Life in the Fast Lane

A Tale of 2 Lives

Most of you know I was formerly a musician before becoming a doctor.  That lifestyle… on the road, eating junk food, no sleep, smoke filled bars…. Oh my… that was not healthy at all.  I was living that until my late 20s.  I didn’t know any better at the time. My life is completely different now.

I lived with a briefcase full of OTC medications, aspirin, Sudafed, Triaminic, Nyquil, Chloraseptic, lozenges… This was my daily routine.  The show started at 9 generally, and went until 1am.  So, after the previous night getting to bed at 3am or so, I'd get up around noon, go down to the venue, rehearse for a couple hours in the stale cigarette smoke from last night’s crowd. After this, I'd go back to the band room, rest, eat some more junk food and come back to the venue at 8 or so to start the routine.  Depending on where I was in the weekly cycle, my voice losing strength as the week went on, I'd be using more and more of the briefcase drugs.  

The warm up prep: I’d start with coffee, which I don’t really like, but the caffeine helped dry up my chronic loose cough.  But, I’m super sensitive to caffeine so I get the jitters which makes me play keyboards poorly with more mistakes.  So, a beer would kind of balance that out.  But, I'd still have a cough and snotty nose everyday, so I'd start with Sudafed or Triaminic at a half hour or so before the show.  Which, cleared my throat well enough to perform.  By 11pm or so, I’m starting to feel the effects of the wear and tear and my throat now hurts to sing, so at this point, I’d spray the Chloraseptic on my throat between songs until the encore because it covered up the pain.  I did that for a good 5 years or so. I recognized a familiar smell when 5 years later I was in cadaver lab doing human dissection in anatomy. The smell was unmistakable. I had smelled this before, many times. I still had that briefcase in my basement with the drugs still in it. I looked on the Chloraseptic label and sure enough, formaldehyde. A known carcinogen. I'd been spraying my throat down with a carcinogen in the middle of a smoke-filled room for about 5 years. You dont' know... until you do.

Like I said though, I was sick all the time.  We generally worked Tuesday through Saturday nights back then.  Sundays I would be reduced to a hoarse whisper, getting my voice back a bit by Monday and ready to hit the stage all over again Tuesday.  I was the typical skinny, pasty white rocker.  My family thought I was starving and I recall coming home one day to bags of groceries on my steps as my sister was worried I couldn’t afford to eat.  That was actually partially true.  I survived it so far, but try to live now like I got a cancer diagnosis.

I quit that lifestyle in 1987 and moved toward a healthier lifestyle.  But, it takes years to learn and make it part of your routine.  It takes decades really.   The drummer I worked with back then, Roger, has already passed away at 54 years old from that lifestyle, as he continued the same habits right up until he died of cancer.   He said this to me a day before he died: “Dan, had I known it would be this fast, I would have done it differently.”  He was referring to how quickly his life was over and that he should have made changes earlier.  Well, he didn’t learn until too late.  We have the opportunity.

The food we both ate back then was largely convenience food. Gas stations pretty much only had hot dogs on the roller grill, jo jos and Nachos with Cheeze Whiz orange goo.  And, that’s what we’d eat on the road, supplementing with McDonald’s or Burger King. Or when in town, my favorite junk food, the now defunct, Clark’s Submarine on the east side of Saint Paul.

It was mostly just terrible food, terrible sleep, terrible exposure to toxins and some other recreational toxins for good measure.  That produced exactly what you’d expect for health.

At the time, I didn’t know better.  I think of this when I’m trying to help people.  You don’t know until the day you learn it.  For whatever reason, they don’t teach these things in school

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Nobody around me then thought this was bad for you.  In fact, everyone around me did the same thing.  Many of the musicians from then are still playing.  But, the results of that lifestyle over the last 40 years has put most of them in chronic disease states.  Many dependent on anti-hypertensives, cholesterol medications and diabetic.  Here’s an earlier blog specific to heart disease if you want to learn how to reverse it.

https://www.vibrantlifecenter.com/post/healthy-heart-workshop-notes

I played with a couple different groups this weekend.  I had the chance to chat with one rocker who stood out because he was unlike most others, fit and energetic and he, like me, was also in his 60s.  He was drinking out of a large jug of water, which he brought from home purified by a very high tech water purifier.   He wasn’t eating any of the junk food either.  I don’t know how long he’d been living this lifestyle but he was such a sharp contrast to the rest of the cast who as I said, are mostly living on prescriptions and in between scheduling surgeries for cardiac appointments or other surgeries.  This rocker was on no medications and hefting the gear as part of the crew, just like a 20 something.

It's not genes.  It’s not luck.  There are fundamental rules about how the body works and what it needs to be healthy.  Look up Blue Zones on Netflix, it’s a documentary about lifestyle and living to 100.  Here’s their website Home - Live Better, Longer - Blue Zones.   This should be good news for everyone.  It means we aren’t destined to get sick or disabled.  We are largely in control of our health destiny.  It’s not up to the doctors treating us.  It’s up to us.   

Health choices are not made at home, they are made in the supermarket or when you’re out and about looking for lunch or dinner.  I have a problem myself if junk food gets in my house.  The problem is….  I’m eating it.  End of story.  You bring mint chocolate chip cookies in my house, I’m not throwing them away.  So, we don’t buy it and bring it into our house.  I find it far easier to walk past them in the supermarket then in my cupboard. 

Just like it’s quite easy to drive by fast food places.  I have no interest in eating it.  By the way, if you’re out and about on the road, you can stop at gas stations now and find good food now.  This wasn’t true in the 1980s.   Now though, most have apples or carrots and somewhat clean proteins in addition to many selections of water of various filtering technologies.  So, no excuses.  You no longer have to eat Pringles or dried out roller weanies cooking since 2am that morning just because you’re on the road.

Lastly, you can “buy” a lot of grace for bad food choices by getting adjusted regularly.  If your nerves work well, you can tolerate more nutritional and toxic stress.  So, no judgement if you are still drinking diet Coke and eating Pop Tarts, just get adjusted.  You’ll do better too.  I offer these tips because you need to learn it first, THEN start making it part of your lifestyle.  We’re all works in progress, myself included. Think baby steps.

Dr. Barrett

Vibrant Live Center

651-777-3611