500 Days of Sobriety
And more than a thousand wonderful changes to go with it.
It’s still hard for me to believe, but on September 22, 2019, exactly 500 days ago, I woke up after a near restless sleep: head pounding, sweating bullets and sick as a dog. The night before, I had gluttonously sucked back two bottles of wine.
The sour, fetid reek of the past night’s debauchery hung in the air. My sheets felt cold, grimy and damp with sweat — they clung to my clammy skin. Every part of me hurt. I needed water, except I was too sick to even think about swallowing.
Inside, I felt dead. But at the same time, the pain was so infinite and intense, that my nerves felt as though they were on fire. I was bereft of life and hysterical all at once.
Thankfully, this was the last time I would ever wake up feeling this way, because later that afternoon (after having spent the morning puking), I would sip a cheap, room-temperature cup of boxed white wine in my neighbors’ dimly-lit living room, and I would tell myself that after this glass, I was done.
Finally and forever. I couldn’t do it anymore. My run, at last, was over.
Since that day, so many things about my life have changed, all of them for the better. Once I powered through the…
