Recovery and Rebirth from Alcohol and Teaching

Posted on April 17, 2022April 17, 2022 by Jessica Duenas in Recovery Stories, Written by Jessica

Audio

Oxford defines recovery as “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.” It also offers a second meaning, “the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.” For me, my recovery consists of moving to a functional state of good health and regaining control of myself. This has required complete abstinence from both drinking and teaching.

I’m Jessica. I was Kentucky’s State Teacher of the Year in 2019, and I’m also a recovering alcoholic. I’ve been sober since November 28th, 2020, and free from teaching since December 4th, 2020. I couldn’t tell you exactly when I lost myself. However, I can tell you my habit of avoiding feelings began when I was fat-shamed as a child. I learned to steal and hide the food I wanted to eat to avoid embarrassment. I ate like this for many years and dedicated myself to excelling as a student to feel better about being an overweight child and later a teen.

Eventually, my escapism transferred to alcohol and my career. After being called out at a happy hour for drinking too much, I decided to hide my alcohol consumption from others. “Whoa, you’re moving a little fast there, aren’t you?” I remember a fellow teacher said to me. My face was hot with shame, and from that day forward, unless I accidentally over-drank in front of others, I tried my best to not be caught drunker than the group I was with. I did well at work, so when I did slip and drink too much, no one could say I had a problem with alcohol because “look at how great Jessica is as an educator.”

I hid my love for alcohol in many ways. A classic example is that I monitored how others drank at events to make sure that I matched everyone else drink for drink. If others had one glass, I had one. If they had four, I had four. I always knew something was wrong with me, but I gaslit myself. I convinced myself that there couldn’t be anything wrong with me because I went to college and then graduate school, twice. Alcoholics don’t get graduate degrees. They don’t successfully build relationships with kids and win awards for their work. There is no way that you can be named the top teacher in a state and be an alcoholic. But I was.

I lived a painful double life where every day I suffered and every day I chose to not tell anyone and drank instead. I eventually was physically dependent on alcohol, so I felt even worse about myself. How did I cope? I threw myself into teaching. I couldn’t be a bad person if I was a good educator, right?

My days were a non-stop Groundhog Day. I came home from whichever school I worked at and breathed a sigh of relief because I could be unbothered. I could drink without fear of judgment. Over the years, the amount of liquor I needed to escape and avoid withdrawal symptoms increased. I consumed a bit more than a fifth of liquor a day at the end of my drinking career. I ignored a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease in 2019 and continued to drink. I allowed my health to decline as I drank more. I always had to lie as to why I felt sick. My students asked, “Why are you always going to the bathroom? Why are you always going to throw up?” I told them my stomach was just sensitive. However, no matter what, Ms. Dueñas was always doing her best.

My persona had two sides, and neither one was truly me. My teacher self took turns with my addicted self for years until April 28th of 2020, when my then-boyfriend relapsed and died from an overdose. That day between alcohol and teaching, the alcohol took over and controlled me fully until my current sobriety date.

For months, I barely worked as I was in and out of hospitals, staying in treatment facilities, and putting together a few weeks of fragile sobriety at a time before violently crashing. The day I left a five-week-long treatment program, I ordered alcohol delivery and faded away by myself. I wrecked my car, blew nearly a .5 blood alcohol level, and tried to purchase a gun to shoot myself with. I was hospitalized for the last time in November of 2020, which is when this recovery process truly started.

A psychiatrist at the hospital asked to evaluate me, and upon digging into my history, he diagnosed me with bipolar 2. The Mayo Clinic defines bipolar disorder as “a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows.” With bipolar 2, “you’ve had at least one major depressive episode and at least one hypomanic (somewhat energized/euphoric) episode, but you’ve never had a manic episode (which is more severe).” So, for individuals with bipolar 2, there is never a psychotic episode, for example.

The doctor informed me of how frequently substance abuse went hand in hand with mental health conditions. He recommended that I try medication with a recovery program and therapy as part of my wellness plan. I accepted the recommendation. By then, things had gone too far. I wanted to die, but I was not dying, and my everyday existence had become unbearable. Something had to change. I needed to gain control of myself. I needed to get healthy. I needed to recover.

When I decided to accept help, I also realized that alcohol was not the only external factor controlling my life. It was not the only thing keeping me from being healthy. I allowed my teaching career to be just as much of an escape from myself as alcohol. No matter what chaos happened in my personal life, I was an excellent actor, and the classroom was my stage. I could only feel better about who I was if I helped others, but I never once helped myself. The teaching had to go as much as the alcohol needed to. I was reborn.

