I am an alcoholic. I know this just as I know night from day. The miracle of it all is that I have not
touched alcohol for almost twenty years now. I have no intention of doing it ever. All I know is
that if I started drinking alcohol today, even just a sip, I’d go right back to those nightmare days.
An alcoholic is addicted to alcohol just as a heroin addict is addicted to heroin. It is not at all
easy to stop being an addict of anything. People have this tendency of looking down their noses
on addicts thinking “they have brought it upon themselves, they can stop if they only want to”.
It’s never as easy as that. Addicts should be looked upon as sick people who need help from
family and the larger society. They just happened to take a wrong turn and tripped into a hole
they are unable to get out of.
Let me now narrate the role my parents, other early mentors and the environment I was raised
in played in predisposing me to alcohol addiction. I will say some unflattering things about my
parents. But do not for a single instant be misled into thinking that I have no respect for them or
that I didn’t love them. My parents loved me and I loved them completely. Their contribution to
what I turned out to be were usually born of ignorance and the parenting traditions of those
times. Certainly there was no malice. I was always a sensitive child. I was exhilarated by happy
times and it follows that occasions that brought on unhappiness affected me drastically. I
abhorred violence of any kind. I hated being shouted at or an environment where angry noise
was the order of the day. Sad to say my father was a shouter, not just a shouter, he literally
roared. His abuse of my mother was savage.
A violent, drunken parent does untold damage to his family, especially children. My father used
to come home once a week. I awaited his coming home with dizzying trepidation. I knew well
there would be fighting and screaming once he arrived home drunk and ready to beat up my
mum. Shouting from dad and screaming from mum and us children as we implored him to stop
the battering. The fear and anxiety these weekly events produced in me cannot be described. I
would brood and worry in between. I used to wet my bed and I now know the reason why. With
my natural sensitivity I think the fights at home affected me the most. I do not judge my late
father and have some beautiful memories of him. In those days there was an unwritten creed
that wives needed to be beaten to keep them in line. (It was even said that some women
believed that if they didn’t get a beating now and then their husband’s love for them was
suspect!) I remember mum waking up early the morning after to cook breakfast for his man as if
nothing had happened the night before. She would then escort him to the bus stop almost a
kilometer away. What they spoke after such a violent night only God knows!
The fights at home created a deep sense of insecurity that would manifest itself in my seeking
safety and assurance in other pursuits other than at home. I would play truant at school and
associate with older boys who were not very good role models. Mum was often called to school
due to my vanishing acts. That lady was tough. I would receive a lashing by the headteacher in
her presence that would leave my bottom sore for days adding to my accumulated hatred of
school. Rather than school becoming an acceptable and pleasant diversion from the pressures
exerted on my young soul by the toxic atmosphere at home it became my pet hate. To add to
the trauma of living in fear and expectation of violence in my home and at school came the
towering tragedy of losing my mum at just age eleven. This event convinced me that the world
was a dark place full of continuous suffering with little or no good to look forward to. I became a
withdrawn child who saw little in the better side of things. In those days caning of children in
school for the smallest infractions was the order of the day. Teachers had real power and were
highly respected in the community. A teacher was always right. You got five canes vigorously
applied for being five minutes late. We used to walk on our knees on hot, rough ground till our
knees bled. The parents approved. Children were to be disciplined for their own good and any
manner of punishment could be meted out in pursuit of this goal. Being the sensitive child I was
I hated school for this violence on my body. I tried all manner of excuses to avoid school but of
course my parents wouldn’t allow it. So in addition to the terror of my father was added that of
my teachers. Fear fear everywhere. I became a mass touchy nerves with doom staring at me
from every corner I turned. Thus passed my early childhood. To this day I don’t know how I got
through primary school. I entered my teens with a morose outlook to life that could only expect
the worst.
As I entered into my teens I started to actively discover my environment. Of relevance to this
story is the discovery of alcohol. My aunt was the leading muratina (Gikuyu traditional alcoholic
drink) brewer in our area. We were virtual neighbors and I of course visited her regularly. I
would watch with fascination as customers came in and in a matter of minutes change into
totally different characters as the muratina did its thing.
Most would come in quietly and make their order. After the second cup or so of silence they
would start talking and the more they took the more assertive and incoherent they would
become. Even people I knew as gentle and kind would become different. The beer appeared to
make them more lively and confident. Some would even become aggressive and abusive.
Others would become highly entertaining with song and dance. Unmentionable words would be
freely spoken. Aunt too would start drinking and when it got the better of her she’d ask me to
sell.
A time came when I started being inquisitive. Initially it was just a few sips. It did not taste nice.
