Tracee Metcalfe, MD

On Oct. 5, 2024, I stood on the summit of Shishapangma in Tibet and became the first American woman, and third American ever, to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks. It had taken nearly 10 years and 21 expeditions to get there.

But the harder climb, the one no one saw, started long before that.

My love affair with mountains started when I moved to Breckenridge after high school to compete at mogul skiing. I stayed in Colorado for college and medical school, graduated Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), and chose the University of Washington (UW) for residency because it had a reputation for being one of the hardest programs in the country. I took a job as a hospitalist in Vail, worked as an expedition doctor on my vacation time, and in 2016 summited Everest as the team doctor. My peers voted me Physician of the Year. I never did anything halfway. None of that protected me. The addiction did not start with Percocet. I had been struggling with alcohol for years. But a Percocet prescription for a legitimate injury crossed a line in my brain that I could not uncross. By the time I understood what was happening, I was afraid to ask for help because I was ashamed, and because I feared what my colleagues and my profession would think of me.

I wrote prescriptions for a patient who did not exist for my own use. When I was caught, I lost almost everything. My job, the privilege of practicing medicine, the identity I had built my entire adult life around. Without medicine, I was not sure who I was anymore.

I think about my best friend from residency. We helped each other through our grueling rotations at the UW, ran four marathons together and were in each other’s weddings. She was one of the best doctors I knew, but she was struggling with something I could not see. She was given the same chance I was given: get help or stop practicing medicine. By then, her disease had taken over and would not let her believe there was a way out. She died from an overdose in the summer of 2024. I was in Pakistan climbing when I found out.

We had the same training. The same knowledge. The same access to help. I accepted treatment. She could not. That was the only difference.

After I lost the ability to practice, I returned to the mountains since they had always been my refuge. A place where the math was simple: work hard, prepare, and you will likely succeed. No judgement. With no patients to see and no shifts to cover, I poured everything into climbing. In 2024, I had five peaks left and set out to climb them all in one year, traveling to Nepal, Pakistan, and Tibet, where I finished on Shishapangma.

People assume the mountains taught me humility, and that is true. Above 8,000 meters you learn quickly that you cannot do it alone. You depend on your team and the climbers around you. You learn to say I need help, and no one thinks less of you for it. What I could not see was that recovery required the exact same thing. I tried to get sober on my own, without the Colorado Physician Health Program (CPHP) and without truly embracing the 12-step program. Doing it my way did not work. I relapsed, and that scared me enough to finally start listening to others.

I wish I had listened sooner. If I had reached out to CPHP before things became irreversible, before the DEA came to my office, before I stood in a federal courtroom and pled guilty, I believe my path would have been easier. I might not have lost the ability to practice for two years, and I would not carry the permanent consequences that I do.

In late 2024, the Colorado Medical Board lifted the restrictions on my practice with the stipulation that I stay in monitoring with CPHP for five years. I am now three and a half years sober and my life is completely different. I found IDAA, the International Doctors in Alcoholics Anonymous, and have become deeply involved in helping other physicians in recovery. I learned I was not alone.

I share my story because I know what it feels like to believe there is no way out. Recovery is possible. Discovering IDAA and working alongside CPHP gave me the hope and tools I needed to do it.

If you are reading this and you are struggling, you are not alone. As many as one in five women physicians will face alcohol use disorder during their careers. You do not have to hit the bottom I hit to ask for help. CPHP is there. You just have to reach out.

I will be sharing more of this story at the CMS Annual Meeting this September. I hope to see you there.