Day 6 — A 40-Day Alcohol Fast

How Faith Helped Me Stay Sober for 40 Days

Sober Journey Day 6

The Negative Approach

Let’s talk about why we’re not drinking.

For a really long time…years…every time I would try to get sober, the attitude and focus was quitting because I had to. I knew that drinking was a problem for me and that I was harming myself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It was bad.

I couldn’t drink because I couldn’t handle it. I’m an all or nothing person, and since I didn’t want to be an “all alcohol” person, I had to be a “no alcohol” person. I couldn’t live in the middle like some people can.

And that made me angry. (Frankly, it still makes me angry. But that’s a topic for a different day.) It also made me sad.

My entire focus and attitude was completely negative. It’s pretty easy to see why I didn’t have much success.

Of course, I didn’t want my kids to see me like this, and I wanted to be healthy and take care of my body, etc. It wasn’t all negative, but I definitely was not trying to quit drinking from a place of discovering fullness and abundance in my life.

Instead I focused on what I was missing out on.

A Pretty Pink Book

Enter The 40-Day Sugar Fast* by Wendy Speake.

On June 21, 2021, I started The 40-Day Sugar Fast*. I was struggling again. Drinking too much.

I’d already been through a year of crazytown. My hormones had been so out of whack that I was barely functioning, and I was finally starting to feel “normal” again. To continue this journey into health and mental stability, I really needed to give up drinking.

It was the one area where I was still “off”.

I would go a few days here and there, but I could never gain any momentum. God was also heavily convicting me at that time that I needed to quit.

Often God speaks to me through books. There have been so many times in my life that I’ve purchased a book only to let it sit on my shelf for months. Then one day it calls to me, I pick it up, and it’s exactly what I need in that season.

So…I was struggling. I was praying for help because nothing seemed to be working. One day I was walking through Hobby Lobby and this pretty, pink book caught my eye. I picked it up, turned it over, and read the back cover. It spoke of a fast from sugar, not a diet, but a fast.

Interesting.

I put the book back down. I was skeptical. I really needed a fast from alcohol. On top of that, a book in Hobby Lobby that wasn’t about crafts? Was this a legit book worthy of purchase?

I was also skeptical about a “program”. I’ve done enough diet programs in my life to know they very rarely work, especially long term. But this one was intriguing. The subtitle at the top reads,

“Where physical detox meets spiritual transformation.”

That sounded like exactly what I needed. Not just to be sober, but to be transformed for the right reasons to never want to drink again.

I took a picture of the cover and looked it up when I got home. Much to my surprise, the reviews were through the roof, and there were a lot of them! So I bought the book online and started reading it as soon as it arrived. I was ready to go!

Did God Give Me COVID?

Something else happened at about that time. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not, but the timing seemed to be a Godsend.

About four or five days after I started the detox, I got Covid and it was brutal. I quarantined in my bedroom for ten days, and I laid in bed about 99% of that time.

I continued reading my daily fast devotional, and I thanked the Lord I was so sick that the idea of alcohol had zero appeal to me.

By the time I was feeling better and out of quarantine, I was already on Day 14 or 15 and past the really hard first days of an alcohol detox. I continued to feel super weak and tired for several more weeks, all of which helped me stay the course for those 40 days.

When Jesus Becomes Your Habit

Not only did I stay sober for 40 days, I genuinely became a different person.

I stopped wanting to watch TV, even Grey’s Anatomy! Everything I watched felt like a waste of time or was so amoral that I couldn’t bear to watch it. (And I LOVE to watch TV and movies at night.)

My relationship with my husband became more genuine and positive. I even felt a deeper compassion and love for my kids, which I didn’t know was possible.

And I had no desire to drink. Even sugar lost its appeal to me. It was like Jesus was filling up all of the holes with Himself and I didn’t need to fill those holes with all the things I had been for so many years.

This was the POSITIVE shift I was looking for. I desired to spend time with Jesus because I wanted to…not because I had to.

The 40-Day Sugar Fast* is all about running to the Lord instead of those things, whether it’s sugar, alcohol, gambling, movies, social media, etc., we often turn to when we feel tired or stressed or depressed or anxious or bored or sometimes even happy.

All of these things can become bondage.

The problem with bondage is that it’s like a spider’s web. The more you wiggle around in it, the tighter and stickier it gets. You have to break completely free to be free. You can’t hang out and wait to see what happens and expect things to get better.

Alcohol Is Bondage. Jesus Is Freedom.

We can’t know or understand what that positive change feels and looks like until we step towards it. Until we untangle ourselves from the sticky web and move into the freedom that Jesus offers. And that takes time and effort on our part.

It’s easy to think that we are following legalistic rules. (The negative outlook.) That’s a lie.

We are free to NOT be in that sticky bondage web. (The positive outlook.)

Imagine the clearest, coolest, purest pool of water at the bottom of a waterfall. That’s what walking in freedom feels like.

Alcohol is bondage. Jesus is freedom.

So What Happened After Those 40 Days?

Well, I’m embarrassed (but not ashamed) to tell you that since this is now Day 6 of a new attempt, clearly I fell back into my old routines and patterns of bondage.

I didn’t have a plan for when those 40 days were up, and that was a huge mistake. I talk about that here.

I’m not perfect. I’m human. And life is a journey. I hate that I didn’t stay in that beautiful place of freedom and closeness to Jesus. I had never been there before, and it was amazing.

My goal is to get back to that place and stay there and continue to grow from there, but it will take some time and effort once again.

The good news is I’ve been there and I know what it looks like and I can’t wait to get there again. I know what I’m working towards.

​The POSITIVE mindset.

. . .

*Heads up: Sometimes I use affiliate links. If you purchase something (at no extra cost to you), I might earn some change to support my coffee habit, which helps me stay sober. I would never recommend something I don’t use/read and fully support.