In a world that sometimes feels too crowded, there is this: “loneliness” is one of America’s newest plagues.

Feelings of isolation can lead to other ailments and even trigger premature death.

Addiction loves loneliness, thrives on it. Like an insidious infection, it envelops abusers quickly and lethally – and those around them, too.

After that fateful phone call alerting me of our son’s condition in his last year of high school, all social interaction changed – not only for him, but also for me.  I shunned questions from friends, even close family members, about Jacob.  Guarded and fearful in any gathering, I kept conversations brief and shallow.  My tact was to turn the questions on them.  How were THEIR kids?  How were THEY doing?

It soon became easier to avoid others altogether.

So it was loneliness, as much as fear and shame, that drove me to Al-Anon.

Looking back, it’s almost humorous to remember how it felt walking into that first meeting.  Surely no one else was living the life I was, right?

The very first night at a meeting began to change all that.

The relief of knowing there were other parents like me, and some I actually knew, was a shock.  Like finding a fresh water spring at the end of an endless desert, my lips too parched even for words.

I can only guess how Jacob felt in those early AA meetings – and so many men and women like him.

Today I still attend a weekly Al-Anon meeting.

Because loneliness is still out there – even for those in recovery – creeping up the driveways of our minds, tapping ever so softly at our doors.

And I still thirst for community.