 I am James Swannick and today we are talking to cancer survivor and mother of four Victoria English Martin who is a 50 year old from Denver Colorado. Victoria has a background in nutrition and fitness and she's been alcohol free now for more than two years and Victoria has made alcohol free coaching her passion and she is now one of our outstanding project 90 coaches who help many of our project 90 clients to get power over their drinking. Victoria so great to have you here welcome. Thank you James happy to be here. Now tell us a little bit about being a cancer survivor I know you had you were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 so tell us about that journey. Sure well I have always as you know my background is in nutrition and fitness so I always prided myself on being a very very healthy woman. I followed all of my doctor's instructions started getting my annual mammograms at age 40 and was diligent about going every year. I had my mammogram in July of 2017 everything was clear. I had finished a workout in April of 2018 I was all sweaty I had a dinner to attend I got in the shower and as I was washing myself I felt something that I could have sworn hadn't been there the day before it was about the size of a of a good size half dollar and I said oh this doesn't feel right so I immediately went to the doctor they it was just like you would imagine in the movies you're in your pink robe they're bringing the other women in the other women are going home they keep bringing you back into the room and finally the radiologist came in she did the ultrasound and she was very very quiet and finally she said this is ugly this is cancer and I'm very very glad that I did go to the doctor when I did oftentimes doctors will say well if you feel something come back in a few months if it changes or grows or becomes painful we'll check it well had I done that James I wouldn't be here today my type of cancer was triple negative breast cancer which typically strikes women ages 50 and under it's extremely aggressive my doctor likened it to wildfire so in the time since I had had my mammogram in July until I found the lump and was diagnosed it had gone to stage 2b meaning that it had started to progress up the chain of lymph nodes which was basically a breath a breath away from being stage 4 meaning it would have spread into my bones or organs brain and that would have been that so another passion of mine is advocacy for breast cancer awareness not just well not awareness but education we all know that we're all aware of breast cancer but how much do you really know and one of the things I want your listeners to know is that if you feel something do something do not wait if they tell you to come back plant yourself in that chair until they do what they need to do whether it's an ultrasound another mammogram or in my case a biopsy I under went 16 rounds of chemo 28 radiations a double mastectomy a full hysterectomy six months of oral chemotherapy and I've lost count I want to say nine or ten surgeries so it was a hell of a run I'm very grateful to be here today and obviously extremely passionate about sharing this with with other women and their families thank you for sharing what you went through as a mother of four how did it feel when you were first diagnosed and then how did those feelings change over the course of your journey including the chemo and the operations it was extremely difficult as you can imagine to tell anybody who loves you that you're sick let alone your children I had been the one that they counted on so I was going to go home my father lives in Florida and my three adult children who were in college at the time were in college in Florida and I was going to fly home and go see each of them individually and tell them in person my oncologist said that was not an option we had to start chemo right away so unfortunately I had to tell my family via FaceTime so it was extremely difficult very challenging the good news was once they did the scans and they saw that it had not progressed to my bones or organs um I had they they were almost certain that I would survive so uh if it comes back it comes back as stage four but today it's not back so uh I knew almost with certainty that I would survive so I was able to give them that however I was going to have to step down as the matriarch and allow my children to fend for themselves a bit more than a mother likes to uh even though they are older I also have a daughter who was only nine at the time that was very hard um so it was very challenging I remember one time I was in some sort of a one of those tubes I don't even remember what sort of scan and my son kept calling me he had some issue maybe about how to cook a chicken breast and he was blowing up my phone and finally I said honey what's up and he's like oh what do I do with this chicken I'm like Daniel and he said oh wait wait I forgot okay I can't come to you for everything so uh it was it was you know a little humor injected there but um it was it was hard it was hard for them to see me sick and it was I think even more difficult for me to allow them to see me sick to see me as um fragile and ill what did you discover about yourself through the journey well I discovered that I sometimes do have to accept help I had to realize that I can't do it all uh I had my external armor removed I had always uh you don't realize how much you hide behind your external armor your looks your figure everything until it's gone I remember one evening in the middle of the night going to the bathroom and the moonlight was shining through my bathroom window and by that point I had long lost my hair my eyebrows my lashes I'd had my breasts removed and I just thought wow that's me that's me that's just my soul that's Victoria all of that other stuff was just adornments and um so it was humbling but it was also liberating in many ways it put me very much in touch with who I am the essence of who I am and uh in some