Alcoholic Matt Maden, 26, who needs a new liver sits by the phone waiting for a life-saving call

January 10th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

He was drinking 16 cans and a bottle of spirits as a teenager
Diagnosed with liver cirrhosis when he was 21
Only stands a 20 per cent chance of getting the donor liver he needs

By
Leon Watson

Last updated at 9:45 AM on 10th January 2012

A young man who started drinking at the age of 10 is desperately waiting for a life-saving liver transplant.

By the age of sixteen Matt Maden was regularly drinking eight cans of lager at parties. That soon became 16 cans and a bottle of spirits as well.

Now aged 26, the student is living on borrowed time and is constantly by the phone waiting for news of a donor organ.

Matt Maden has only a 20 per cent chance of getting an organ because of the massive demand for donor livers

Mr Maden, from Bournemouth, Dorset, was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis, as a result of alcohol abuse, when he was 21.

Since then, he has had three life-threatening bleeds. He has also had a stent – a plastic tube – placed into his liver, to prevent fluid from building up in his stomach and lungs.

Despite his desperate need, Matt has only a 20 per cent chance of getting an organ because of the massive demand for donor livers.

Dr Varuna Aluvihare, from King’s College London – where Mr Maden’s transplant will take place if a suitable match is found – says one in five patients die on the waiting list.

‘Tragically, every year we fail to keep someone like Matt alive,’ Dr Aluvihare said.

‘We don’t have enough organs at the moment and someone like Matt could be on the list for about 18 months.’

Alcohol-related illnesses cost the NHS £3billion a year and the UK economy £50billion a year say experts

Mr Maden said: ‘It’s really scary living with the knowledge that the odds are so heavily against you.’

The first time he got drunk was at the age of 15. ‘I remember waking up the next morning and my first thought was, “when can I next do that again”,’ he said.

Mr Maden said he built up a ‘strong tolerance’ to alcohol. ‘I went from drinking about eight cans of lager to get drunk and then, say a year down the line, it’d take maybe double that,’ he said.

‘After a couple of years I’d have to have maybe a bottle of spirits to go along with that.’

Dr Aluvihare believes society’s binge drinking culture is to blame for a lot of alcohol-related illnesses today.

‘More people of Matt’s age will be coming and seeing someone like me,’ he said.

‘And you really don’t want to be coming to see someone like me, because by that point you’re in real trouble.’

Mr Maden, who eventually ended up drinking alcohol at all times of the day, said his social life ‘started to decay’ as a result.

He said: ‘I started to become a bit more reclusive. For a lot of years alcohol gave me confidence.

‘Little did I know that in the end alcohol would actually turn on me and it would start to control me.’

Mr Maden said he is no longer ashamed to admit he is an alcoholic.

‘But when he woke up in hospital in 2006, after being in an alcohol-induced coma for two weeks, he said he was in ‘total denial’.

‘My immediate thought was, “it’s not the drink”,’ he said.

Mr Maden, who is originally from Oxford but moved to Bournemouth to attend a clinic, had four weeks of physiotherapy to learn to walk again before he could undergo rehabilitation.

He said: ‘I’m glad to say I haven’t had a drink since I moved down here four and a half years ago.

‘How I behaved in the past was really, really selfish. I can’t imagine what I must have put my family through – it must have been heartbreaking.

‘I know I can’t change the past but I think it’s what I do today, and in the future, that matters now.’

Alcohol-related illnesses cost the NHS £3billion a year and the UK economy £50billion a year, say experts.

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Tough luck. Weren’t so clever after all, I Fred think about the misery you would have caused as you grew up.