Since November 2020, I’ve embarked on this lifelong journey of becoming authentically me. My medications allow me to feel enough stability to use my recovery program and therapy to address my mental and spiritual needs. I now can face past traumas that I avoided. I journal daily, pray, meditate, and lean on my support group. I don’t isolate myself. I connect with others both in person and through social media. I try new things. I care less about other people’s opinions of me, and when I do care, because I’m a human, I have ways to check myself and my fears. I don’t worry about constantly meeting others’ needs. I have identified MY needs, and I ask myself if people and situations meet them, and when they don’t, I remove myself.

Today, my success is not measured by academic standards, standardized test results, or a score on an administrator’s observation rubric. My success is measured by the intangible, my ability to create a life I no longer need to escape. Not everyone is allowed to do so and I am incredibly grateful for my daily gifts. Happy Resurrection Day.

It Can’t Just Be Me: Life With Alcoholic Liver Disease

Posted on March 18, 2021September 29, 2022 by Jessica Duenas in Recovery Stories, Written by Jessica

Audio

In her segment, “Sharp, ‘Off The Charts’ Rise In Alcoholic Liver Disease Among Young Women,” Yuki Noguchi discusses the implications of statistics that capture the increasing rates of alcoholic liver disease among young people, especially women.

Reading the article, then listening to my voice back from April 2020, full of almost innocent-like hope, was so incredibly painful.

Flashbacks are real.

Anyway, I decided to expound on the experience of having had alcoholic liver disease. Statistics and numbers are great for envisioning the number of incidents, but they don’t paint a picture of what it’s like. My intention with this piece is to capture a sliver of how terrible ALD is. I also want to clarify that though I felt horrible, I had it fairly “easy” because I stopped drinking. My liver healed.

Carolyn, Susan’s daughter, also had alcoholic liver disease, and she passed away in January. (See, “In Memory of Carolyn.”)

The summer leading up to my decision to start my recovery process was dreadful. In August of 2019 I drank at least a fifth of alcohol a day, around 17-20 drinks, in ONE day. I was POISONING MYSELF because I hated everything about existing. I perceived having no purpose because it was summer and I wasn’t accountable to anything or anyone. It was the perfect opportunity for me to isolate myself in my then-apartment. I had no commitments except to the bottles I nursed from when I woke up, until the moment I passed out, over and over and over again. I woke up, felt sick, drank, fell asleep to forget how sick I was feeling, rinse, cycle, repeat.

Then one day, I had a doctor’s appointment.

I remember being at the doctor’s office shaking, sweating, hoping I didn’t smell like liquor from drinking the night before. I tried drinking as much water as I could stomach that morning, knowing that it felt horrible to drink, well horrible to drink water, let me clarify. I hid my hands in my pockets to hide tremors. Then I felt the tremors in my neck and my head, my brain twitched, “Am I about to have a seizure?” Every single part of my body was aching or shaking. I just wanted to go home to snuggle up under the covers with my bottle in hand. While in the waiting room, I looked down at my feet. My sandal straps were cutting into them they were so swollen. I looked up instead. My eyes hurt. I remembered they were starting to get a very slight hint of yellow, so I grabbed my glasses from my purse and put them on to distract the doctor and nurse from looking right into my eyes.

On that morning like many others, I couldn’t stop hacking. The fits were uncontrollable, and my ribs were so bruised that the few moments I could laugh in those times, I wouldn’t. I coughed up slimy green acidic bile, retching over whatever sink or toilet was near me until I could get to a drink. When I was off, I soothed my violent nausea in the mornings with whatever splashes of cheap bourbon remained in bottles I picked up off the floor around my bed or bathroom. When I gripped a bottle, I braced myself, anticipating the horrible taste and burn. It was fire down my throat, I burned while waiting for the temporary relief. The nausea stopped. The shaking subsided. Gasping, gripping the vanity in fear of falling over, I would look up in the mirror with liquor dripping out of the side of my mouth. I would look at and not recognize the woman looking back at me. I saw the unusual weight loss, random bruises, the dark circles. Cracked lips. A plump aching belly with no baby in it. I was transforming. I was imploding.