ways I wouldn't trade that as crazy as that may sound well how do you feel like you're a different person now than pre diagnosis I mean you you obviously went through a physical and sounds like spiritual transformation through this process so who was Victoria pre diagnosis and who's Victoria now post operations post chemo and and seemingly with a clean bill of health yes thankfully uh Victoria before was a good person but a guarded person uh someone who felt the need to present uh as always being strong impermeable and I used my exterior armor as I call it and alcohol to I thought maintain that facade I wouldn't allow myself to access difficult emotions um often I would use alcohol to access emotions I was uncomfortable with when I was not drinking so that when I was not when I was without alcohol my system I could present to the world as being strong and fearless and relentless in my pursuits cancer takes that away from you uh you simply cannot do what you could do before so I had to learn to ask for help and accept help uh and yes my my my spirit has changed I have a much more intentional life I am extremely even after all of the the treatment that I've been through my body is still not the same physically it will never be the same obviously I don't look the same I've had reconstruction and everything but I'm different uh but more importantly I I have to be careful where I put my time and my energy because those are limited resources I've always known that but now I really know it and so I am intentional with whom I spend my time I'm intentional with with whom I allow into my life and that has actually resulted in a much better quality of life I do not listen to very much news I I think of myself as um you know I I have so many spoons in a day and and this spoon goes to self-development and this personal growth this this spoon goes to my spirituality this one goes to my physical exercise this one goes to my family this one goes to healthy cooking and when those spoons have been used up for the day then I put myself to bed with a good book and a cup of tea and it's a good day in hindsight and when you're looking back do you feel your uh cancer diagnosis how much of it do you feel was just an uh hereditary thing bad luck how much of it do you attribute to lifestyle choices whether that be either foods you were eating or alcohol or maybe suppressing um emotions that you didn't want to face have you thought about that a little bit I have that's a good question so my particular type of cancer as I mentioned was triple negative breast cancer and it turns out that I carry the BRCA1 mutation that is a genetic mutation which I had no family history uh my father comes from a very very large family and it turns out well my mother passed 20 something years ago so I don't know if she carried it my father carries the mutation so I apparently inherited it from my the paternal side of my family but we had no family history so I never thought to get tested but being test being born with that genetic mutation gave me I was born with a about a 75 chance of getting breast cancer I had no idea had I known I would have had a double mastectomy and had my breast removed and probably never gotten cancer I didn't know that so uh I did ask the doctor did my did my alcohol consumption have anything to do with this and he said well cancer increases alcohol increases it seems it appears increases the risk of hormone driven breast cancers which are the more common ones they're slower growing they're less aggressive things like that however alcohol can also damage your cellular DNA so I can't say that alcohol contributed to my breast cancer risk because I was born with a very high risk however it didn't help I was as I said you know a nutritionist I was they used to call me the green juice girl I was the one I was juicing before juicing was cool kale salad what's kale you know I was the one making the kale salads what is this crunchy weird stuff but you can't you can't out nutrition the bad effects of alcohol and I know that now and so I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on it um but I know that I didn't help my immune function I didn't do myself any favors with the alcohol uh but I was born with a very very high risk of getting it anyway what was your alcohol of choice and how often and regularly were you consuming it so I was uh I was a quote normal drinker in my 20s I had three children in my 20s I don't remember ever having more than a couple of glasses maybe at dinner uh there was some alcohol misuse in my in my family so I I thought I was aware of what it looked like I didn't look like that uh and I figured okay well I dodged that I don't have to worry about that and then my mother died when I was 29 and it was very traumatic time and this was 1999 there was not the awareness that there is now around mental health and anxiety and things like that so after my mom died I was having what I know now uh our anxiety attacks I was a runner back then I used to run five or six miles a day suddenly I couldn't run more than a mile without being bent over trying to breathe and guess what a glass of wine really helped me catch my breath I had three little children and um it started like that a glass of wine and then it was two then it was three then it was putting the bottle away before my husband would come home and pretend to open another one and it was a very very slow descent it wasn't um there there were no big firework moments where someone said you're falling apart I was just self-medicating and that went on for a couple of years and then I said you know this is kind of getting to be a problem so I stopped for a while and then I went through a divorce in 2002 or three and the wine came back I again was using it self-medicate I was uh hanging out with girlfriends you know and wine was the wine was what we did we we had wine if you had a good day you drink wine if you had a bad day you drink wine and that's how it