6 Months Without Booze, Trapped in the Hell of My Past
6 months sober. Half a year without alcohol. It should feel like a win. Like I can finally breathe. But it doesn’t. It’s heavy. Brutal. The longer I stay sober, the more everything I buried comes clawing back to the surface.
Sobriety doesn’t just take away the booze. It strips away the shield I built to survive. All the ways I numbed myself, avoided feeling everything at once — gone. And suddenly, I remember. I remember the beatings, the terror, the nights I didn’t know if I would live. The times I locked myself inside myself just to survive. The fear I buried under survival mode and alcohol — it’s all back, screaming, and there’s no escape.
Sometimes it’s like I’m back there. Right in that room. Right under his control. Chest tight, stomach flipping, limbs shaking, skin crawling, terror running through me like electricity. That girl — the one who was beaten, violated, locked away, humiliated, threatened — she’s still inside me. And now, sober, I can feel her. All of her.
Then this week, out of nowhere, I got a message. A selfie. From him. The man who beat me. The man who forced himself on me, tore into me, left me hollow, violated, shaking. The man who made me feel like nothing.
It hit harder than anything in years. He was the first person I ever loved who hurt me like that. I was 19 — just a kid — and I had no way out. Every thought of leaving was blocked by his threats: he’d torture and kill my sisters, make sure my dad had an “accident” and lost everything, call the powers that be and get my mom reported for child abuse or some other fabricated nonsense. He said he’d always find me. That he had eyes everywhere. And why wouldn’t I believe him? This was the same man who wouldn’t even let me use the bathroom alone. I lived every day like I was trapped, like any moment could be the one where it all came crashing down.
Seeing his face again after all these years slammed me straight back into that nightmare. My chest tightened, stomach flipped, hands shook. Every second of that terror, every threat, every moment I felt powerless, came roaring back. I had to fight just to stay in my body, to remember — I made it out. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m still breathing. I’m still sober.
And then there’s my oldest child. The one piece of that dark, terrifying life that I wouldn’t change for the world. But I wish — oh, how I wish — that I had been a better mother to her back then. I was just a kid myself, barely scraping by, drowning in fear, anger, and trauma, with no clue how to be what she needed me to be. And I hate that she felt it. That she felt the weight of my resentment for him, that she bore the brunt of my frustration and pain more often than not.
I think about it all the time. The moments I could have held her tighter instead of pushing her away, the moments I could have been calmer, more present, instead of letting my fear and hurt spill over onto her. And I can’t undo the past. All I can do is show up now — every day — to be the mother I wish I had been, to make up for what I couldn’t give her then. It’s raw. It’s painful. And it’s a constant reminder that surviving and healing isn’t just about me. It’s about breaking cycles, choosing differently, leaving her a better version of me than the one I had back then.
And something else hits me every day: so many people in my inner circle don’t even know the full extent of what I went through with him. And it’s complicated — part of it is shame. Part of it is embarrassment. Embarrassment that I was so young, so naive, so powerless, that I let it happen. That I survived by obeying, by burying myself alive, by pretending like it wasn’t happening. And part of it is memory itself — I buried it so deep, shoved it so far down under fear, alcohol, and survival mode, that I couldn’t even fully remember it to tell anyone. How could I?
That silence created its own prison. I carried the weight alone, replaying threats, punches, violations, and fear inside my head without anyone to witness it, without anyone to validate it. I existed in a parallel world: the outside me, laughing, surviving, coping, seeming fine; and the inside me, crushed, terrified, haunted by memories too heavy for anyone to bear. Now, sober, all of it comes roaring back. All the pieces I shoved under alcohol and survival mode are here, raw and unfiltered, and I’m learning what it means to live with them instead of drowning them.
And then there’s the everyday stuff that grates. Alcohol everywhere. Ads on TV, online, shoved in my face constantly. Cigarettes can’t advertise, but booze gets a free pass. Every commercial reminds me of what I can’t do, what I used to rely on, and how the world still revolves around drinking like it’s the only way to cope, to have fun, to be “normal.”
And the town I live in? Bars on every damn corner. That’s it. That’s the “entertainment,” the social scene — everything revolves around booze. I can’t go. Walking into one is like stepping into Cheers, and I’m Norm. Everyone knows me. Everyone knows my drinks — Patron and Miller Lite, or a Tito’s extra dirty martini on the rocks, depending on the bar. They’d already be waiting for me.
And the feels hit differently now. Tempting. Familiar. Comfortable in a way that’s dangerous. Memories rushing back — laughter, escape, numbing, relief, chaos — all rolled into one sharp tug at my chest. I ache for normal. I ache for a life where going out doesn’t feel like walking through a minefield. I ache for something beyond poison in my hand, beyond triggers on every corner.
And then there’s the fear. That old whisper: “Just one. Just one won’t hurt.” The pull of comfort that isn’t comfort at all. The pull of pretending, just for a second, that nothing changed, that I’m back in the old life. It makes my chest tight, stomach flip, hands shake, because I know how fast that slide can happen. That cage is always there, lurking behind the bar, waiting for a crack.
But I’m not going back. Not after clawing my way out. Not after fighting tooth and nail to stay alive, stay sober, stay me. Every tremor of fear, every heartbeat of tension, reminds me I survived. That I’m still here. That I can make different choices. And for now, that’s enough.
I reached out to my person. The one I thought would get it. And what did he do? Nothing. Or worse — he joked. Deflected. Made light. Tried to make it funny. And it wasn’t funny. It made it worse. Rage, fear, grief, terror — all of it hitting at once. I felt trapped again, like I was back in that room with him, back under his control, back in a body that didn’t belong to me.
I didn’t need words. I didn’t need “I’m sorry.” I didn’t need him to fix it. I needed presence. To sit with me. To hold the space. To be there in the intensity without turning it into a joke. And the absence of that presence turned a moment of horror into a spiral of terror and rage I could barely contain.
He doesn’t get it. He can’t. The woman he sees — strong, bold, loud — is built on top of a girl who was beaten daily, violated, locked away, humiliated, threatened. That girl is still here. And she’s furious. And she still trembles. And she still survives.
And somehow, somehow, so do I. Sober. Shaking. Raw. Breathing. Standing. Not fixed, not healed, not done. Just here. 6 months in, still alive, still fighting, still staring this horror down. This is what healing looks like. Ugly. Honest. Soul-wrecking.
And I’m still trying. Trying to find a new normal. Trying to see the path Jesus has for me. Trying to trust Him through the fear, the temptation, the grief. Some days I can barely see it. Some days I wrestle with anger, pain, frustration, doubt. And still — I keep walking. Sober. Fighting. Living. Trying to survive the life I fought tooth and nail to get.
