Finding first previous 0 from starting cell - vba

Question

I'm trying to count the number of cells between two cells that I need to find with vba. The first cell is going to be in the same column as the current date today. The column headers are left to right in date order (May 1st, May 2nd, May 3rd, etc..). Once I find the column to begin with, I need to count the number of cells backwards that contain 0 until I find a cell without a 0. So say I'm starting in column U, I need to count the number of contiguous cells with 0 until say column R has a 1. My answer would then be 2 because columns T and S had 0's.
The issue I'm running into with the below code is that I'm trying to find first the column I'm supposed to be in based on the date (This part works). Next I'm declaring the rowNum as the activecell row number (This part work). Next I need to find which column to count backwards to (This part does not work). I'm getting the same column number on the colNum FIND code as I am the colStart FIND code.
I'm not getting any errors, it just doesn't seem like it's finding the previous cell with 0 and is instead just giving me the same column. I hope this is clear. Let me know if you need any additional info. Thanks everyone!
today = Date
colNum = Cells.Find(today, searchorder:=xlByRows,
searchdirection:=xlPrevious).Column
rowNum = ActiveCell.Row
colStart = Cells.Find(0, after:=Cells(rowNum, colNum),
searchorder:=xlByColumns, searchdirection:=xlPrevious).Column

Answer 1

Try this code:
Public Function countZeros(ws As Worksheet, rowNum As Long, colNum As Long, Optional stopColumn As Long = 1) As Long
Dim currentCol As Long
countZeros = 0
If colNum <= stopColumn Then Exit Function 'prevents going past a certain point (for example your label column)
For currentCol = colNum - 1 To stopColumn + 1 Step -1
If ws.Cells(rowNum, currentCol) = 0 Then
countZeros = countZeros + 1
Else
Exit Function
End If
Next 'currentCol
End Function
Public Sub mySub()
Dim colNum As Long
Dim rowNum As Long
Dim output As String
Dim today
Dim rng As Range
today = Date
Set rng = Cells.Find(today, searchorder:=xlByRows, searchdirection:=xlPrevious)
If rng Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "Did not find todays date, make sure your active cell is in the right location"
Exit Sub
End If
colNum = rng.Column
rowNum = ActiveCell.Row
output = "Total number of cells from " & Cells(rowNum, colNum).Address & " that have zeros: "
output = output & CStr(countZeros(ActiveWorkbook.ActiveSheet, rowNum, colNum))
MsgBox output
End Sub
With this data set:
you get the output:
Total number of cells from $K$7 that have zeros: 6