Weight Loss Doesn’t Cure Alcoholism or Self-Hatred
Zac and I worked out together at my gym, Christmas 2017
Zac’s weight loss journey arguably helped him more than anything else had. But weight loss is not a “cure” or treatment for alcoholism. Zac never fully got treatment for his addiction and instead pursued weight loss as a path to wellness. At the core of weight loss is often the hatred of your body, especially if you have been very fat for a very long time and you’ve experienced the shame and discrimination that comes with being a fat person. When you inevitably gain weight back, you feel terrible shame. Zac already had boatloads of shame in his brain, telling him he was a terrible human being.
At the time that Zac decided to pursue weight loss as a means of setting fire to his self-hatred, I was on my own journey to accept myself. Twenty years of diets and “healthy living” left me fatter than ever with an eating disorder. I was admonished to pursue weight loss surgery after a normal annual check-up as doctors are strongly pushed to encourage surgery for anyone who is fat and has tried many diets, even if they are metabolically normal. Zac never understood the years of dieting and self-hatred I went through. We suffered separately with our own severe body hatred.
As Zac lost over ninety pounds, he marveled at his energy level, self confidence and generally how much better he felt. I had a very similar experience a few times over. You feel euphoric. Everyone smiles at you and compliments you and tells you how awesome you are. Doctors actually practice evidence-based medicine with you instead of telling you that your allergies/headaches/plantar fasciitis/etc. would all be solved by weight loss. Most importantly, you feel like you might not actually be a horrible piece of lazy garbage that can’t get their act together. Maybe your life actually has some value.
I rolled my eyes at Zac when he would tell me to just give up carbs. I had my most significant weight loss at the end of the 90’s and early 2000’s and those were the “FAT IS EVIL” days. Zac’s “healthy lifestyle” was to cut out carbs, the new enemy. “Good” fat is ok now and CARBS ARE EVIL. Zac told me how he passed out a few times when he worked out because he didn’t eat enough. He said it with pride. He said he “just forgot to eat sometimes”. In a particularly frustrating moment, I told Zac to talk to me about his “healthy lifestyle” in another five years because multiple studies show that 95% of people who embark on intentional weight loss gain most of the weight back. And many gain back more than they lost. I am living proof.
Zac hated that response. Zac was struggling to live for today and wasn’t able to think about the next five years. The weight loss gave him a glimmer of a different life where he could be proud of who he was. The truth is Zac was a beautiful, complex person who had tremendous value even when he was at his heaviest. While Zac was fat, he built an incredible career where people loved and respected his voice, he made people laugh so hard they forgot where they were, he fell in love multiple times, he took care of pets, he traveled, he was a kind and supportive brother and so many other things that are part of basic humanity, whether you are fat or not.
It is true that the weight loss helped Zac feel 100 times better and we had some of our most meaningful and joyful connections as adults in those years. But I am angry and terribly sad that he treated his addiction to alcohol by cutting out carbs and exercising obsessively. No amount of carbs not eaten or hours at the gym could replace the need for rehab and proper treatment for his alcoholism. Zac’s weight loss FAILED TO ADDRESS the underlying self-hatred and depression that drove his alcoholism. Zac lost over ninety pounds and he’s dead from congestive heart failure related to his alcoholism. Just thinking of the irony of that makes me want to scream a scream of agony and anguish so loud it would bust a hole in the space-time continuum. A man who by all outward appearances achieved the universally accepted standard of “health” and “fitness” died from his addiction. I wish more than anything to have fat Zac, alive, than to have “swole” Zac gone where I can never hear his voice again.
