Socket IO reconnect?

How to reconnect to socket io once disconnect has been called?

Here's the code

function initSocket(__bool){                    
    if(__bool == true){             
        socket = io.connect('http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8081', {secure:false});     
        socket.on('connect', function(){console.log('connected')});                                 
        socket.on('disconnect', function (){console.log('disconnected')});
    }else{
        socket.disconnect();
        socket = null;
    }
}   

If I do initSocket(true), it works. If I do initSocket(false), it disconnects. BUT THEN if I try to reconnect using initSocket(true), the connection does not work anymore. How can I get the connection to work?