started that's how the you know the dependence began uh and that continued off and on for several years so it was mostly wine uh I did I did like my vodka but wine and vodka just you know just your average mom with a drink wine and vodka nothing too exciting at what point did you choose to give the alcohol away or at the very least when did you choose to reduce the consumption like did you actually reduce it and then stop or did you just go hard stop and just talk talk a little bit about when that was in relation to cancer diagnosis and operations and chemo etc. Sure well I had had periods of time starting around 2009 when I realized it was becoming a problem because I was doing all those things that people do promising and I wouldn't drink until Friday promising I wouldn't have vodka promising I wouldn't drink until you know all the things and it never worked so then I would give it up and then because I had my default coping skill had become drinking whenever a major crisis would hit by this point I had three teenagers whenever something would happen that I would think was a crisis that was unmanageable the alcohol would come back so that went off it was frustrating took up so much mental space and energy but when before I was diagnosed I had been without alcohol for several months and was doing pretty well but still feeling kind of angry about it resentful deprived all the things because of society and kept questioning maybe I'll give it a try again well then I was diagnosed and I remember thinking oh my gosh I'm about to fight for my life there is no way I will ever drink again that's that's never gonna happen it will never happen and of course when I was going through treatment it didn't I was sick as a dog um so imagine my surprise when when the emotional fallout happened after all of the treatment and after going through this battle like a warrior because that's how we are right we put our heads down we do what we have to do and then suddenly you're alone the doctor's appointments have ended your body is scarred your head is a mess and the whisper started I thought well I would feel a little better so I had a brief period maybe a few weeks where I picked it up again it did not go well uh nobody knew except my oncologist and it of course my body was so compromised that I couldn't metabolize it my liver enzymes were going up I never had anything like that and uh he said you just fought for your life are you really gonna let this take you out and that was it for me that's when I knew that's when I knew and that's when I um that's when I gave it up for good and yeah that's a pretty powerful statement you just you've just fought for your life are you really going to what did he say are you really going to let this take you out oh wow yeah are you really going to let this take you out because he realized well I realized as well that being compromised the way I was at that point that it it was not going to be a long road if I had kept if I had continued if I'd gone back to drinking it would have caused some serious damage very very quickly not to mention my mental health and my emotional well-being was was shot and certainly alcohol wasn't doing me any favors so that's when I made the decision to really dig in and do the work on every level physically emotionally spiritually to to get to get rid of this this damn thing it's interesting isn't it that uh we all in we're all intelligent people we all understand and accept that alcohol compromises our health and knowing this we still participate in consuming it why do you think that you were going through cancer treatment your body's changed you've literally given up parts of your body you're trying to recover you're trying to get through you you're an intelligent woman you know that drinking alcohol is simply drinking attractively packaged poison yes why do you feel that you were still so compelled to consume it even despite all of your health concerns that was the question I couldn't answer I felt like a mad woman I felt like I was going insane what the hell is wrong with me but now James I understand and you understand this because of what you do when I started drinking the way I drank after my mother passed and I was trying to cope with trauma my brain this primitive part of our brain right the fight or flight it learned that if we are in fear if we are in danger we have to protect ourselves whatever you do the brain learns that's what we do so having gone through cancer being left with physical pain physical you know scars emotional scars they liken it to um it's well it is pts uh and not knowing how to make sense of all of this my brain said wait I know this feeling we're afraid we think we might die and you're also left with the fear of recurrence of course that that the damn thing might come back so every time you have a headache every time a bone hurts is it is it back is it back so you're you're constantly in this hyper aware state my brain said well I know what to do I know how to keep you safe Victoria drink where's my stuff where's my medicine where's my safety that's what we do to keep Victoria safe and I had not yet number one understood that and more importantly change those neural pathways so that I had an actual safe thing to do so that my brain could learn that we're okay and that's why because believe me I had to get to the bottom of it and I think that's what led me into doing what I do today because I thought I am I that stupid am I that crazy uh but now I now it makes sense well of course it wanted alcohol it was trying to keep me safe it thought I was in danger so yeah you're one of our project 90 coaches now doing an outstanding job of helping our clients to thank you get power over alcohol do you see in our clients some of the same thought patterns or behaviors or feelings that you experienced around the time that you finally said no to alcohol or that alcohol was driving you to consume it and what are those same behaviors and