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Jane’s husband is thunderously banging at the door again, causing the neighbours to peep from their windows in this up-market neighbourhood to observe what has become a common occurrence.

As she opens the door, he takes a swipe at her belligerently mouthing obscenities, asking why she has taken so long to open the door. She however manages to dodge his clumsy swing, but before she can scamper into the safety of the bedroom, he somehow manages to get hold of her.

This time the wild blow catches her squarely on the mouth, splitting her lip cleanly, sending pain lancing up to her skull. Gasping, she manages with the cunning and desperation of a cornered animal to slip through his clutching fingers and makes a dash for the front door for he has effectively blocked her escape route to the bedroom.

Though she is not aware of it, she is screaming. Loud, pitiful pain-riven screams of terror and desperation. In a flurry of pattering feet, Jane races down the short flight of steps, glad not for the first time that they live on the ground floor then - disaster. She misses her footing on the last step and is sent sprawling.

In seconds he is upon her, no husband this but an enraged beast intent on inflicting as much pain and damage on her as he can. A well-aimed kick sinks into her side, driving all the breath out of her. ‘Somebody help me, please somebody help me’ rattles around in her head. A silent plea for salvation.

Then he is dragging her along the ground by her hair, and before she can do anything a whole lustrous, handful of her long beautiful hair comes off in his hands and suddenly she sees red.

Espying a nearby rock, she picks it up in one fluid motion and without thinking lets fly. More by luck than any dexterity on her part it lands with a sickening thud on his forehead and with a whimpering, almost comical moan he sinks to the ground unconscious.

Jane tries to get to her feet but she is shaking and sobbing uncontrollably as the adrenaline plays havoc with her systems both physical and emotional. Her dress is torn she notices almost idly making a futile attempt to cover her almost exposed breast.

Then harsh voices and she is being yanked roughly to her feet. Vaguely she realises that someone must have called the police, noticing too that quite a crowd of other tenants have gathered around this sorry scene.

Through the haze she hears several voices accusing her, saying that she is always fighting with her husband, who is a very nice, polite man who would never hurt anybody.

"Maybe once in a while he has a bit too much to drink," one man states "but he is a very humble man. It is this woman who brings problems." There is a murmur of assent from the gathered onlookers.

Jane cannot believe what she is hearing and before she knows what is happening, she is being bundled into a police car. Shortly thereafter she has been charged with assault and is tossed unceremoniously into a cell. Her husband is admitted in hospital with a concussion.

‘What will happen?’ she thinks desolately knowing that if anybody in her office gets wind of this, it is an automatic sacking. How could this have happened to her she wonders?

Two days later, the cell door clangs open as her name is called out. Two days of hell. Her husband has withdrawn the charges. "It was a misunderstanding," he assures the policemen his bandaged forehead concealing eight stitches.

He stands there as she walks out disheveled, and assures her that it is okay. “It was my fault,” he grins ruefully at her. "I shouldn’t have been so annoyed with you. I am sorry it won’t happen again."

Jane’s heart melts at the sight of this distressed fellow, her husband. ‘My God!’ she thinks to herself in horror. ‘I could have killed him. Anyway he is sorry. It is over. Now, maybe he has learnt his lesson and we can go back to the way things were before.’ They leave arm in arm as behind them the policemen laugh.

But it is not over and things will not go back to the way they were before. On the contrary they will only get worse as her husbands drinking escalates.

The beatings will increase, accompanied by mishaps he himself will undergo constantly injuring himself and even landing in hospital. He might kill her in a drunken rage, and probably kill himself when sober and the enormity of what he has done this time sets in.

This will be accompanied by loss of job, which in turn will lead to more drinking and ultimately more nasty incidents as a consequence of this drinking.

But why can Jane not just leave? Why does she put up with this vicious cycle? Or better still why can she not get him help for the man is obviously an alcoholic? Why when this is as plain as day to everyone else does she stubbornly blind herself to the obvious?

The biggest obstacle to an alcoholic getting help is the person closest to them be it the spouse, parent, friend or even employer. This might seem a paradox but which can probably best be summed up by the Alcoholics Anonymous support group’s definition of the disease - "cunning, baffling, powerful."

For alcoholism not only grips the person drinking, but the significant others. All become sick, with only the manifestation of this being different whereas the common denominator remains alcohol.

The alcoholic has bad reactions and consequences resulting from their contact with the alcoholic and so do the people closest to him or her. So much so that they are all locked tight literally in a wild dance of death.

Unless this deadly tango is halted, or one partner walks off the dance floor, the end is inevitable. Yet that is not all, for this usually fatal musical extravaganza has more ingredients to spice it up and prevent those involved from seeking help.

These are shame and stigma, one stemming from the latter. For centuries of reviling and loathing coupled with moral outrage of biblical proportions poured on the drunkard have left their mark on the alcoholic. Yes, they are different.

Yet to the collective, unreasoning mind of society a disease called alcoholism does not exist. The reality of the matter is that these are weak-willed, morally depraved and according to the church and other religions, sinners!

They are people without will-power, which is the most commonly touted description branded on those who abuse alcohol. For when one looks at them, it is inevitable to compare one’s own ‘normal’ drinking pattern with those of this unfortunate.

"Why can’t they drink like me and everybody else? Why don’t they know when they have had enough? I mean I do not have a problem with alcohol so why should anybody else? There must be something wrong with them." Well there is, but not what you think, not the myths couched as died-in-the-wool truths.

For if looked at dispassionately would one not notice the discrepancy in the ‘will-power’ argument and indeed most of the other arguments against alcoholism being a disease?

That someone goes out to drink in spite of their deteriorating health, losing their jobs, dignity, and respect. That wives or husbands threaten to and in many cases finally leave, property is lost, they are hospitalised, injure themselves in falls, fights and car smashes.

Brushes with the law, nights in police cells, and finally nights on the street with no one to care for them, but still they doggedly, determinedly, single-mindedly - drink! That in my book is the epitome of will-power.

Such a person who is so seemingly hell-bent on maintaining his path to self destruction by refusing to give up the one thing which is the fuel of his destruction, such a person in my mind is imbued with a singularly strong will-power.

But such is the power of millenia of myth and misconception that this stigma is hard to break and for those related in some way to this person or is married to them the shame which the drinking person should feel is mainly then felt by them. It rubs off indelibly on them.

Now begins an all out effort to put on a face for the public. ‘Everything is all right’ and if someone, a friend, a neighbour or relative is being very nosy, ‘things will sort themselves out. We are just having a slightly rough patch. As soon as the promotion issue is sorted out things will be back to normal’

This front is what allows the alcoholic to continue their drinking and hurtling down the opposite road to treatment. This shame and stigma imposed by society prevents even relatives, friends or employers from seeking help, for by admitting that help is needed, they would have to fes up and use the big, bad ‘A’ word. Alcoholic, and that would just not do. Why? Anything else but that. Stigma. ‘Cunning, baffling, powerful!’

So loved ones jump from person to person, with everybody they consult giving different advice even as they package it as the real deal. All night prayer sessions, medicines, psychiatrist’s, witch-doctors, herbalists and all kinds of quacks.

All the while the alcoholic drinks and if proper, informed help is not sought, ultimately he succumbs to one of the three inevitable fates that befall an alcoholic who does not quit - jail, mental institution or death.

David Ogot Sr.
12.06.03
Nairobi, kenya

David Ogot is a freelance journalist/producer and a recovering alcoholic. He can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com or visit him at www.goinghomekrnya.org

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