Matt Maden, now 26, has been living on borrowed time since he was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis five years ago. Despite his desperate need he has only a 20 per cent chance of getting an organ because of the growing demand. ‘It’s really scary living with the knowledge that the odds are so heavily against you,’ he said. His condition was detected when he spent two weeks in hospital in an alcohol-induced coma – but even then he refused to believe he had a problem. ‘My immediate thought was, “It’s not the drink”,’ he said. The first time Mr Maden got drunk was at 15. ‘I remember waking up the next morning and my first thought was, “When can I do that again”,’ he said. Within a year he went from drinking eight cans of lager in a session to 16 in order to get a buzz. ‘After a couple of years I’d have to have maybe a bottle of spirits to go along with that,’ he added. ‘For a lot of years alcohol gave me confidence. Little did I know it would actually turn on me and it would start to control me.’ After his health scare Mr Maden left his home in Oxford to check into a rehab clinic in Bournemouth and has not touched a drop since 2007. His physician, Dr Varuna Aluvihare, from King’s College London, believes the binge-drinking culture is behind the increasing number of young people needing liver transplants. ‘Tragically, every year we fail to keep someone like Matt alive,’ he said.
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