I was fearful of getting on my phone to check my lab results. I didn’t want to think that I would be like my cousin, who died after bleeding out from a simple procedure because she could no longer heal. When I got the blood results back, however, I accepted my dark fate. I got a note from the doctor saying that I had alcoholic hepatitis. If what you see in the screenshot is something you would even want to consider a note. With no explanation from my doctor as to what numbers meant what, I spent quite a bit of time doing research.

My AST/SGOT was 429, a standard range is 15-46 U/L. What did this mean? According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “AST/SGOT is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, AST leaks out into the bloodstream and the level of AST in the blood becomes elevated. AST is different from ALT because AST is found in parts of the body other than the liver–including the heart, kidneys, muscles, and brain. When cells in any of those parts of the body are damaged, AST can be elevated.” And my ALT? It was 9 times the normal range. It was 160. That normal range was supposed to be 13-69. “ALT, is one of the two liver enzymes. When liver cells are damaged, ALT leaks out into the bloodstream, and the level of ALT in the blood is elevated.” My bilirubin was 1.8 when normal ranges are 0.2-1.3, so that was another indicator of my poor liver function.

At that point, I was terrified because I understood that I had to stop, but I was afraid to ask for help without letting my secret out. I knew I needed alcohol to not feel ill but the idea of putting the bottle down terrified me. In my previous experience with getting sober in 2013, I simply stopped drinking, that shit wasn’t going to wrok this time. This time, it was different. I had been alone for what had been almost two months, and I just wanted to stay hidden in my apartment and forget this was even a problem. I wanted to disappear silently. Maybe one day I would fall asleep and not wake up, no one would notice, right?

The physical symptoms very quickly turned into psychological ones. I started to feel crippling anxiety and minor hallucinations. I noticed I would hear and see flashes of things that no one else saw. It got worse when I had to go back to work. Going back to school, I was forced to modify my drinking because I had to make it to the school building alive and barely sober. The daily withdrawal symptoms led to the worst school days. My only safe space, my classroom, riddled me with fear and panic. The sound of a notebook falling, a chair squeaking too hard, a child’s laughter, all those sounds terrorized me. They made my stomach drop each time. My coughing fits got so bad the kids thought I was having an asthma attack. I carried an asthma pump to “explain” the coughing. I knew what was going on. When your liver stops working, the fluids that should be leaving your body don’t, so they find other places to settle. In my case, it was my feet, ankles, and my lungs. It’s a miracle I didn’t get pneumonia.

It wasn’t long before the panic, anxiety, and illness brought me to my knees.

One morning in September of 2019, I couldn’t get out of bed to drive to work. I was terrified of walking out the door. I couldn’t go to work. I knew something had to give when I couldn’t go to the one place I loved the most. The only people I told that I was going to a hospital to were my principal and my sister. Neither knew I went in for my drinking. I blamed it on depression and anxiety. The rest is history, but I don’t know how I functioned when reflecting on those times.

I don’t know how I functioned so SUCCESSFULLY.

I stop sometimes and think, “What the hell?!” The only explanation I can think of is the power of the mind and its determination. A mind fueled by shame and guilt is profoundly capable of massive feats to put up appearances. I was killing myself, and yet I was showing up.

So yes, all these conversations about women and their dangerous relationships with alcohol need to happen, and I’m SO grateful that they are. I can only speak from my experience, but I will say a million times, it can’t just be me. The more we have these conversations, the more people we’ll have come forward saying, “You know what, I’ve got that problem, too.”

In Memory of Carolyn

Posted on March 17, 2021March 18, 2021 by Jessica Duenas in About a Loved One, Current Recovery Challenges, Guest Submissions

Submitted by her mother, Susan.

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My daughter died on Jan 3 this year at age 50 from alcoholic liver disease. She had been struggling with alcoholism for many years, and finally, she succumbed. She was loved and had lots of encouragement to stop drinking. And she did make it to 90 days a few times, but it did not last.

She was staying with another alcoholic for the past year and caring for her, so she had lots of opportunities to keep drinking. One of her many lies was that her liver was fine.

Two months before she died, I noticed her jaundice. We went right to the hospital, where she had gone many times for help drying out, and she stayed for 3 days (all of this during COVID). Those who cared for her gave her good advice and hope, but she got worse and worse in the next 2 months with a swollen abdomen and legs and feet. She never lost her yellow coloring.

She went back to the hospital a few times but was not admitted. She came to stay with me a few times but could not get up the stairs, and lived on my couch. It was horrible to watch.

