Alcohol Use After Traumatic Brain Injury

Quite a lot of people have emailed me since my crowdfunding campaign went live and news of my book has been made public.  They are all people who either have a TBI or are caregivers of someone who has a TBI.  About 95% of the adult TBI survivors who have emailed me have had an alcohol problem post TBI and I want to share with you why I believe that is, at least why it was in my case.

Living with a TBI is scary.  It is scary because your brain cannot process too much stimuli.  So crowds, noisy places, bright lights and confined spaces cause severe anxiety and panic.

When you are social what do you do?  You go out to restaurants, bars, clubs, etc.  Places that are noisy and often have loud music.  Places that sometimes have a lot of blinking lights like at a dance club.  Small, confined places where a lot of people who are strangers go.  I mean, what is the point of trying to be social if you go to an unpopular place where hardly anyone else goes.  Even if a venue is considered big, such as a large restaurant or night club, they are most likely enclosed spaces with one main entrance and exit.  Walking into that situation for someone with a TBI is frightening and having to stay there for a long period of time is enough to cause a major panic attack.

For me, my heart pounds, I sweat profusely and I feel like I cannot breathe.  I also fear that I am going to lose the people I am with.  Those familiar people are my life jacket and I am drowning.

When I moved back to San Francisco after I finished my rehabilitation in New York, and started working again, I started having a very social life.  It was the dot com era when everyone was making decent money, working hard and partying harder.  I was a single female in my late 20’s and I desperately wanted to feel normal again.  

For all intent and purposes, I was completely healed; there was nothing wrong with me.  Maybe I had a limp, some scars and facial palsy but I could walk, I could talk, I was able to take care of myself.  I was healed, or so I thought.

I started working at an up and coming internet technology company where the mean employee age was probably 33.  The company was full of young, single and adventurous employees.  Company sponsored happy hours occurred several times a week.  

I really liked the people I worked with; they were friendly, smart and really funny.  I wanted to fit in so badly.  I didn't have many friends left in San Francisco because most of them either forgot about me after I got out of the hospital and relocated to NY to do my rehabilitation or, because they weren't true friends to begin with.  So in order to make new friends I became social, again.  I joined the crew from work and started going to the happy hours.

The only way that I could control my anxiety and the panic of having to be in an enclosed, noisy place with so many people was to drink alcohol.  The alcohol calmed me down, put me at ease.  Red wine was my drink of choice and the more social I became, the more wine I drank and the more wine I drank; the higher my tolerance level went up, requiring me to drink more in order to feel calm and relaxed.  So you can see the pattern.  I would have been a prime target for Bill Cosby.

I quit drinking 3 years ago.  Now, I rarely go out socially.  I NEVER go out to bars or clubs.  I only go out to restaurants that I am familiar with, I avoid parties where I will not know the majority of the people, even with my husband, Tony, by my side.  It causes issues in my marriage because Tony is often left having to go out by himself because I just can't go.

Even when I do a triathlon or marathon I get panic attacks.  The only thing that saves me is the fact that I am outside.  I also always stay towards the perimeter of the crowds where I can easily escape if I need to.  

During the Ironman 70.3 in Augusta in both 2013 and 2014, I had several panic attacks because the number of participants.  During the swim portion, people were swimming so close to me, kicking and punching me in order to pass me.  A few even swam right over me.  It was every man and woman for themselves.  The last time I did that swim, I had to swim over to a kayaker and hold onto the kayak while I tried to calm myself down from my panic attack.  It took me 10 minutes to calm down and get the nerve up to continue.  I even had to unzip my wetsuit because I couldn't breathe; it felt as if it was crushing my chest.  I never want to do that swim ever again.

If I have to go out now, to a place that causes me any anxiety, I have to prepare myself for it days in advance.  Some places I can only stay for several minutes.  Sometimes I just need to go outside, catch my breath and regain my composure.  Even in some stores I cannot stay more than 10 minutes.  Old Navy is one of them.  Something about the layout, the displays, the size and the crowds frighten me.  Costco is another one.  If I have to go to Costco, I will only go on a weekday when the crowds are less.

I am antisocial and an introvert.  Home is safe.  Home is familiar.  I know everyone in my home.  I like my home.  It has a lot of windows, I can see the mountains, I have a secure backyard where I spend a great deal of time.  I can breathe in my home.  Social media is how I make friends now.  It's sad, but most of my best friends live across the country, some I see only once a year if I am lucky.

The fear I feel is very real.  It is the kind of fear that cause people to commit suicide.  The fear makes me feel as if I am being buried alive.  If you knew you were going to die a slow, painful and agonizing death and there was zero chance of surviving, I mean it would take the miracle of all miracles to save you, however, you are given the opportunity to end your life quickly and painlessly, which would you choose?  That is what goes through the mind of someone who contemplates suicide.  So when you question how anyone can take their own life, I want you to keep that in mind.  No amount of money, fame, or physical beauty in the world can end your slow suffering.

That is the invisible wound that is called Traumatic BrainInjury (TBI) and we need to find a way to help those who are suffering from it!  I hope by sharing my struggles and how I am able to manage my TBI, I will be able to save even one life.  I want to be that miracle of all miracles. 

If you know someone who is suffering from a TBI, pick-up the phone, send an email or a text and just let them know that you love them.  Love is a powerful drug, share it.

He has my back!

"Don't take it personally; it's their issue, not yours."  "Feel sorry for them because they are just really miserable people."  "Just ignore the haters." "Toughen-up!" That is what I'm told time and time again.

A lot of great advice that I often give to others too yet, I have a really hard time listening to it when I am the one who is personally getting attacked.

I have been warned that by going public with my life that I am opening it up to a lot of negative people who will doubt my sincerity, my purpose, my goal and just do or say whatever they can to hurt me. 

