Just Me

Today – October 12, 2019 – is a special day for me. It marks two years of being sober. The night that I took my last drink, on October 11, 2017, I never realized that it would be my last. It had been a normal day for me, with another round of beers that I would consume. I had been drinking heavily every day for several years and had experienced many health problems because of it, but on that night, the “health problem” that I experienced was almost the death of me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I later learned that the pancreatitis my chronic drinking caused could be fatal if left untreated. So if it hadn’t been for my oldest child calling 911 on that night as I was lying in bed and writhing in pain, I might not have made it. I have never forgotten that lesson ever since and I have never forgotten being loaded into an ambulance then looking out to see my children scared and crying. I never forgot that I was the one that did that to them. These memories are one o...

Last night, as I was cooking dinner, I had to stop for a minute and just think about how this night one year ago was so different. One year ago, I had to be taken to the hospital. On October 11, 2017, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. I was diagnosed with pancreatitis and part of my recovery included being put on a 72-hour fast. During this time, I was extremely sick and constantly vomiting. It was horrible. The reason why I got pancreatitis was because I had been drinking too much alcohol. At that time in my life, I was drinking every day. Sometimes, I would drink a whole 6-pack of beer by myself in a day – and want more. My drinking was really bad. I managed to get through the next day all right but after the sun went down, I was drinking again. It was every single day (when I wasn’t sick) and it was pretty bad. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was an alcoholic. I didn’t think I had a problem. But I was, and I did. Getting pancreatitis put me through hell. I thought I ...

Recently, I celebrated being alcohol-free for 6 months. What is interesting is that the date – April 12th – was my dad’s heavenly birthday. He would have been 71. Also interesting is that it was alcohol that killed my father. He had a terrible drinking habit and it got out of hand during his last days. He was binge drinking a lot and on that night that he died, he had been drinking several beers until he ended up having what was probably his sixth and final heart attack. He had recently had heart surgery and while he was warned to cut back on alcohol, he didn’t listen. And in the end, his drinking is what killed him. That fact was not lost on me when I was in the hospital a little over 6 months ago and I was recovering from alcohol-induced pancreatitis. I was forced to take a good hard look at just how badly my desire to destroy myself had gotten. Up until then, I had lost my passion for life, and my desire to live. But when I was in that hospital, I made one decision: I want to live. ...

Today is the official one-month anniversary of when I stopped drinking alcohol. I have been officially alcohol-free for an entire month. Just a little over a month ago, on October 11, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because I was having severe chest pains. My kids and I thought it was a heart attack, but it wasn’t a heart attack. It was pancreatitis. And it struck right after I finished drinking one beer. Just one! Up until then, I don’t think I’d ever heard of pancreatitis. Sure, maybe it was discussed during a Health class I took in college, but I don’t remember for sure. I didn’t know what pancreatitis was. I didn’t know I could get it. Hell, I didn’t think I’d get anything from drinking so much alcohol, since I’d already been drinking heavily up until then and the only thing I had suffered from were some really bad hangovers. I thought I was fine, but I wasn’t. I didn’t think I would get hit with anything serious because of my drinking, but I did. Sure, I knew that dri...

It has been 12 days since I came home from the hospital. The first week home was a hard transition. I was weak a lot of the times, slept a lot and hardly had any appetite. I was also dealing with a lot of pain – mostly chest pain. I took the prescribed pain medicine and while there was one particular day that the pain was so bad we almost had to call the hospital, it was managed okay. But I got through that first week and, fortunately, the chest pains are now no longer so prevalent. And when they do happen, they are not as intense, either. I had a long conversation with a nurse about how I was recovering and she gave us some good advice on what to do if the chest pain once again becomes difficult to manage. But the chest pains are not as bad now. Mostly, I have to deal with back pain. For some reason, I keep having pain in my lower back. I have continued to take the pain medicine but it’s a long time before it helps so I’ve used other things, like an ice pack, for that back pain. Fortu...

A week ago, I was doing something I normally do on a weeknight: Drinking a beer while watching Jeopardy! After the game show was over, I got up off the couch and started walking to the kitchen, planning to cook dinner. On the way, I started experiencing chest pains. I have not been sticking to my heart-healthy diet lately and, in fact, had been drinking heavily the last few days because I have been so depressed, so I have been experiencing chest pains every once in a while. Usually, I was able to manage the pain or it went away after a while. This kind of pain did not go away. In fact, it got worse, and seemed to grow stronger with each passing moment. I went into my room to lie down and soon my kids were in there with me. I told them about what was going on, clutching at my chest and wincing in pain. The pain was so agonizing. I was also feeling nauseated and, at one point, I vomited. My son used my phone to get a hold of my husband to let him know about this...