I have to say that I was initially very happy to see the new campaign by Oprah to highlight this issue that is very near and dear to my heart. Certainly, any media exposure at all to get people to pay more attention to loneliness is worth something. Dr. Sanjay Gupta's article highlighting the devastating effects of loneliness and the very painful reality of being lonely is also to be commended. However, as I continue to think about the campaign and the article two critiques come to mind. Firstly, Dr. Gupta's article is mostly a reguritation of information that has been around for quite a number of years now. Secondly, the campaign's strategy is really an insult to anyone who experiences chronic loneliness. I will take these in turn.

One of the most disturbing statements that individuals make about loneliness is the estimate of the number of lonely Americans (about 25% or 60 million Americans). It is, for all intents and purposes, an estimate and not based off of a nationally representative survey of Americans. And who are these 60 million American's anyway? Do they tend to be more male or female, one ethnicity more than another, younger or older, living in one state vs another? Do they have access to mental health services? Are they more likely to be single or married? We do not know cause the research has not been done. Everyone has been content to take this estimate as if it were fact without understanding exactly how rampant or how impactful loneliness truly is on American society. In fact, America is already behind the curve, national studies have already been done in France, Norway, and Australia. The results have been informative! I have been trying to lead an effort to get a nationally representative survey done to understand with greater certainty how widespread loneliness is and how it affects the lives of Americans, but so far no one has thought it important enough to fund.

Most of the research that Dr. Gupta references in his article has been said over and over again by a variety of press. The most vocal of these, is of course, the impact of loneliness on one's physical health. Just for the heck of it here is a list of similar articles:

• BBC - Loneliness is "major health issue"
• Forbes - Social Interaction Study Highlights Loneliness and Isolation as Heath Risks for Elders
• Science D aily - Loneliness, like chronic stress, taxes the immune system, researchers find
• NY Daily News - How loneliness hurts your immune system — and 7 fast ways to feel more connected
• BBC - Does being lonely make you ill
• Slate - Loneliness is deadly
• Time - Social Isolation, Not Just Feeling Lonely, May Shorten Lives

Certainly, this is important and readers need to know and understand this. But this information has been around since at least 2005, and further research has merely explored this topic further instead of asking other questions, such as what other aspects of a person's life does loneliness affect? How does feeling lonely play into affecting a person's overall quality of life: their ability to get and keep a job, their ability to have a stable marriage and family life, and their ability to get the kind of help they need to overcome their feelings of loneliness? Understanding the impact of loneliness on physical health is great but is very one-dimensional on an issue that seems to dominate the lives of individuals who are chronically lonely.

The other over-referenced information is the relationship between loneliness and social media. In all honesty, it would have been better if he had just referenced this video instead. It made a much more compelling and informative argument about the relationship between social media and loneliness.

Secondly is the #JustSayHello campaign. As one commenter noted, what happens after you say hello? I think this campaign insults the very people it is proclaiming to help. Dr. Gupta very clearly acknowledges that being lonely is often stigmatized with being a loser, but why is that? Because the underlying thought is that any one who is not a loser can very easily make friends, they can just go out and join a club, or alternatively perhaps, just say hello, and then the friends will start showing up. So, if you cannot do such simple things to get friendships, then clearly you must be a loser. That is the kind of prejudiced thinking that chronically lonely folks have had to deal with all their lives. It's like, "hey lonely people, have you thought about just saying hello?" Why no, that never occurred to them, why didn't they think of that before! Lonely people have been so rejected in the past, so abused that they have reached a point where they will not even bother risking reaching out anymore. Why should they? Everyone they reached out to in the past just hurt them. The campaign is like telling hungry children in poverty - #JustEatFood. At least the campaign did not suggest #JustSmile which also seems to reduce loneliness and ostracism as well.

If you really want to "Fight Loneliness," you are going to have to do something more comprehensive, you are going to have to really understand who the lonely people are in American society, and then you are going to have to develop some deliberate programs around helping them. #JustSayHello appears to be a nice gimmick at face value, but really, does nothing except insult the people they are trying to help.

Renowned actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman died, quite tragically, from an apparent drug overdose. News outlets report that he had 70 envelopes of heroin and prescription medication in his apartment. He had also just recently opened up about his life of addiction and his attempts to overcome it. What makes this story so compelling is the fact that this was a really successful, relatively young actor, being an Academy Award winner, and receiving several Academy and Tony Award nominations. Why would he continue a life of drugs, even after reaching such critically acclaimed success, to the point where it ruined his relationship with the mother of his children and eventually cost him his life.

Could it be that Mr. Hoffman was, in fact, driven by an underlying sense of loneliness?

In a study that I did back in 2001, I looked at poems and narratives from 180 people that were on the topic of loneliness. I wanted to determine what were some of the common themes that were mentioned across the different poems and narratives. One of the themes was Nothingness. Some words that individuals used to describe this theme included “void” “emptiness” “black hole” and “abyss” “hollow.” It was also the third most popular theme among the poems and narratives studied, coming in behind the theme Pain, and then No Direction. In my own experience talking with lonely individuals, you do hear this theme of void mentioned very frequently with lonely individuals often describing this complete sense of emptiness they feel and their inability to fill it no matter what they try.

The void in people’s lives, I would argue, stems from feelings of inadequacy, isolation, and loneliness. The void makes it impossible to ever be truly satisfied in a relationship because the void is never satisfied, it is always hungry, and it is forever looking to be satiated. It is, in another sense, the driving force behind addiction. Addiction is, by definition, trying to fill a need with a destructive, pleasurable activity or substance. It provides temporary relief from the gnawing pangs of the void, which later returns often with increasing voracity and requiring even destructiveness. This kind of destructiveness creates a chaotic environment for the addicted, evidenced quite painfully in the case of Mr. Hoffman, who had a large quantity of heroin and prescription drugs in his apartment.

The question then becomes, what is the relationship between loneliness, the void, and addiction? Why do lonely people often feel empty and how come they are unable to readily full it on a permanent basis? Why would someone turn to temporary solutions, like drugs, instead of finding a more permanent solution? In some instances I believe that individuals are uncertain about how exactly to more permanently fill the void. Most people understand that the void is a void of intimacy and love. However, most people often falsely assume that the intimacy and love that they are missing is from someone else. Mr. Hoffman was in a relationship for 15 years, had 3 kids, and yet the relationship eventually collapsed because of his relapse to drug addiction. 

The fact of the matter is that no one else, like no other activity or substance, can ever truly fill the void. The love that is needed to fill that void is self-love. It is learning to love oneself, to accept oneself with his/her faults and failings, to realize one’s strengths and weakness, and to acknowledge that he/she is a person worthy of being loved and admired. That is no small task to accomplish, because a person may have spent his/her whole life indoctrinated with the belief that he/she is not good enough, is not lovable enough, is not worthy enough and therefore has that thinking ingrained in their thinking. Without addressing this core, fundamental problem, the void will forever remain, unsatisfied, and demanding. It can lead to a life of loneliness, alienating those around you because what you need from others you cannot get or just ignoring others altogether and turning to other addictive behaviors to try to fill the void. Learning to love oneself, to acknowledge that one is worthy of being loved regardless of what one has done, whether one is "good" or "bad," is the key to the cure for loneliness, filling the void, and conquering addiction.