Being born and raised in New York, I have always felt tough enough, that I could handle whatever anyone threw at me.  I mean, look at all I have been through already.  I'm still standing, still fighting, still winning.

Yet today, when I was personally attacked online, by a stranger accusing me of being a "fraud," and trying to discredit my purpose for writing a book and trying to help other TBI sufferers I just had it.  Why am I doing this I asked myself?  Why should I bother?  I don't have to do this.  I don't need to do this. 

Contrary to what most people believe, this isn't going to make me wealthy.  It is the reason why I am trying to crowdfund to raise money to write and publish a book in the first place, so that I don’t have to cause serious financial hardship for my family, especially since I have a disabled son that I will need to financially support for the rest of his life. 

I have met several people who wrote memoirs of their inspirational stories of overcoming adversity.  People who have since dedicated their lives to helping others and they all still need a day job to pay the bills.  Not to mention I want to insure that every service member returning from deployment with a TBI can get a free copy.  I don’t know if my story will be able to help them, I believe it will but my book is not a self-help book.  I do not tell people what they need to do in order to become happy.  I just let them into my world, my struggles, my addictions, my vices and hope that they will see that they are not alone in the world.  That even a housewife with a picture perfect family, who lives in the burbs battles the demon that is a traumatic brain injury.  I do not make any claims that I will change anyone’s life, that just by reading my book and doing what I do will heal them.  Any doctor, therapist, counselor or addiction specialist who is credible will tell them that the only person who can heal them is themselves. 

So why bother?  Why deal with these miserable people if they are just going to bring me down?  So I decided to quit this morning.  I decided I had enough.  That I was making a huge mistake and I was going to scrap the whole book project and just go back to my private life.  I can still help by volunteering at the VA and fundraising for organizations by running and doing triathlons.  This way, I will never have to deal with such nasty people ever again!  I had made my decision and I was going to tell my family, friends and supporters this afternoon after church.

Thursday morning I attend a women's ministry at my church called Mom's Council.  I am in my second year of Mom's Council and I absolutely love it.  I have met some of the greatest women I have ever met in my life there.  I always leave our Thursday meetings feeling complete, happy and one step closer to God than I was the day before.  I am new to Christianity so all of this knowledge about God is like celebrating my birthday and receiving a new gift every single day of my life.

But, I almost didn't make it to Mom's Council this morning.  After I read the nasty comments someone made to me on reddit, I had to drive my youngest son to school.  The entire time I was in the car driving, I was talking myself into just quitting.  When I finally got back home, I was still so upset and frazzled that I hung my keys up on a hook in an entirely different room than where I normally hang them up.  I actually hung them up on a coat hook behind a door, someplace I have never hung my keys up before.  So when it was time to go to Mom's council, I couldn't find my keys. 

I looked everywhere!  In every room in my house, in every dresser drawer, under the couch cushions, in the backyard, in the bathroom, on top of the laundry machine, even in the refrigerator.  I have one of those tile gizmos on my key chain that you can use an app on your cell phone to tell it to make a tune so you can find it.  Kind of like the Find My iPhone app.  But the app wasn’t working.  When I opened it, it just gave me a message that the tile on my key chain was out of range. 

I was really distraught because my friend, Marilyn, was going to be the key speaker at Mom's Council this morning and I really wanted to not only hear what she had to say, but I also wanted to be there to support her because she has been a huge provider of support to me over the past year and a half.

After a good 20 minutes of searching with absolutely no luck, I finally yelled out of frustration, "God, if you really want me to hear what Marilyn has to say then help me find my keys!"  Right after I said that the tile app on my phone started blinking green signaling me that my keys were in range.  So I pressed the find button and I started to hear the little tune.  That beautiful little melody that was God’s way of saying, “here I am.”  I found the keys and off to church I went.

I made it to church on time to hear Marilyn's talk and it was her presentation that changed my mind about quitting. 

Marilyn is a licensed marriage and family therapist who just seems to know what to say at all the right times.  Her advice is and has always been priceless. 

Marilyn's presentation this morning was about forgiveness, setting boundaries and doing what your calling is.  Her first topic was forgiveness and the process of forgiveness.  She touched on how forgiving frees you from the bitterness you harbor and releases you from the hurt that you feel.  How forgiveness is really about your relationship with God.  As she spoke I thought about what had transpired this morning so, I asked God to help me forgive the person who had written hurtful things towards me.

Next Marilyn spoke about boundaries and how to set boundaries to protect yourself from others who try to hurt you.  Again, I thought about what happened this morning and I realized that really the boundaries I needed to set were boundaries for me.  Boundaries that would prevent me from hurting myself by reading and responding to messages like that.  To just walk away from those that try to hurt me, rather than retaliate and try to hurt them back.

Lastly, Marilyn spoke about what God's calling is for you.  It took me 15 years to figure out what my calling was but since then, I have always felt 100% sure that His calling for me was to help others who are struggling with a TBI, especially our wounded service members and veterans.  I realized that everything Marilyn had said that morning was God's way of telling me not to throw in the towel and quit.  

Perhaps He is the one trying to toughen me up, to prepare me for future confrontation.  He is the one that is teaching me how to forgive those that cause me pain and anger and how to protect myself by setting boundaries.  After all, He is the one that helped me find my keys this morning so that I could hear His message and He is the one that confirmed what my purpose is.

I still have an uphill battle ahead of me.  I know the rest of this journey is not going to be easy and I know that I will still run into a lot of hurtful and negative people who will create obstacles and try to prevent me from reaching my goals.  I just have to remember about all that transpired today, to trust God’s calling for me and not to forget that He has my back.

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  Ephesians 2:10