My Name's Michelle And I'm Not An Alcoholic.

Vodka wasn’t always how I coped. I didn’t start using alcohol to deal with all my mental and physical shit until I was in my late 30s. My marriage was with an abusive person. And hemochromatosis made it feel worse.

Hemochromatosis is a Hemochromatosis is an iron disorder in which the body simply loads too much iron. This action is genetic and the excess iron, if left untreated, can damage joints, organs, and eventually be fatal.

Hemochromatosis is an ailment for which testing is not consistently done. Meanwhile this DNA mutation causes a bunch of shit, so we're just living with a disease that causes:

• Cirrhosis (liver damage)
• Heart problems
• Arthritis (joint pain)
• Diabetes
• Gallbladder disorders, such as mine. My gallbladder ruptured because of iron overload.

Many women don’t get diagnosed until after menopause, since that’s when our natural blood loss stops. Most doctors I’ve talked with don’t know much about HFE. A recent study found that only about 1 in 100 people in the U.S. are correctly diagnosed with this condition, even though it can be very serious.

The short story is that this disease affects a person's head and heart. It also affects the liver, spleen, pancreas, and gall bladder. It was the rupture of my gallbladder that led to the surgery that left me mentally fucked. 

Nobody looks for hemochromatosis here. By the time anyone notices, it’s already too late. When my brain felt broken, a drink is the only thing that makes sense.

After the summer of 2017, I forgot who I was, and people kept telling me I was an alcoholic. I couldn’t remember anything else about who I was, and I literally prayed every day that I would die, so drinking quickly became an innate part of what was left of whatever I’d been.

By the end of that first year, fear took over. I didn’t want to feel anything or care. I was completely alone. I had no one, no family, no money, no memory, no car, no license, and no home.

Alcohol was the only thing that felt like home. I thought about drinking myself into the ground, and I didn’t mind. I wasn’t a mother, or a writer, or a wife. I was just a ghost with a broken brain. Life kept moving, but I was gone.

Most of my friends who worried about my drinking really cared about me. But none of that made sense. I still needed notes so knew where I was when I woke up.

Michelle, Feisty, whoever I was. Nothing seemed real. My brain was gone. Words didn’t stick. All I had was the feeling of abandonment, moving through the world like a half-dead thing.

Later, after those lost years, I found myself in a sterile hospital room in Dallas, in a semi-coma due to hepatic encephalopathy from ammonia poisoning. 

The sharp, clean, antiseptic smell hovered in the air, mingling with the constant rhythmic beep of the heart screen beside me. This was the moment where my life turned; the faint sound of the screen was like a lifeline, pulling me back from the precipice I hadn't realized I was teetering on. I knew I did not want to be back in some sterile hospital room with all the highpitched beep beep beeps pumelling my inner ears.

At some indecipherable time after the hepatic encephalopathy coma, someone called just to say hi and see how I was doing. By then, I’d been on heart drugs for a while. I called one of my dearest friends to this person that since I’d been taking meds for my erratic heart, I’d been a lot more... calm. I hadn’t been craving xanax and vodka, which, for me, had become an increasingly constant and overwhelming want.

At some indecipherable time after the hepatic encephalopathy coma, someone called just to say hi and see how I was doing. By then, I’d been on heart drugs for a while. I called one of my dearest friends to this person that since I’d been taking meds for my erratic heart, I’d been a lot more... calm. I hadn’t been craving xanax and vodka, which, for me, had become an increasingly constant and overwhelming want.

After that conversation something finally clicked for me. One night I went to sleep and woke up knowing that I wasn’t going to drink anymore. 

And I didn’t.

My name is Michelle, and I’m Feisty. I’m a little crazy, a bad ukulele player, and I’m not an alcoholic.

That’s why I haven’t touched a drink in seven years.

A white mug with bold black text that reads "I POURED MYSELF A CUP OF AMBITION" sits on a wooden surface, with blurred windows and brushes in the background.