thoughts and feelings that you see I do I think number one because as you say it's attractively packaged poison we are not adequately educated about what this substance is it is a highly addictive substance so if you drink enough of it especially under the right circumstances such as stress your brain will want it it's an addictive substance number two society what do they tell us if you're if you're upset if you're if you're feeling uncomfortable use alcohol it works nobody talks about what happens physiologically 30 minutes after you consume the alcohol and how the dopamine and the serotonin crash no one talks about that they talk about how good you're going to feel and so that's what we're sold we're sold that bill of goods and then finally there's the level of self and we all have that self right whatever it is we all have things going on in our lives that we'd rather not face maybe they're uncomfortable to face it doesn't have to be something as dramatic as cancer mine wasn't always as dramatic as cancer it could have been that you know my my kid got in trouble at school or or whatever right whatever your brain perceives as intolerable it's very natural that with enough time and conditioning physiologically and through society and through what we learn in our own body in the way that we walk through the world that yes I think to some degree all of our all of our members are experiencing this in very in varying degrees and that's why I don't like to quantify crisis or trauma my my trauma could have been much worse uh mine could have been much better I don't like to compare it's it's not the experience it's the feeling and what it produces in our bodies the the level of cortisol the stress response right so if that's happening in your body and you're using alcohol to to calm that down and not only is it expected in society it's discouraged if you don't use it then it's kind of a perfect storm to end up with these with these issues if there's one thing if there was one uh I wouldn't say trick but if there was one habit that worked for you to consistently remain alcohol-free what was it or what is it you're a coach in in project nine here I think what's one of the more effective ways of helping our clients to get power over alcohol certainly gratitude tempered with honesty about what is bothering us I was one of those who was always the glass was always always half full and I don't just mean my wine glass my wine glass was usually pretty empty no but my glass was always half full I was the one people would say oh this must be difficult oh but it could be so much worse well that didn't allow me to process the pain that I was in the anger the sadness the grief so yes you can have gratitude and you can also have honesty that yes I am grateful I am grateful to be alive I'm also very sad that my body went through what it went through I'm sad that it that I've gone through some of the things I have and it doesn't again it doesn't have to be anything that major it can it can be anything your feelings are your feelings so I think that's my my um that's the key for me is to always always stay in gratitude but also always acknowledge if I am having uncomfortable feelings and learn to deal with them in a healthy way and it doesn't always have to be pretty I can scream into a pillow I can turn on really obnoxious Lincoln Park metal music whatever whatever get it out don't keep it in because it gets in it's just like anything else it sits there and it festers and that's not going to come out in it in a good way so you may have heard me say on on calls before that whatever we do when we're alcohol free it might not be pretty but I promise it's going to be nicer than what we would have done with those feelings with alcohol in our system so I can wake up the next day and say well maybe I could have phrased that a little bit better but at least I don't have a dumpster fire because I didn't completely blow up and act you know just lose it on everyone because I haven't learned to process and express myself in a healthy way so yeah authenticity I guess is is a short way of answering that question you could have done many things when you came out of your cancer treatments and you got back to health and maybe you felt like you had a clean slate now you're you know ready for the future and you're ready to attack life in a really positive way and you've chosen to help people amongst other things get power over alcohol you could have done a million things why have you chosen this path because because when I when I when I see the world when I see the way that we are targeted with this addictive substance it ticks me off it makes me it I feel number one I feel duped because I am an intelligent woman I am a healthy woman and I felt a little duped that this junk was sold to me as a magical elixir and it's quite the opposite so the other reason is so I want to to create awareness so that when you're walking through the market and you see all of these all of these bottles especially the way they target women these days I mean the alcohol the alcohol related deaths and women have skyrocketed and it's because now they have all of these beautiful pink bottles and mommy juice and wine bottles even donate to breast cancer awareness month now I mean it's maddening so that gets me upset and when we get upset the best thing we can do is advocate and educate so I do that and the other thing is because when I realized that I was having an issue with alcohol there weren't women like me out in the public eye it was before social media the only women which they slapped labels on drunk moms alcoholic moms I thought they were the people you saw in the national inquire going to rehab I thought they were mothers who had you know unkempt children and there there was no one out there that looked like me who was intelligent who had her act together but had this problem and so I thought I never thought I would come forward with my story but after a while I