For Craig Amborn, loneliness comes at night.

Amborn’s 31-year career with the U.S. Navy brought him to 13 duty stations around the world before he retired as a chief warrant officer in 2002. He’d been aiming for 40 years in the service when an incident on a submarine left him with a head injury and a broken back, shoulder and knee.

Post-traumatic stress disorder and pain led to addiction and thoughts of suicide. He credited his wife and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs therapists with saving his life.

Carol Amborn, his wife of 47 years, died in 2019 at the age of 64.

“My worst part of the day is night,” he said. “I don’t sleep. I catnap. I got nightmares every night.”

Amborn, 71, is one of many older adults whose loneliness threatens his mental and physical health. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the number of people 45 or older who feel lonely at more than 1 in 3.

“I yearn for companionship,” he said from his cozy home in the Laurel Hill neighborhood of Norwich. “Well, I can’t call anybody in the middle of the night.”

Loneliness is an epidemic. That’s according to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, who in 2023 issued an advisory identifying social isolation as a public health concern. He pointed to research that found loneliness could shorten a person’s life span by roughly as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Murthy’s advisory warned the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression and premature death go up significantly for those who do not have the kind of social relationships experts say are as fundamental as food, water and shelter.

The stark warning acknowledges the ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival since the beginning of time. But while technology has made it easier than ever to get by without interacting with other humans, the need to connect remains hardwired into human biology.

Amborn said it’s easier for him to find connection during the day. That’s when the doors are open at the Easter Seals Veterans Rally Point in Norwich, where staff members help current and former service members navigate civilian life.

He volunteers at the center to keep it running smoothly. He participates in a creative writing workshop with four other veterans as they critique each other’s work in the hope of being published. He cultivates vegetables, herbs and flowers in therapeutic gardening sessions. He’s looking forward to guitar lessons in the spring.

When it gets dark, he said, it’s up to him to fight loneliness with reading and writing. Currently, he has three books on rotation that he will pick up as his mood strikes him: Bill O’Reilly’s Ronald Reagan biography when he’s feeling serious; “Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul” when he wants to be uplifted; and a Bible that he opens to passages recommended by Christian friends he refers to as his “thumpers.”

“The hardest part of my life is in the middle of the night,” he said. “I look at the clock and go, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got six hours to go till breakfast.’”

Murphy’s priority

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy this year became a leader in the crusade against loneliness and social isolation with the introduction of two bills designed to lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the epidemic.

In a phone interview last week, he said it’s becoming increasingly apparent loneliness has a real impact on the country’s physical, social and political health.

“To me, there’s just a lot of reasons that we should take seriously the loneliness epidemic,” he said. “It’s growing, especially amongst older people, especially amongst older men, and especially amongst teenagers.”

The Addressing Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults (SILO) Act, which he introduced with Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, would establish a grant and training program for community-based organizations working to reduce social isolation among older adults and adults with disabilities. The Strategy for Social Connection Act would create an Office of Social Connection Policy within the White House to develop national guidelines for social connection like those that already exist around issues like nutrition and physical activity.

Murphy attributed the SILO Act’s focus on older Americans to research indicating the health impacts of loneliness are most significant in that demographic. “And older Americans have the least ability to deal with the consequences of loneliness on their own,” he said.

Research from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found nearly one-fourth of adults 65 and older are considered socially isolated.

He pointed to a robust network of senior centers in the state, many of which are not at capacity because older adults don’t know they’re there or can’t get there.

“It’s a big problem in Connecticut because we don’t always have the greatest transportation options for seniors, and because we have a lot of people in eastern Connecticut and northwestern Connecticut who are living pretty far from services,” he said.

Murphy, who has made a national name for himself in his fight for gun control, said he also fears that loneliness when it manifests in anger can fuel political extremism.

“We also see how loneliness and social isolation makes our politics much worse,” he said. “The people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 likely included a lot of people who are very disconnected and ended up searching for meaning in dangerous places.”

Coffee yes, politics no

Patricia Morris, 91, of Pawcatuck views the idea of loneliness with feisty practicality.

“I’m a big solitaire player,” she said.

Morris spoke from the lobby of her home at the Threadmill Apartments, where the historic William Clark Company Threadmill was converted into 58 apartments in 2016. It’s an enclave of all ages where dogs regularly come and go on leashes held by their owners.

Morris, widowed in 2016, described loneliness as an ongoing fight. Armed with an iPad, she solves online puzzles as a way to keep her mind sharp. She described frequent visits to Facebook for discussion on local issues or to talk with “dog friends” who share her love for the Welsh corgi breed and other animals.

But she said social media can be a mixed blessing.

“I think Facebook becomes a little too challenging because you’ve got people on there who don't know when to shut up,” she said.

It’s not a phenomenon limited to the internet, she said. She described avoiding the Honey Dew Donuts in Westerly’s Dunns Corners because relatively ample seating makes it a popular spot for ROMEOs – Retired Old Men Eating Out – whom she described as too free and boisterous with their opinions.

What she’d like to see is a regular meeting place where older adults can gather for civil discussion in a community setting like the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center.

“And we’ll have to spell it out: There will be no political talk at all,” she said. “There’s a million things we can talk about. That’s the only one we are eliminating.”

A self-described child of the foster care system, Morris struggles with a lung condition that she attributed to a house fire more than 80 years ago.

She said she won’t give in to loneliness and the associated statistics, like the ones that warn of a 32% increased risk of stroke and 50% increased risk of developing dementia.

“I haven’t given in to what happened 80 something years ago. I’m not giving in now,” she said.

Finding happiness

At the East Lyme Senior Center, Director Kristen Caramanica said a $5,000 grant from the AARP will be used to install a permanent coffee and tea station with tables and seating in the lobby.

“People were used to having family members at home to have coffee with, but now they’ve lost a loved one so now they’re having coffee alone,” she said.

Providing time and space for connection over coffee is “one little idea” she said can grow as people become aware of not only that resource, but of the other programs available at the center.

Caramanica is also seeking funding from a pool of pandemic-relief funds reserved for senior centers across the state that would bring the center’s part-time social worker to full-time through the end of the year.

Jennifer Yu was hired in July to focus on connecting clients with resources including energy and food assistance. Sometimes, her work simply involves being there for East Lyme seniors who cannot leave their homes because of COVID-related anxiety or physical limitations.

“Literally anything anyone calls to get help with, I will do it, or find a resource,” she said.

Caramanica said the senior center served 1,790 clients in the 2022-23 year, up 77% from the previous pandemic-influenced year.

“It’s not back to where it was, but it’s definitely coming back,” she said of the membership total.

Over in Norwich, Amborn emphasized the importance of taking care of each other. He couched those relationships, too, in terms of coffee.

He described himself as a caretaker for his 82-year old neighbor who used to be his golf partner before strokes and cancer took her away from the links.

“I go over and we have coffee and we shoot the bull,” he said.

Another neighbor takes care of him, Amborn said. He cited help with yard work and snow removal, as well as the daily interaction that feeds his need for friendship.

“He comes over every day for coffee at 2 o'clock after work,” he said.

From the Rally Point center for veterans, to coffee at the kitchen table, to the room where he sits at night reading books while trying not to look at the clock, Amborn said it's his goal each day – and night – to curb his rawness through connection.

“When I look in the mirror, what do I see? Do I see misery, anguish?” he asked. “My job is to smile. So I have to find what makes me happy.”

e.regan@theday.com