Daily Truth July 17, 2022

There are consequences for our actions. Not just for us, but for others.

I haven’t had a drink for ten months today. I remember the last day I drank vividly (the evening more foggily, after my second or possibly third bottle of wine.) I used to order in glasses not bottles because that would just be embarrassing. I woke up that day with a hangover, which meant one thing - I had to go sip on a few mimosas at a breakfast spot a few doors down from my house if I wanted to feel half way human again. Per usual, those few mimosas did the trick and did it so well that I headed next door for a few margaritas at a new waterfront cafe to keep the party going. Except there wasn’t a party - it was just me. Alone, drinking as if this is what every fun-loving wife, mother, writer and entrepreneur does on a Friday morning. Sadly, this had in fact become a regular routine for me.

This particular day, the house of cards came crashing down. I had posted something on Facebook that hit a little too close to home for our local hospital. A truth they didn’t want the public to know and therefore placed a call to my husband’s medical group demanding that I take it down. Not. A. Chance. What I had written was the truth and I wasn’t going to back down. When an ICU doctor tests positive for Covid, after being boosted several times, and does not quarantine but continues to work as if business as usual, I am not going to stay quiet. Keep in mind, this was also at a time my husband was facing loss of his medical privileges for refusal to get vaccinated and here was a poster-child for the hospital, boosted to the nines getting Covid and continuing to work. Nobody seemed too concerned that a practicing physician was potentially, knowingly exposing ICU patients to Covid - they just wanted to shut me up. Kinda makes you wonder the true motivation behind the mandates. But I digress.

The call from the hospital prompted a call to me from my husband, who was out of town, asking me to remove the post. Please don’t cause a stir. Please lie and tow the line of the exact bullshit narrative causing our family this devastation. I told him that was never going to happen and I hung up the phone. The medical community was making extremely poor decisions and that had consequences. I was going to make sure they faced them.

Yet there I was, making exceedingly poor decisions and not facing my own consequences. Amazing what we don’t see when we have oatmeal smeared glasses on while looking at ourselves in the mirror. In my case, the glasses had a thick residue of alcohol shielding my eyes from seeing clearly. I believe I stumbled home to take a nap mid-afternoon, after a dozen or so screaming matches on the phone with my husband and then went back out for dinner and some more wine. He flew home early the next day and I opened up Google to start searching for a place to get much needed help. I had been trying to quit drinking on my own for about a year and I finally surrendered to the fact I just couldn’t do this one myself. As strong and driven as I am, this was a battle I couldn’t seem to conquer. It was time to heal whatever it was that was driving me to drink. It was time to face the consequences of my actions.

Why after all these years did I find myself unable to control my drinking? What was I trying to escape? Why was I knowingly destroying my physical health when of all people, I know the value of health? I had to dig all the way back into my early childhood years to find a lot of the answers. It was and still is hard work to face things we’d rather just leave buried in the backyard of our childhood home like a jar of not so shiny pennies. But that doesn’t work. No matter how hard we try to pretend, everything in our life has consequences. Especially those things that occurred in our early years of life. I didn’t just have to face the consequences of drinking too much, I had to face the consequences of the actions of others that contributed to my dysfunction. This is the harsh reality of life. Everything we do not only affects us, but it alters the lives of those around us as well.

There are many things I regret about the years I spent drinking heavily. There are also things I don’t regret (like my Facebook post mentioned above). My actions had consequences to both myself and others. The emotional consequences are something my family is now working to heal. It isn’t easy but we’re triumphantly doing the work because the rewards are indescribably good. Facing consequences not only has downside but also limitless upside. As insane as this may sound, none of us would change anything. Without the destruction alcohol caused in our lives, we couldn’t have reached these new levels of understanding. Each of us knows more about ourselves today than we ever could have without going through this hardship. A tragedy that truly became a gift. This is one of the positives of having a substance abuse problem. It brings about a more immediate need to address the underlying issue or it will destroy you in short order. Other catastrophic behaviors such as over eating, over spending, sexual addictions, codependence and countless other destructive behaviors we humans partake in take longer to destroy you and therefore often times never get resolved at all.

Not all consequences for our actions can be reversed and physical damage to my body from drinking has been one of my biggest concerns. About a year ago, my amazing functional medicine doctor, business partner and friend, Dr. TJ said to me after looking at my cardiac panel, “Evie your liver is angry! You are going to be one of those seemingly healthy people who drops over dead from a heart attack at age 60.” He didn’t know the level of my drinking at the time as we were keeping it secret from most everybody. My fancy, color coded cardiac report showed mostly menacing red bars indicating poor liver function, dangerously high triglycerides, LDL particle numbers 3x the optimal range, and enlarged blood cells Dr. TJ described as “scraping the inside of my arterial walls like sandpaper running inside my vessels.” What most people don’t know is cardiac issues stem from the liver and it was clear as day I was abusing mine.

Left image before I got help, right image only 21 days later.

Knowing all of this, I continued to drink heavily for several more months before getting help. Consequences I knew I was creating but still refused to face. We do this sort of thing all the time - continue to harm ourselves knowing full well we are causing ourselves harm. A two year old learns quicker than us. At least when a toddler touches a hot stove and gets burned, they stop touching the damn stove. We insist on touching it over and over again because our finger may be burned but by God, it’s still attached. Those of you who overeat, refuse to exercise or otherwise neglect your bodies are doing the exact same damage to your body I was - don’t fool yourselves.

For the past ten months, it has weighed heavily on mind - what if I did irreversible damage to my body? What if I finally sobered up to my entire life and I die prematurely? What if I leave my daughter without a mom because although I no longer struggle with alcohol, I have a heart attack? What if I finally healed only to end up with a disease?

I have been working diligently to reverse the damage I did to my family and my liver. Both are going amazingly well. I learned this week the consequences of this hard work. Dr. TJ called to tell me my latest blood work showed a complete turnaround in my health. My liver function went from devastatingly poor to well within optimal range (from 10 to 5.4 with 6 being optimal). My triglycerides went from 252 to 116 and nearly every other marker is well within optimal range. I have lost 30 pounds and while my blood cells are still slightly above normal size, that is a lagging factor and moving steadily back to normalcy. All of this repair in less than 10 short months!

This is what is possible when we acknowledge the consequences of our actions. We have choices and the choice to pretend consequences don’t exist is a choice to destroy not only your life, but the lives of others. Everything you do has consequences, both negative and positive. We don’t get to only experience the ones we want. We don’t get to pretend our choices don’t have implications for others because they do. In fact, the more we avoid the consequences of our own actions, the more of the burden we put on others. That isn’t right and that isn’t fair.

Stop touching a hot stove and pretending it doesn’t hurt. Stop abusing your body and your mind in the form of food, drinking, and gluttonous acts of self indulgence. Stop pretending your actions don’t affect others and most importantly, face the consequences of your own actions so you don’t leave them behind for others to face for you. There are consequences for all of your actions. Face them now before it’s too late. As my recent progress proves, it doesn’t take long to turn things around. In ten short months I can honestly say I am a better version of myself than I’ve ever been before. I love myself more now than ever and my family is stronger than imaginable. I am wiser now than ever and I am no longer a hypocrite in holding others to the consequences of their actions. I am walking the walking and you can bet your ass I expect others to do the same.