The last time she came was 4 days before Christmas since the hospital would not admit her. She was not eating, and I tried my best to take care of her. Her son, age 19, came to my house on Christmas Day, so she did have some time with him. The other son, age 21, did not come. They had not seen her for months, so he was shocked and scared. She told him, “I’m not going to die,” but the day after, I called an ambulance since she was very, very sick. The EMT hugged her dad and me and said we might want to consider hospice, which I had thought about.

She gradually declined over the next 7 days, was on a feeding tube and developed pneumonia. The hospital took good care of her and even let us have 2 people visit as she got worse, and they allowed the closest family to be with her the night she died. It was horrible and not at all like the movies.

She was angry and distant for the last few days, so we never had a “good” goodbye. One of the doctors said they had seen a big increase in the number of alcohol-related diseases in the past 6 months.

Despite all the hard, hard, worrying times as her mother and her go-to person, we had many wonderful fun times. She always tried to make it through our holidays and get-togethers somewhat sober. I will miss her terribly, forever.

We had a small ceremony. Everyone who sent cards and commented talked of her very wonderful, sparkly, and beautiful being. She was much loved.

Thank you for letting me tell this story. I needed to write, just like you did.

Sadly,

Susan

When I asked Susan for permission to share her and her daughter’s story, she also asked me to include her obituary. Susan wants to share with the world that yes, Carolyn was very sick, and more importantly, that she was incredibly loved. Please read below:

Carolyn Marie Wanner (July 14, 1970–January 3,2021)

A bright sparkly personality left us grieving when, despite her best efforts, Carolyn Marie Wanner, 50, lost her battle with alcoholism on January 3, 2021 at the Greeley Hospital. Her close family was present to say good bye and must now learn to live without her happy presence.

Carolyn was born in Eugene, Oregon, on July 14, 1970 and moved to Greeley when she was just 6 weeks old. Even as a little girl, she loved people and said hello to anyone who would catch her eye. She could also be counted on to defend her little friends from bullying or harm, a friend you could trust.

A capable student, she became an excellent writer and loved reading and all things having to do with performance and theater. After attending Cameron School, Maplewood Middle School and Heath Junior High, she graduated from Greeley Central in 1988, where she continued to participate in activities, especially theatre, choir, forensics with her group of friends who felt right at home at her house, doing their homework and just hanging around.

She never hesitated to help anyone, even if it meant giving away her last cigarette or $5 when she saw someone in need. Those who knew her were grateful to have had her friendship and those she briefly encountered were always graced with her welcoming smile.

She attended The University of Northern Colorado for one semester, taking a class from her dad and then went off to UC Boulder to earn a degree and had way too much fun socializing, gathering more friends into her life. When she earned her BA in English and Theatre, she was so proud.

In her own words, she said “The energy and allure of the hospitality industry and the people it attracts suit my personality perfectly. I love it!” and that is where she spent her career, working at a number of venues in various capacities, including the first Rock Bottom in Denver. She gave exceptional service at all times and earned a lot of tips with her huge smile and ability to put customers at ease, chatting to everyone, just like when she was a little girl. But, with Carolyn, it wasn’t just about the tips. She was a performer at heart. Her dreams of being an actress were played out doing improv with her customers.

On August 8, 1998, she married Dante Dunlap in Denver and they had two exceptional sons, Max, age 21 and Ethan, age 19, of Denver. She loved being a mom and was often called the “cool mom” by Max and Ethan’s friends. Her sons meant everything to her. Following her divorce, she had a variety of relationships, but never remarried.

In addition to Ethan and Max, she is survived by her saddened mother, Susan Malmstadt, and father, James Wanner, his wife Rene Oya, her loving brother, Christopher Wanner, sister-in-law Sonya PauKune, nephews Blake and Sabin Wanner along with her aunts, Patricia Malmstadt and Carol Haluska, an uncle Dick Wanner, cousins Tere and Steve Schultz, Andy May, Laurie Malone, Carissa Russell, Leslie Andrews, Jennifer and Kristin Wanner as well as extended family and a slew of friends across the state and the country.

The family would like to thank the medical staff at the Greeley Hospital 3rd Floor Acute Care Unit for the exceptional care they provided Carolyn and the family.

Contributions in Carolyn’s memory can be made by check to Greeley Central High School GCHS Thespian Troop 657, 1515 14th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80631 Attention: Brian Humphrey or to the Colorado Restaurant Association Angel Relief Fund for restaurant workers affected by COVID.

Donate online at corestaurant.org.

To contact Susan, email me at jessica@jessicaduenas.net and I will relay the message to her.