It took a while to get used to that sharp taste and smell. But then I discovered that if I closed my
eyes and swallowed a whole cup at a go without sipping it would become easier to drink it more
slowly later. In this way I became drunk for the first time in my early teens and the rest is history.
I felt a freedom I had never known. That sense of foreboding, a clawing fear that gnawed at my
belly would disappear. My shy withdrawing nature would change like magic and suddenly I was
able to talk like the rest even do a jig or two.
My fears were gone! Just like that. Alcohol opened a new world to me. From retiring to talkative
and even assertive. I had my first successful fight, beating up a seventy year old man! I was on
top of the world while drunk. I even had the courage to approach that magical creature, a girl!
I was in the mid years of high school when I started my drinking exploits. I eagerly looked
forward to weekends when I’d dash home to go ”assist” aunt sell her beer. I should point out
that our village economy had the selling of alcohol as its mainstay. Aunt specialized in muratina.
Others specialized in chang’aa which was the more dominant drink.
Chang’aa is a most deadly type of alcoholic drink. It burns like fire as it courses down your guts
and its effects are sudden and dramatic. It takes less than a minute to take effect. Thus a
person can enter a den, swallow a cupful in one gulp and come out drunk all in the space of a
minute. I’m not exaggerating, all in one minute. It’s therefore a darling of alcoholics. Once you
get into chang’aa no other drink will ever satisfy you. It costs a fraction of all other alcoholic
drinks but it’s effects are immediate and deadly. It can be prepared anywhere at any time in the
village. Along streams and in bedrooms. All it needs is a little privacy and cold water to aid in its
distillation. And of course the connivance of the police who receive regular bribes to turn a blind
eye to the manufacture of this killer brew. Parliament may pass as many laws as it wishes in an
effort to extirpate this destroyer of man but their efforts are of no avail unless the community
itself decides enough is enough. I have lost countless friends to this lethal vice but alas it keeps
happening.
I diverted a bit because I felt that chang’aa the killer brew needed special mention. Thank God
for small mercies for had I got into chang’aa drinking as early as I did with muratina I wouldn’t
have been able to continue with school.
It’s incredibly important that a child gets a good start in life, especially during the first five years
of its life.
Then came a singular day. I had drunk to oblivion the night before as was often the case. I
usually didn’t remember how I got home. Then this morning I woke up, still half drunk. I looked
across at a small table that stood by the side of my bed. On it was money! This was new. I was
used to having nothing in my pockets after a night of drinking. Even if I had a thousand shillings(
a lot of money then), I would still have nothing left over the following morning. Drunkards have a
crazy kind of comradeship and generosity where you buy for all your fellow alcoholics when you
got money. Some of it is also stolen by den mamas through unreturned change. The mamas
watch like hawks to gauge your level of drunkenness and are able to know when you’re so
drunk you can’t remember to ask for change. They earn more this way than from peddling their
illegal drinks.
So you can imagine how surprised I was to find money on my table. It crossed my mind then
that the day before I had placed the money on the table while mid-drunk and been called
outside by a fellow drinking pal. He’d struck pay dirt and had money to burn and wanted to buy
me a drink. So I just locked my door and left leaving my money behind inadvertently. Here was
money enough to make me blackout drunk in the next several minutes. Me and my friends.
Instead of rushing to get my drink I paused in thought and found myself deliberating within
myself why this should not be my last day of drinking. I felt myself calling on resources within
me I didn’t know I had. I called on God silently to strengthen me. I woke and had a bath. The
first one after many weeks. I felt good. I rarely ate. I went to a nearby kiosk and bought some
bread and eggs and made myself a great breakfast. I felt different. Once I had finished with my
breakfast I lay back on the bed to analyze this new me. Satan is never too far during such
moments.
My stopping to drink was not an event but a process. I did not go to any rehabilitation center or
take any medications. But here I am getting ahead of myself. I used to lose job after job. I lost a
wife and good friends. I lost respect from family and friends. I did things and took risks that
make me shudder to this today. I think the word reckless was invented for a drunkard’s life.
There are years that remain blank. Years you can’t remember a thing about since you walked
through them in a drunken haze. The need for the next drink being the all controlling motive for
living. A craving that controls every cell, every sense in your body. It is unexplainable, only
another addict can understand it. You forgot food, decent attire and all normal human needs to
obtain that drink. During moments of clarity I would hate myself as I looked at myself and saw
the thing I had become. I would swear and kneel down on my knees as I pleaded with God for
release. I would realize I was not normal. But the claws of alcohol would clutch at me and draw
me back despite all prayers and pleadings. I was a slave, the worst kind of slavery. Neighbors
even started counting the days when I’d be dead. I could go for days without food and looked
like a drunken, walking skeleton.