realized I need to I need to because people perhaps one person will watch me and say wow that sounds like me I can relate to her huh okay it's not a character flaw to get to become dependent on an addictive substance that is expected in our society so if I can help people then you know like I say I'm still here I may as well make myself useful and how has your experience been so far as a coach within project 90 what's maybe you could just articulate what project 90 is and and how you felt about it so far as one of our top coaches now helping and working closely with our clients for our listeners or viewers here who may be curious about what the experience might be like what's what are your thoughts on it sure well I have followed you James online for a few years not not in a creepy way just observing what I always liked about the way you present this is it's not about being this or that it's not about labels it's about is alcohol making your life as wonderful as it claims it though is it if it isn't let's check it out let's see what it's like it doesn't matter if you're having two glasses of wine a few times a week and you're realizing that you're feeling bloated and a little puffy and a little fatigued your runs aren't as sharp as they used to be maybe you're not as ready for your morning meetings or if if you are waking up nauseous with a hangover and missing those meetings and damaging relationships there's it doesn't it doesn't matter it's just that question is alcohol making your life better if not come hang out with us and let's talk about it let's see what life looks like without it there's no judgment there's no labels you don't have to pick up any chips you don't have to shame yourself you don't have to just be yourself and that has always appealed to me and of course when I became alcohol-free that was that's that's the school of thought to which I subscribe and so that's why I was so excited whenever we when we were able to when I was able to join your team and the community is what's just so phenomenal I love to see someone come in you know and and they don't know what to say when they're looking into the video and introducing themselves and they're nervous and and they're just enveloped by the community it's okay you can say anything here we've got you and they say that in the next day they show up again and you can tell they're a little more comfortable they're a little more comfortable and then if someone's going into a challenging situation oh you know I'm going to see a bunch of friends I used to you know throw them back with and I'm having seltzer what am I going to do you can put that out there and you there's there's no judgment there's no labels there's nothing it's like I don't feel like drinking today and I don't know how to say that to people okay well we got you so I think the community is just incredible and then of course when we see our members graduate from the program and still stay in touch with the members there's real friendships that develop in there and so many times that's what we're seeking with alcohol is connection and what we come to find is that what we're seeking is just connection with people and you've done a phenomenal job of creating that and I'm just so happy to be a part of it and as you can tell sort of passionate about what I do so so looking forward to to growing with you and and just helping more people Victoria English Martin thank you so much for sharing your journey with us obviously you've been through some challenging times and it seems like you're thriving now does it feel that way it does it does I'm I'm I'm a happy happy woman beautiful I love that yes well thank you very much thank you for opening up and sharing your story with us and thank you for the outstanding work that you continue to do with our community inside of project 90 and if you are listening or watching and you'd like to send Victoria a message then please do where can they where can they send you a message Victoria um I don't know where can they send me a message have you got are you on social media I am on social media I guess you can find me at uh Victoria at afterthecrisiscoaching.com you can find me on Instagram at Victoria English 11 11 and Facebook Victoria English Martin all right lovely all right well thank you so much and we'll catch you on the next one thank you James thanks for listening to the alcohol free lifestyle podcast I want to load you up with some free stuff right now so if you want to go to JamesSwanick.com slash guide I will send you my quit alcohol guide which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals produce or quit drinking you can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222 if you're in the US of course it doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US but if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide text the word quit guide to the number 44222 or you can go to JamesSwanick.com slash guide if you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call with one of my top coaches just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you then you can go to JamesSwanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90 to the number 44222 if you're listening in the US on a mobile phone that's JamesSwanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90 that's one word project 90 to the number 44222 feel free to send me a direct message over on my instagram account which is at JamesSwanick you can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my youtube channel which is JamesSwanick one or you can direct message me on facebook at JamesSwanick official and finally a request would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review this will help the show get in front of even more listeners potentially transforming someone's life you can rate and review the show inside of your Apple podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop thank you so much and i'll catch you next time