To Patients & Caregivers suffering from Alcohol and Addiction related Liver Disease in need of a Transplant
Disclaimer: Please always seek the advice of your health care provider. Treatment programs for substance use disorder are available on an inpatient or outpatient basis. Detox (if needed) and long-term follow-up management systems of care are vital. Recovery is a lifelong process.
To Patients- Evaluation & Honesty
My experience of Transplant Evaluation. What Truth we need to find within ourselves and what Truth your transplant team needs to feel from you.
To Patients- You are Good: Surrender & Hope
Surrender, Compliance and Humility set us Free. Our disease is not moral; you will always be a beautiful, good person. Find your Truth and hold fast to it. Do this for yourself.
To Caregivers
Some words of care and advice for our precious Caregivers.
A LONG-TERM GOAL:
One of our long-term goals is to encourage more transplant hospitals to consider adopting a sub 6-month transplant sobriety policy. For decades, transplant centers across the United States have followed a practice that requires patients to abstain from drinking alcohol for 6 months to be eligible for a liver transplant. Most hospitals and transplant centers seeing patients with liver failure due to alcoholism or opioid addiction won't consider transplanting them at all. But for many patients with end-stage liver failure, this is certain death- they will not survive that long. This devastation reaches wide through families and loved ones.
Alcohol is the third most common preventable cause of death, and alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) accounts for half of worldwide liver-related deaths. Studies have shown that transplanting patients sub 6-months has the same outcome as 6-months+ when it comes to risk of recidivism. The truth is, both routes are inherently risky if a patient and their support team do not address the living daily need to come to terms with the root of their disease- the necessity for practical action on a spiritual basis.
This is how we hope to bring about this change- by demonstrating this in all our affairs. Establishing a comprehensive support system. So shining examples of transplanted patients (those of UCLA, particularly) who received such mercy and grace and who practice this pragmatic spiritual program of sobriety, may lead the way by example. The desire to change must come from the patient. To do it for themselves. We try to open that door and light the way.
As with the programs we work, are we patient with this goal. It will never be achieved through self-righteousness; doubts and skepticism must be endured. Our conduct must lead the way.
The diseases of liver failure may be remedied with a transplant. There is no cure for addiction. There is instead, daily acknowledgment, spiritual self-reckoning and purposeful action. A joyous thing. A second chance- for all touched by this.