In The Divine Comedy, Dante described purgatory as a place where the soul is cleansed of all impurities. It is known as a place where suffering and misery are felt to be sharp, but temporary. This for me was what it felt like to have one foot in the new, strange land of sobriety and the other firmly, desperately, in my old life. This is what it feels like for all of us, I think, when we have only half-decided to own our thing. When we have only half-surrendered, only half-committed to becoming different. We live in purgatory. The pain is sharp.
