My Reclaimed Life: Finding Peace While Defeating Alcohol, Cigarettes, Gluttony, and Sloth

In 2002, Ed Wyrick was fifty-one years old and everything looked great from the outside. Always among the first to arrive each morning at the high school where he worked as a counselor, he was well respected by his supervisors, colleagues, and the parents and students he served. In the previous twenty years, he had earned a doctorate at the University of Georgia; had two mystery novels published by St. Martin’s Press that were well-reviewed by Playboy, major newspapers, and publishing magazines; had short stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and in literary magazines; was on the cover of Writer’s Digest, a national magazine for aspiring writers; was a speaker at writers conferences; taught himself web design and developed and maintained websites for his school and others; and was a loving husband who raised three daughters as an active father attending school functions, soccer games, mock trial team competitions, and ballet recitals. In short, he was deemed a successful, talented, responsible, reliable, and intelligent professional family man. He was also an overweight active alcoholic, two-pack-a-day smoker with elevated blood pressure, a racing pulse rate, at least seventy pounds of excess fat, and triglycerides so high my LDL cholesterol levels (the bad kind) couldn’t be calculated. His glucose levels were prediabetic. In the end, the massive amount of alcohol he consumed for three decades had screwed up his bone marrow, which began producing red blood cells with corpuscles way too big. Big red blood cells lead to dementia and death. In August 2002 he began a journey leading to sobriety, serenity, and physical fitness.