5 Year Success Story - Before & After

December 25th of 2006 started off like most other days. I woke up hungover and with a certainty that I would soon be dead.
It wasn’t that I wanted to die, I just didn’t care if I did. In some respects, I was anticipating that death would be a welcome relief to a life I was no longer willing to live.

The fever would begin around noon most days, and by 2pm it became difficult to hold a pen or piece of paper steady because of the shaking in my hands. My weight had dropped to 145 pounds because I seldom ate, and even when I did it was late night gorges on Taco Bell or Burger King – the primary reason for these fast food binges wasn’t because I was hungry, but to cover up the smell of liquor on my breath; hastily devoured bags of fast food were about my only source of nutrition. In addition to hiding the quart of whiskey a day I was drinking, I was also secretly smoking a pack a day without my wife knowing. That took some work, let me tell you.

This picture was taken Christmas day and pictorially represents what I believe was the lowest point in my life.



On the night of February 2nd, 2007, while taking the dog for a walk, I polished off my second pint of whiskey in the park and headed back for home. The temperature was -9 degrees Fahrenheit. The last thing I remember was being about three blocks from home.

Somewhere around 4 hours later, I came to in the emergency room. I have spotted memories of being in an ambulance, but that’s about it. The look on my wife’s face as I gained consciousness is burned into my memory; such pain, such hurt, such betrayal. But for me, it was a sudden release – no more secrets, no more hiding; I could finally relax.

My path to recovery would begin the next day. That day, when I checked into an alcohol and drug treatment center, my resting heart rate was 110. I was winded climbing a flight of stairs or walking briskly across a parking lot. If I did anything that caused my respiration to go up, my chest rattled with phlegm. My blood pressure over the next few days hovered around 140/120, peaking at 180/140 (and that was WHILE TAKING blood pressure medication). It was no wonder every afternoon for the past 9 months had been a miserable exercise; I was going through severe withdrawal on a daily basis. It’s a miracle that I hadn’t stroked out. It’s a miracle I hadn’t frozen to death that night in the cold. Only the loyalty of my dog, who laid on top of me 2 or more hours as I was passed out in the snow bank, had kept me alive until the police arrived to investigate why a dog was sitting on a snow bank outside a neighborhood house.

I spent 26 days in treatment – 26 days that set in motion a new course in my life. I learned to laugh again. I learned that I could actually drive the 5 miles from my work to my home without drinking a pint of whiskey. I learned that I could find help, and I could be a person again.

It took more than a year of sobriety before I began to realize that I was no longer simply waiting around to die. Once I’d made that realization, it took only a few short months to realize that not only was I no longer ready and willing to die, but that I in fact had begun wanting to remain alive. Not only did I want to remain alive, but I wanted to really and truly LIVE my life. The day before Halloween, 2009, I decided that I would smoke my last cigarette at the end of the next day. At that time, my weight was probably around 165 pounds.

By the time spring came around a few months later, I was approaching 190 pounds. This picture is from March of 2010, when I was around my highest weight.



I was much healthier than I had been when I was a drunk and a heavy smoker, but I still had no physical stamina – just playing with my daughter for 10 minutes left me drained of energy. It was time for a change – it was time to take ACTION.
I began slowly. I had been a competitive swimmer in high school, so I joined the adult swim club at my health club. A few months later, I began to experiment with the elliptical machine or the stationary bikes (“What are these odd contraptions,” I thought). I felt really empowered by my 20 minute workouts. It’s a little humorous to me looking back at it now – what used to be my main workout is now what I do for warm-up or when I’m needing a ‘rest day’ – for those of you just starting out, know that you will get stronger every day – maybe not so much that you notice the difference day to day or week to week, but if you stick with it, a year from now you will be stronger, faster and have more vitality than you do now – and you WILL feel the difference.
In June of 2010, I competed in my first Sprint Triathlon. It had been only about three weeks since I’d first successfully run 3 miles without stopping. Two weeks prior to the race was the first time I had ever swam in open water. I had only two goals: Don’t walk & don’t finish dead last.

I was successful on both counts. I finished the run without having walked, and I was 41st out of 42 in my age group. Almost last, but not quite - good enough for me.:happy:

Here’s me just after crossing the finish line. Boy, was I tired! (I often will do more than that as just a normal workout now)



I’d gotten my weight down to about 165 again by that point, but I just couldn’t seem to cross that plateau. I began running more, biking more and open water swimming twice a week (oh, man, I LOVE open water swimming now), but I still stayed right around 165 despite all my activity.

Fast forward to October of 2011 – by now I’m in fairly good shape. I’ve done an Olympic distance triathlon. I ran the Denver Rock & Roll ½ Marathon in 2:08:48, but still weighed in at 165. So, as part of a friendly wager with a friend wanting to also drop weight, I joined MFP. It worked!! That's what I was missing.

I hit my goal weight 2 days ago: 145 pounds of lean and fit.

Today, February 3, 2012, I celebrate five years of sobriety.

Today, I also celebrate 3 years, 3 months and 3 days smoke-free.

All of the workouts - all of the effort to be healthy again - is about half as much work as it took to drink in secret and hide the evidence of smoking a pack a day. I now realize that so much of what we do in life to avoid doing the right thing is more work than it would take to do the those right things (and the avoidance comes with zero or even negative benefit!).
Thanks to MFP and my growing list of MFP friends I finally found what it took to drop that last 20 pounds to the same weight I was the day I checked into rehab five years ago, but the difference is I now have no problem climbing a flight of stairs (or bounding up them 2 or 3 at a time). I have no problem walking across a parking lot (although I usually run now, because why not?). My blood pressure is 110/65 - my resting pulse is 42. I am in good enough shape that on any given day, I can run 10 miles, ride 50 or swim 5000 yards. This week, I registered for my 'Golden Ring' - a 1/2 Ironman. See you in Miami in October!
I’m not waiting to die – I don’t even think about it anymore.



…and I am living EVERY day of my life joyous, happy and free.