Then came a singular day. I had drunk to oblivion the night before as was often the case. I
usually didn’t remember how I got home. Then this morning I woke up, still half drunk. I looked
across at a small table that stood by the side of my bed. On it was money! This was new. I was
used to having nothing in my pockets after a night of drinking. Even if I had a thousand shillings(
a lot of money then), I would still have nothing left over the following morning. Drunkards have a
crazy kind of comradeship and generosity where you buy for all your fellow alcoholics when you
got money. Some of it is also stolen by den mamas through unreturned change. The mamas
watch like hawks to gauge your level of drunkenness and are able to know when you’re so
drunk you can’t remember to ask for change. They earn more this way than from peddling their
illegal drinks.
So you can imagine how surprised I was to find money on my table. It crossed my mind then
that the day before I had placed the money on the table while mid-drunk and been called
outside by a fellow drinking pal. He’d struck pay dirt and had money to burn and wanted to buy
me a drink. So I just locked my door and left leaving my money behind inadvertently. Here was
money enough to make me blackout drunk in the next several minutes. Me and my friends.
Instead of rushing to get my drink I paused in thought and found myself deliberating within
myself why this should not be my last day of drinking. I felt myself calling on resources within
me I didn’t know I had. I called on God silently to strengthen me. I woke and had a bath. The
first one after many weeks. I felt good. I rarely ate. I went to a nearby kiosk and bought some
bread and eggs and made myself a great breakfast. I felt different. Once I had finished with my
breakfast I lay back on the bed to analyze this new me. Satan is never too far during such
moments.
One day I woke up with a powerful desire to leave the life of drunkenness behind me. Severally
such desires had come over me. I would stop drinking for a day or two but then find myself right
back where I have always been, drunk. A few days before an unusual even had occurred.
A devout aunt of mine who believed she had prophetic powers came to me one day and with a
lot of gravity informed me that God had revealed to her that I won’t make it to December of that
year. I think it was only a few months to that fateful month. I was my village’s chief DDO (daily
drinking officer). Unusually, I wasn’t drunk when she informed me about my coming demise. I
was quite shaken as you can imagine. She told me I needed to stop drinking as well as change
my ways if I wanted God to spare my life. And it ended there as an hour or so later I was drunk
as a Lord. Having completely forgotten the prophecy of my inevitable doom. Maybe her words
continued working in my subconscious. It was a few weeks later that I woke up with this
passionate desire to stop drinking and turn a new leaf. I had drunk heavily the night before with
one of my drinking buddies and was still groggy
when I heard this persistent knock at my door. I didn’t answer the knock but waited to find out
who it was. It was the very same friend we’d been carousing with the night before. ”Get up, I
want to buy you drink till you drop ”,he called out. I would have shot out of bed to go get my free
drink. I sweated as the craving started to work on my resolve. But then I looked into myself and
hardened my resolve not to obey his call. I kept quiet as he knocked repeatedly. He even
abused me. He could see I was within as the door was locked from within. I couldn’t understand
why I didn’t rush out to join him but I stood my ground. Eventually he got tired and left, muttering
curse(Incidentally this friend died a few months later from alcohol poisoning). I guess that’s how
evil forces grumble when their fiery darts of temptation fail to get their mark. I knew I had won. I
could feel the resolution take root within me. I was free! Just like that. Everyone that looks for
deliverance from an addiction or other vice will be called upon to pass this extra test which for
me came in the form of my friend offering me FREE drink just when I had decided that I’d drink
no more. I resisted. It was the enemy’s last strategy which badly failed. As day after day passed
I became a different person. People gave me a week then two and so on to get back to drinking
after which they began to accept that I was a different man. And to this day, over twenty years
later, thanks be to God, I have not touched a drink. The smell of alcohol even nauseates me now.
You have it in you to decide today to stop drinking or any other vice. Call on God who sees
sincere desire and He unleashes inner resources that He has freely given you. Break free from
the chains of slavery beloved. I applied the same principle three years later to release myself
from tobacco addiction. It isn’t easy and I give all the glory to God. But I can assure you it is
within a ”sincere desire to stop” away. Not just wishful thinking or looking for a sudden miracle
to occur to pull you out of your addiction. God forces no one. Take the first step of faith and God
will take all the other extra steps to deliver you. This has been written and dedicated to all those
who are suffering under the ruthless yoke of addiction, any addiction. You can be free. I invite
comments for those who need further information and assistance. I am available for discussion
on this critical matter at any time.
Categories: Struggle With Alcoholism
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