For roughly two years, John Smith lived in fear that each day might be his last. After decades of alcohol abuse his liver had stopped working. John was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep; his body was swollen with fluids, his appetite disappeared. Occasionally, he would vomit. His legs, especially, were constantly in pain.

Just as bad was knowing that one day he might actually go to sleep, and never wake up.

A liver transplant at the end of October gave him a second chance at life.

“I’m a spiritual person and so I say by the grace of God [the surgery happened]. Why God has given me this chance I don’t know because I certainly didn't deserve it. I destroyed my health,” said John, who asked that his real name not be used.

He is full of gratitude – for friends, family and the staff in BF&M’s offices here and overseas that made his surgery possible. Jennifer Terry, in particular, put a lot of work into coordinating it all.

“I've got the best Christmas present anyone could ever ask for and that’s thanks to BF&M without a shadow of a doubt,” John said.

Without the semi-private health coverage he got through his job he would never have been able to afford the operation, which he believes could have cost as much as $1 million.

“The doctor said to me straight out: ‘This is the most complicated surgery that can be done on a human being today.’ It scared the bejesus out of me.

“If you don't have insurance, that [type of operation is] never going to happen. There’s so much gratitude I feel today.

“I just don't know how to repay some of these debts other than [sharing my story with Bermuda] to say thank you.”

John started drinking socially at a young age and was unable to stop.

“It progressed, unfortunately. I went to AA off and on for 30 years and it just didn't really take for me. Alcohol became my entire life.”

“Everybody knew” he was drinking too much and he was frequently told it could cost him his wife, his job and his life savings.

“But nobody really ever came to me and said, ‘You know if you keep doing this one day your body's gonna say you can't do it any more and you're gonna die.’

“I've heard horror stories, people who lost their families and lost their houses and were living on the streets, but they were still living.”

He got to the point where he would “shake and get sick” if he went too long without alcohol. To compensate John drank 24/7.

“The only cure for it was to drink, unfortunately,” he said. “Alcohol gives you a lot of things, it can make you someone that you're not. But in the end it takes it back from you tenfold.

“I was actually dying. I'm not stupid, I’m educated, but I didn't think that could happen. I honestly didn't think you could drink yourself to death.”

He hasn’t had a drink since May 13, 2022. It all came to a head when he was medevaced to Boston, Massachusetts, because of his poor health.

“You have to be medicated to get off alcohol. It’s the only drug that if you stop cold turkey, it can kill you. Any other drug – heroin, cocaine, all those – if you stop you get sick. Alcohol will kill you. If you're an alcoholic at my level and stop cold turkey you will die.”

Doctors determined liver failure and said he wouldn’t survive without a transplant but, to be considered, he had to be sober for at least a year.

In Bermuda, John initially struggled to get to a point where he could function with a liver in the state his was in, but eventually was able to go back to work.

“Even after I stopped drinking, I was dying from alcohol abuse. A year-and-a-half after stopping, I was getting worse due to alcoholism.

“It wasn't a great existence,” he said. “Unfortunately, my blood results were starting to deteriorate and Boston knew that.”

Almost as bad was “the mental part” of not knowing when a liver would be available.

“If you called Boston they would say it could be a day, it could be a month, it could be years down the road.”

In the meantime he was flying every three months so that doctors in Boston could monitor his health.

On October 25 he was at work when he got a call from Lahey Hospital & Medical Centre: we have a liver, but if you want it you have to come now.

BF&M got straight to work on the logistics. His wife was off island for a belated ceremony honouring her mother, who died during the pandemic.

Family and friends picked up the pieces including the care of his six cats.

The operation was a success; the swelling he had learnt to live with disappeared, along with 25lbs of fluid.

“I can't explain how painful [the incision] was when I woke up, I thought I’d made a mistake,” John said.

“But as far as the internal feeling, I felt better than I’ve felt in 30 years. My liver has been taking abuse for quite a long time and now that I have a completely healthy liver everything's changed.

“My clarity about life has changed. I can start to make plans and make goals. I couldn't do that before the surgery. It's just changed my life completely.”

He has returned to Alcoholics Anonymous and believes it will stick this time as his reason for being there has changed.

“I do know today that I can drink. I have a fresh liver at work and there's nothing to stop me from drinking, but I feel that the person that gave me this opportunity by losing their life deserves for me not to drink,” he said.

“I've had three years of sobriety, I had two years of sobriety, I had one year a few times, but I was always sort of white knuckling it.

“I never really did it for me. I was doing it for other people. I'm going back not because I want to drink, but I want other people to see that you don't have to go to the extent that I did before you stop.”

The clarity he has today has also helped improve his outlook.

“I walk into my house and everything in my house looks different; I look at my family life differently. I lost my stepfather, my dad since I was two, while I was away getting a liver transplant.

“I now have the ability to process it because my mind is clear. I'm not thinking about dying. That's all I thought about for the last year and a half – when it's going to be my last breath; the next time I go to bed, is that the last time?

“Now I'm not worried about that. I came to grips with dying but now I look at it differently. Now I need to live because I was given a second chance.”