What had to go, and what I got back
In 2018 I was in the hospital with end-stage liver disease, and a doctor came in and looked at me in a way I have never forgotten. It was almost like she was mourning me. Like this girl is not going to make it.
Then she said something I never had to hear twice. If you ever have another sip of alcohol, you will die.
I never had another sip.
I am not going to tell you I did that on my own, because I did not. GOD is the One who took it away from me.
The cause has to be removed
I want to be plain about why that mattered so much, because it is not only about alcohol.
Whatever brought you here has to go.
That’s the hard sentence, and I’m not going to dress it up for you. But I’ll tell you what’s waiting on the other side of it, because I’ve been standing there many years now, and it is so much better than I ever thought it would be.
For me it was alcohol. To a liver like mine, that is what it was. Poison. For a lot of people it is the food. The ultra processed, the packaged, the things that were never really food to begin with. For some it is a medication, and that one is a question for your team rather than something to stop on your own. However it happened, our livers were handed the same job over and over until they were overwhelmed.
If we keep on poisoning our bodies, then even the good we do alongside it is not really the point.
When the cause cannot be removed
I have to be careful here, because not every cause can be taken away.
Some people are here because of an autoimmune condition, or a problem with the bile ducts, or something they were born with. There was never anything to put down. If that is you, please hear me: this page is not telling you that you missed a step.
Remove what can be removed. Where nothing can, the food and the moving still do their work, and they do it for you exactly the way they did for me.
And here is the awesome part
Most of us got here by doing the same thing over and over. That is consistency. It is the hardest thing most people ever try to learn, and you already have it. You have proved it.
If you know you can consistently do something that hurt you, then you can absolutely consistently do something that helps you.
For the ones who got here the way I did
If you got here through alcohol, this place is for you.
I did not go to a group, and I did not go to rehab. That’s just how it went for me. You do what feels right for you and your situation. Mine was that GOD took it from me, and that is my story rather than my instruction.
What I can tell you is that the day it went was not the day everything got worse. It was the day everything started becoming something else.
I even thank GOD for having end-stage liver disease in 2018, because it’s what got me into this blessed life that HE’s given me. A life without alcohol, and a life abundantly overflowing with so much more.
“HE lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; HE set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
— Psalm 40:2 (NIV)
May you be blessed with the knowing that it keeps getting better from here, and with the day you look back and find the stronghold is not there anymore.
Prayers, blessings and broccoli sprouts, 💛✝️🥦🤗
Emily
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