– dave ross, Doncaster, 10/1/2012 11:08

I had a friend who’s life fell apart because of drink, she lost her kids and her husband and eventually her life, she was a decent, kind human being who in the end just wanted to live long enough to see her grandchild (she didnt) she wouldnt or couldnt admit she had a problem even when she was at deaths door. She drove away everyone who tried to help her including her sister, nothing mattered but her next drink. But having said all that – did she desearve a liver transplant instead of someone who was ill through no fault of their own most definately YES. Illness comes in all shapes and sizes and we never know who its going to strike and in this modern age of binge drinking things can only get worse, so before you condem this young man think of the people in your life who you love and care about and who goes out every weekend and gets smashed and ask yourself would they desearve a transplant?

– Lynda Henderson, West Lothian, Scotland, 10/1/2012 11:05

Im ashamed to be one of the people who thinks alcoholics don’t deserve my liver. Im ashamed because these are real people, and addiction is a disease. They chose to start drinking, but they didn’t choose this fate. But no matter how ashamed I am, I can’t help feel it would be better placed.

– laura, derbyshire, 10/1/2012 11:05

There are far more deserving cases than this one and the thousands of alcoholics like him who need a transplant. It appears that he has given up the habit and for that he should be congratulated. I am an organ donor and I carry the card, but I would probably turn in my grave if I knew that my good liver was going to anyone other than a person whose liver disease was the result of more natural causes.
I think alcoholics and drug addicts who need new organs should be made to pay the NHS cost of the transplants and the anti-rejection drugs they are likely to need for the rest of their lives. And let’s face it, if they do carry health insurance, it is likely to be either invalid on account of their habits or refused them in the first place. If the insurance industry refuse to pay, I see no reason why I should pay through my hard earned taxes.

– John Whetton, Nottingham, 10/1/2012 11:02

How does a 10 year afford to drink?

– Flatroofer, Radnor County, 10/1/2012 10:56

Stories like this make me seriously reconsider my registration on the Organ Donor list. If only we could specify the circumstances in which our organs are donated I think there would be many more who would then register. This man wouldn’t be on my list of approved recipients of my liver, if I had the choice.

– Sarah, Hampshire, 10/1/2012 10:55

I am really appalled by some of the comments on here. Our human race has become, mean, uncaring and judgemental because they read a ‘point of view’ in an article and automatically condemn the person. Whether he ‘deserves’ a new liver is not the point. He has the right to be saved as any person does and who is anyone to say he doesn’t? If he was standing before you begging for his life would you say ‘sorry mate tough luck’. It would take a pretty heartless individual to do that, I certainly couldn’t no matter how aggrieved I felt at his self inflicted illness.

– Nads, NL, 10/1/2012 10:53

clearly many of you did not actually see the programme last night that featured this young man!!!
His story is tragic, yes he did a stupid stupid thing, but alcohol addiction is a sickness, and the age he started drinking it will become an addiction a lot faster, he was too young to understand the implications of his actions, however he has now been sober for nearly 5 years, and done much to turn his life around! He is one who does deserve a second chance. How many of you smoke and would be first in the queue if you needed new lungs???????
It would be good to see this young man front a campaign to bring home to the young of this country today the consequences of their binge drinking culture!
Combined with the Radio 1 DJ, lets hope this will help them realise they are killing themselves with excessive drinking!

– Fed up , UK, 10/1/2012 10:52

I am waiting for a kidney transplant after getting sick at the ge of 13 through no fault of my own and it kind of disturbs me that they use such people of examples of people waiting for transplants. Whilst I empathise with him I think people will more likely not to donate the more they hear of stories like this. Give us some positive stories of people waiting and receiving donated organs and encourage people to donate something which is so precious to them after they have gone.

– Frantique, Australia, 10/1/2012 10:45

This story should be included in PHSE lessons in schools. Might dissuade a few teenage binge drinkers from ending up in the same state. I seriously wish this guy all the best and hope he does get his transplant. He was only a child when he started on the rocky road of drinking; I would guess there was some family dysfunction behind this and at that young age, you think you are indestructible. Where were his parents when all this was going on? Did no one try to treat his addiction? We dont know the full story here so let’s not stand in judgement.

– Moominmamma, Moominvalley, 10/1/2012 10:41

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