The clergy had to realise that alcoholism was not a sin but a disease if they were to be of any help at all. In order to do this they had to change their current attitudes which could be summed up as 'demon rum' sermons.

Kenyan families were really suffering with their alcoholics and yet did not know what to do about the problem. Hence too because of the stigma surrounding the disease they preferred to hide their alcoholics instead of seeking help. This led to needless suffering and many deaths which could otherwise have easily been prevented.

The church was in a powerful position off having a constant captive audience and as long as they used this position effectively they could get the message of how to deal with alcoholics and other drug addicts across very effectively.

The church could easily show the correct way of handling alcoholics which was to get them to begin to take responsibility for their own lives. This was a most important message to help families stop trying to carry the alcoholic and cover up his mistakes and plan their lives around him.

"For if you keep getting me of of the police stations, paying my bills in the bars, and might debts to the taxicab drivers and other people I had borrowed from and generally sorting out all my problems, why then would want to stop drinking" posed this writer? "Life would be so good I would not want to stop! How would I be able to see the problems my drinking was causing, feel the consequences if you kept mopping up after me? You would merely be enabling me to continue drinking and blaming other external events and people as the reason for my sad situation." was the caution.

Trying to help the alcoholic by getting him or her jobs, colleges or 'things to do' was useless if the alcoholic was not ready to admit that they had a problem. One set of demands today would become a different set tomorrow with a scenario of constantly shifting goalposts.

With each failure even after one had gone to great lengths to set up things according to the alcoholics wishes, the alcoholic will still have something or someone to blame even as they come up with a new set of demands.

Therefore one ended up carrying the alcoholic without helping them and without bringing them any closer to realising that they had a problem. Thus the best one could do was to give the suffering alcoholic the message of hope and not enable them in their drinking by carrying them as they pandered to their whims and demands.

These sentiments were expressed by this writer before presenting the paper 'Alcohol Consumption and Kenyan Society - Bottled Heaven or Canned Hell?' Also presented was the paper 'Fatal Attraction - Kenyans Lethal Love Affair With Tobacco.'