reflection, and get shit done for myself. Being sober and alone has taught me that being around people is physically and emotionally draining to me. I’m not even sure I have the right words, but going to those two events over the past few weeks made me feel like I had my “fix” of other humans for a while. To think that I went out several times a week over the past several years… well, no wonder I felt the need to drink just to tolerate other people’s energy. That’s how sensitive I am about energies, so until I feel that I’m healed, I need to be alone.

During self-reflection, I recognized that I had lowered myself to fit in with low-energy people around me – whether it was out of acceptance, loneliness, wanting to be loved, or just being worn down – and I had essentially been torturing myself through awful relationships and abusing my body with alcohol to numb all of the shit that has happened over several years. This is something I’m still working on, still healing from – a learning process, because taking the time to unlearn this doesn’t happen overnight.

Coming to terms with recognizing that I have essentially been an alcoholic over the past few years, if not longer, is difficult to admit. By definition, my actions were fitting the bill, even though I was telling myself it was temporary and “only a few times a week.” There came a time (a few times) that I knew things were not working for me at all due to alcohol, so I’d slowed down, but living in a tourist town with lots of drinking and friends who like to drink can make that difficult. It’s not just the temptation, but more of a social lifestyle to hit happy hour a few times a week or binge on weekends. But I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s not only boring to me, but completely unhealthy physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I am done feeling like complete and total shit in all of these aspects of my life, and getting older is probably a catalyst to that.

Besides clouding my judgment and ruining my body, I decided that alcohol has not only been a huge culprit for so much pain in my life, but the culprit for bringing people into my life that have caused tremendous pain, and I certainly don’t need that shit in my life anymore. I have way too many things going for me at the moment, and distractions such as those are exactly why I choose to be alone for now.