I don’t define myself as a liver transplant recipient.
That didn’t change my life! It was a life-threatening situation, yes. But I did what the doctors told me to do. Diet, exercise, blah blah, and got fixed.
It wasn’t easy. There were setbacks. Like the time I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after passing out from low blood sugar. I was fighting with imaginary people while my wife was terrified that she was losing her husband. I dare say, the love of her life (her words, not mine). After that, I had to wear a blood sugar monitor that she applied religiously every time it needed to be changed. She did that for months and never complained. She must love me.
Her love also got me through eight months of a no-salt, high-protein, no-sugar, and no-fucking-fun diet. After surgery, she counted out the dozens of pills I had to take every day and somehow made popping hundreds of pills not so bad. She spent a month out of town in Arizona taking care of me at the end of the summer. The real blessing is her. The liver? I could have gotten another one. But Missy? She is one-of-a-kind.
But before the surgery came the real gift she gave me. She supported my sobriety.
Alcoholism is a family disease. Like it or not, it is true. To get better, I had to change or die. Missy changed because she wanted me to get better. The real life-saving for me wasn’t done by doctors and nurses. Don’t get me wrong—the doctors, nurses, therapists, sponsors, and all the caregivers are special people. They give of themselves 110%. They saved my body. But Missy showed me that I had to change and save my soul to deserve such a special partner in life.
As my 2-year transplant anniversary approaches, someone recently called it my “second birthday.” And while it is a second chance at life, my real second birthday is my sobriety date. In AA, we have our Birthday (our Sober Date) and our Real Birthday. We refer to the latter as our belly button birthday. By the way, Missy hates the term.
So, I write as one who considers himself an alcoholic, not just a guy who got a new liver. The liver was a blessing, and I am incredibly lucky to have received it. There are many less fortunate than me. I will not talk about that here; it is for another blog.
The difference is this: The liver transplant gave me a second chance. Sobriety gives me a chance to live that life, give back to the world, be present, worship my God—all three parts—and love my wife as a proper husband should. I live on because of a liver transplant. I am alive because I am sober.
I believe everything comes from God. God gave the scientists the knowledge to save me. God made the new liver a possibility. It is up to me what I do with it now. Science can cure a liver cirrhosis patient, but science cannot cure alcoholism. The founders of AA, in writing their famous Big Book, noted that while science may one day accomplish a cure for alcoholism, it hasn’t done so yet.
Alas, still no cure. But there is a solution; science just doesn’t hold it. Humanity does.
It is people working together that puts the disease at bay. Whether it is AA, SMART Recovery, LifeRing, or any other group. It is the group that saves us.
My Sober Day is the day I stopped being a slave to addiction, found the path back to my spirituality, my love for Catholicism, the blessing that is my wife, the humility to realize ugly Bill existed, and that I could trap him in a cage that would only break if I didn’t stay sober.
Sobriety is a lifestyle of doing the right thing and keeping my side of every street clean. Sobriety is what I live for day to day—one day at a time, helping others achieve sobriety. Sobriety is what helps me enjoy a beautiful day at the pool, and gives me the joy to look forward to vacationing. Because of it, I get to keep the memories of all the special days over the last three years instead of fucking headaches and blurred remnants of images I wasn’t even sure were real.
A bad liver was a massive roadblock, but alcoholism was a major car wreck. Walking away from the first was a piece of cake. The second is like owning a bakery featured on the Food Network.
I thank God for both. Without the liver, the rest doesn’t happen and I die.
But the sobriety is the real gift.
