The Purgatory of Early Sobriety

When Will It Stop Feeling So Damn Hard?

Many years ago, I read the book Left Behind, about a pilot flying a plane during the rapture. Suddenly, half the people on his plane disappeared and he was left to land a plane in an unprecedented world of purgatory.

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Because just like that, the world had turned upside down. While some people vanished into thin air, supposedly “saved” and on a first-class winged passage to the golden gates of heaven, everyone else got left behind. Destined to clamber for every heart beat, breath, and each second moving forward. Because nothing, especially the present, felt certain.

When I quit drinking, I felt left behind in every sense. Literally, my place in life felt diminished to only a fraction of what I’d determined a full life should look like: overflowing in good times supplemented by alcohol. Emotionally, I felt left behind from friends and relationships where alcohol played the role of sun in our rotational universe. And figuratively, my seat at the adults table was rescinded and relocated to the kids table of apple juice and Capri Suns, accompanied by plates of boiled carrots and pre-cut turkey bites like the family gatherings of my youth.

Early sobriety felt like purgatory from a full life. A murky middle between who I was and who I needed to be. And the insecurity and unfairness of it all left me feeling weak, unstable and angry.

Why did I get stuck in sober purgatory, when all my friends seemingly drank just as much and got a coveted pass?

Why couldn’t I just stop after one or two drinks like I always promised myself I would?

How do I live a fulfilling, satisfying life without alcohol?

These questions eluded me by day and haunted me by night. I pined for relief from the discomfort as well as the promised freedom people in sobriety swore by. Because now, in these early days, I felt neither.

So instead I focused on distraction. I kept my days busy. I watched Netflix. I ordered decadent desserts I normally would never consider. I played games on my phone. And I read quit lit like my life depended on it.

I learned about how alcohol worked. I read articles about how our bodies detox alcohol from our systems and how long it takes. I read the science behind what alcohol does to our brains as well as the impact and some positive reversals of sobriety.

I read Annie Grace’s analogy of addiction to the pitcher plant.
I read

Laura McKowen

compare drinking alcohol to pouring gasoline on our anxiety.
I read Holly Whitaker’s advice to Never Question The Decision.
And I read the Serenity Prayer.

And one day, I woke up and continued to do the exact same things I had been doing since I quit drinking. I drank coffee. I got my kids to school. I went to work. I picked up my kids from school.

And, just as it had been countless times before, we got home and the kids plopped their backpacks on the floor and ran to the TV. The dreaded witching hour. Only this time, I looked around at this home, this family, this life — and I was able to fully acknowledge it was everything I’d been asking from God my entire life. And for the very first time, I didn’t think to myself “A drink would be nice right about now.”

For the first time, my thoughts shifted to “A drink would ruin this.”

And just like that, I stepped out of sober purgatory. I felt the wings on my back and wondered how long they been there. And I realized who really got saved in that rapture I now call my Day 1.

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