Liver Scans after Alcohol… as a High Achiever, the word and Concept of Creation
is more aligned with the way we see ourselves and the world than “Recovery.”
If quitting alcohol or cutting back is one of your priorities.
You must become the version of yourself who doesn’t care either way about alcohol.
This is what I did in 2014, when I decided to change my identity, to be open to new information,
to find a way of maintaining, or returning to balance (biology, Nervous system)
without the need for external mechanisms.
To become more emotionally aware (integrated and regulated),
and grow physically and spiritually.
To move away from the BY ME – I will force this to happen state.
I’m fortunate, grateful that my brain and body are better than they’ve ever been
since leaving the hospital, rebuilding myself, and my life.
It’s also amazing that my medical team has continued to care for my health and well-being.
As I’ve grown on all the levels I mentioned, giving back has become extremely important to me.
This video was created outside a training facility where future specialists learn about liver disease.
I have no issue with helping them develop their skills; I’m not embarrassed about my relationship with alcohol,
or the fact that I almost died before I understood it was the symptom of everything
that I’d experienced and not resolved in my life.
I was told to stop consuming alcohol at 30 years of age,
after the delirium tremens, hallucinations, and a week in hospital on an intravenous drip.
I stopped drinking for a while.
That wasn’t the difficult part; I already knew it wouldn’t be long-term.
It was the thought of going back to the office, dealing with the toxic environment,
and toxic relationships, having to live long-term, without alcohol,
and the environments I drank it in, that’s how I knew.
Your liver is damaged, carry on, and you’ll die.
Nobody ever discussed how to live life, my specialist, doctors, family, friends,
after drinking for 15 years at that time.
Because alcohol wasn’t the problem.
It was the solution to a problem nobody named.
A nervous system in chronic sympathetic dominance, flooded with cortisol and adrenaline,
had found a chemical that temporarily restored the feeling of regulation.
Removing it without addressing the underlying state left the system with nothing.
That’s not weakness or lack of willpower. That’s biology.
I’d understood early what alcohol, the friends I drank with,
and the environments were doing for me; I felt calmer inside.
I played the I can control it game, started drinking weaker lager, not premium.
The considerable amounts of spirits I was drinking were eliminated.
By now, this wasn’t anywhere near enough; I needed to stop and stop now!
The Toxic environment was winning, and my toolbox didn’t have the necessary tools to deal with it.
There is a possibility that cutting back is a real option for others – this is your choice.
I’d become so attached to the person I needed to be to survive, who I would become,
the business, the fear of losing it, and what that would mean.
I wasn’t prepared to make the big choices; I’d not suffered enough,
even with the destructive behaviour, lost relationships, and now my health.
For the next ten years, the levels of stress, anxiety, anger, hate, and depression
reached completely new levels.
Where I’d been living in overdrive all my life, stuck in fight/flight/freeze/fawn,
sympathetic dominance, then functional freeze.
My lifestyle of drinking, a lack of nutrition, not sleeping properly, exercising, near constant stress and frustration,
while performing at a very high, but increasingly difficult level, led me to fight my way through burnout,
anhedonia (losing interest in almost everything), possible passive suicidal ideation, collapse, and an ICU.
It’s funny how waking up after being given six pints of blood, which detoxified my system,
and added a much-needed boost,
then spending a further 6 weeks in a hospital bed,
unable to walk unaided and being reliant on others.
When that’s been the very thing you’ve been doing your utmost to avoid.
Helps you understand, you must readdress the relationship you have with yourself,
alcohol, any of the other mechanisms you use to regulate yourself, and life.
This is a subject I’ve discussed with one of my consultants over the past few years.
If it’s our internal health, our organs, etc.
I speak to you guys (Gastroenterology).
If it’s how we stop drinking, or cut back before it becomes a health issue,
and make it sustainable, become a person who’s completely changed their relationship with alcohol.
It’s imperative to discuss it with an expert who’s lived it, and can help become this person…
…she smiled.
Wouldn’t it be amazing, changing your own relationship with yourself,
alcohol, and life, so you didn’t ever have to attend such appointments.
Or require any other activity or substance to help you match the intensity you are feeling inside, on the outside?
This post demonstrates my approach to alcohol. I had many mechanisms I was using to help me regulate my system,
I disagree with mainstream approaches to changing your relationship with these mechanisms, yourself, and your life.
Having gone through the process myself and invested in learning many other models of change,
I believe that too many are incomplete; they are failing you, the high achiever who wants more in life.
Balance, Calmness, Peace, Aliveness, Purpose, Productivity, Fulfillment without Losing Your Edge.
The Conscious Edge I Insight