How My Medical Records Got Me Fired Up At Age 40
For those who don’t know me, I will give a quick background.
I am 40, married with two young boys. I am part owner of a family business. From age 18 to age 38, I was a heavy social drinker. I boozed hard (10–15 beers on a Friday and/or Saturday and often once during the week). I have also struggled with obesity throughout this period and eventually that impacted my heart health. In late 2023, I decided to give up the booze and get my shit together. Since then, I have lost 90lbs (down from 342 in December 2023) and have kept off all but 16lbs (working on that).
So my purpose with this long ass post is that I want to shed light on something that I wish I had the maturity and mindset to do something about 10–20 years ago.
I have struggled with obtaining life insurance for obvious reasons, I have a small amount personally that I was able to secure in 2012 but since then it has been many denials by underwriters. Recently, I applied for corporate insurance through my business and was turned down by all but a high risk insurer who agreed to insure me with a high premium, cardiovascular exclusions and an annual requalification. Not ideal as a 40 year old but I get it now. When I asked the broker why I was so rated, they said there was a note in my records that mentioned “Alcoholic Cardiomyopathy”. I thought to myself, this is a bit extreme — I was never an alcoholic and not to mention, half the people I know booze hard on the weekends and have forever and those people are perfectly healthy.
So, the other day I requested copies of medical records so that I could see for myself what it read and maybe have the doctor put an amendment in my file to reclassify that the cardiomyopathy was caused by a number of variables and not just alcohol.
Fast forward to after reading through my records. I have been on blood pressure meds since age 18. Has a period of about 8–10 years where I was inconsistent with taking the meds which resulted in constant high blood pressure at times. These instances were all noted in my records. It was also noted that I was obese (well over 300lbs for most of 20s and 30s) and was too liberal with alcohol use (shame on me for being honest lol). Of the 350 pages of records, at least 30% mention alcohol use and obesity. As a result, I had a low ejection fraction of 37% in 2017 and had AFIB in 2016 which they tried multiple cardioversions to reverse and eventually did a cardiac ablation in 2018.
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Every doctor told me to lose weight and stop drinking but I never complied. I always thought that was just something doctors had to say.
What hits hard in reading these records is you can see (and so can insurers) how complacent I was after doctors continuously encouraged me to do better. It is documented.
After reviewing all of this, I was first pissed at the doctors for painting me as a fat drunk. Then after some reflection, I was pissed off at myself for being satisfied with being a fat drunk for half of my past. Now to say I was a drunk is being hard on myself. I drank to have a good time with friends and the thought of quitting drinking at the time meant that I would lose those friends. I have learned that is untrue — it is a mindset that needed changed.
The positive behind this exercise is that: I did quit drinking finally in December 2023 — took long enough but I did it. And I did lose weight — I need to lose more but I am now putting less stress on my heart. Lastly, it made me realize how important it is to take care of yourself. I am not perfect today but I am aware of how my choices can affect my longevity and to be honest, with these records, I have some data that I can look at to ensure I am trending in the right direction as far as my heart and my labs.
In addition, this has lit a fire under my ass more than ever. To read through records that paint you as a fat drunk that doesn’t care about his health that date back to my early twenties makes you want to do everything you can to separate yourself from that guy. I am 268lbs as of earlier this week and I plan to be below 250lbs at the end of Q4 this year (at a minimum). I have what I feel is a solid plan that will help me get there — I just need to follow the path and do the things. I have a track record of letting off the gas but I know I can do it and this motivation should keep me pressing ahead.
What could I tell my 30 year old self knowing what I know today? Do better. Make better choices. Listen to your doctors. Everything in moderation. Exercise more. Take more of an interest in your health.
When doctors told me to cut back, I looked around to others who boozed like me and had no issues and I normalized it — thought they were just being keeners. What I didn’t realize, is that they weren’t 300lbs, they didn’t have hypertension, they didn’t fuck around and not take their meds, they were more active. Honestly, I don’t know that I would have made a change earlier if I would have pulled those records in 2015 instead of 2025 — probably not. But if you are a big guy who has too many beers, I can say from experience that the damage you do in your 20s and 30s can make you feel like a failure when you hit 40s. So if you can do something to change that trajectory now, do it.
A bunch of years ago, this information would have flattened me. I would have said fuck it and continued to booze and eat like junk. Today, I am highly motivated to change the narrative of my health picture moving forward. I will keep you posted.
Note: I am not anti drinking. I had the best times having beers with buddies. But not everyone is the same and booze affects everyone differently so be aware of that. If you can crush 15 beers and your ticker is still good — get after it. I’ll crush 15 heineken zeros right beside you.
