MIND YOUR LIVER. IT NEEDS YOU. ™
Liver Awareness Foundation was born from a catastrophic liver failure experience, and built for a new generation that’s ready to ask harder questions, challenge the stigma, and finally talk about what’s been ignored for too long.
MIND YOUR LIVER. IT NEEDS YOU.™
I’ve never been more excited or more terrified to put this out into the world. And I mean all of it. My silence. My shame. My mistakes. The wreckage. The rebuild. The talking about it.
The “What happened to you?” questions.
The “So… is there something still wrong with you?”
The “We never knew anything was wrong with you.”
Neither did I.
No, I am not sick now. But yes, I fought a long fight to reverse stage 4 cirrhosis and lived to tell the story.
My years of white wine eventually caught up with me.
And I am deeply grateful to be alive. There’s a strange kind of liberation that comes from choosing to fight. Really fight. And facing your beast. It’s a confrontation I’ve had with myself many times, alone in front of a mirror, peeling back every part of me that I hated myself for, including the decisions I buried.
That’s how I found my why.
Healing in solitude.
I was on vacation when I first started noticing the symptoms. Absolute confusion. My belly hardened. My mind clouded. Still, I had no idea I was in liver failure.
You know, when your one consistent cycle of self-abandonment is suddenly met with the cold reality of organ failure, the very organ keeping you alive, everything changes.
Your soul rises to the surface.
MIND YOUR LIVER. IT NEEDS YOU.™
I realized I’d been distracting myself for years. From my emotions. My potential. My own responsibilities to me. My dreams. What I wanted.
I gave everything to everyone until I was empty. And I wasn’t aware of it. Not at all, back then. I forgot about me. Once, I bought a sign that said: “Friends are therapists you can drink with.” It made me laugh. Of course I bought it.
But looking back, it wasn’t funny. And deep down, I knew that. That’s why I bought it, right? The “haha, all is going to be OK not going to happen to me” right?
But how often do therapists actually come over for a drink?
You’re not meeting your therapist for half-price wine Wednesdays. That was me, knowing I was avoiding something.
I never thought this would happen.
We’re here to create a safe place where young people are informed. Without shame. Without judgment. With tools I didn’t have.
If you are here right now, know this. We see you. You have been thought of in every single step we’ve taken to build LAF.
No matter where you are in your journey, whether you’re struggling with lifestyle habits, coping behaviours, personal relationships with alcohol, or living with any form of liver disease, you are welcome here.
Always.
Let this be your sign. You are not alone. And you never have to be again.
We are building a movement that empowers young adults to understand their liver. Not just in medical terms, but in emotional, mental, and lifestyle terms.
A movement that connects liver health with emotional distress, coping, alcohol, eating patterns, and the habits we hide behind.
When nutrition drops, so does liver function. When alcohol numbs, the liver takes the hit. When it is rarely talked about, the silence becomes deadly.
That is why Liver Awareness Foundation was born. This work is informed by clinicians, researchers, and led by lived experience.
To bridge the silence.
To give voice to what we are really facing. To support mental health.
To offer education.
To create real tools and peer spaces for young people navigating risky patterns before they become crises.
We are not here to judge.
We are here to wake people up. To educate. To empower.
And most of all, to humanize liver health.
I didn’t stop. And I won’t stop. This is not my story anymore. It belongs to every young adult who deserves to know sooner.
To the mental health warriors, the health professionals, the students, the researchers, the clinicians, the experts, the advocates, the quiet supporters.
This is your invitation.
Help us build a future where young people are informed, supported, and never shamed for what they didn’t know.
Our founding principle is the one that saved mine:
Mind Your Liver. It Needs You.™
With love,
Vanessa Wojtala
Founder & President, Liver Awareness Foundation
