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I started smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol while in Form One at Lenana High School, Nairobi in 1974 to show that I was a "tough guy" and thus to impress girls

This was the impression many of us had from all the movie heroes, ranging from the late John "The Duke" Wayne to craggy faced Clint Eastwood. Tough-talking, hard-drinking types who always got the bad guy, then the girl before riding or driving off into the sunset.

From that first puff and sip began a harrowing 27-year joourney of horror, despair, confusion and anger. 27 years of lost opportunities and missed chances. It lead me initially to stealing from my parents to buy alcohol and later to stealing things from my own house which I sold for peanuts to maintain my drinking.

Constant nights in police cells for various reasons ranging from drinking at hotels with no money to pay bills, being found walking all over town at odd hours without identification papers to being caught up in swoops at night clibs or chaang'aa dens by the police as they sought to rid the towns or cities of "undesirables."

Finally on October 1, 2000, I landed at Asumbi Treatment Center, In Homa Bay and there for the first time I learnt the true meaning of what it meant to be an alcoholic.

What enormous relief to suddenly realise that I was not mad, or bad just sick. Feelings of depression which had even led me to attempt suicide in India, an attempt which left me in a coma for several days and forced my mother to fly out having been told to come and collect my corpse, feelings which sprung from the anger and guilt and helplessness I felt at the pain I kept causing my family all disappeared.

After being taken to all kinds of centers including to witch-doctors in South Nyanza here at last was the truth. I was alcoholic. I was sick. I had a chronic progressive illness which although could not be cured, could be managed.

All I had to do was abstain from taking alcohol. Once I understood and accepted this, my journey of recovery began.

Why had God spared me and not countless of my friends who had died? I do not know. All I do know is that I had a duty to pass this message I had been given so freely to others. To make Kenyans aware of the simple fact that alcoholism is a disease, and not a sin or lack of will or moral power.

For it is only by educating all Kenyans constantly right from primary school on what alcohol is and what its effects are that we accomplish demand reduction when Kenyans finally begin making an informed choice on whether to drink alcoholic beverages or not.

But most of all it is only by telling our stories that we will overcome the stigma which is currently killing alcoholics.

Together with my wife Eileen, we have started a non-profit organisation 'goinghomedotcom' to assist families of those living with an alcoholic as well as the alcoholics themselves, by talking to them and getting their loved ones into treatment.

The organisation would also create awareness on the disease and the drug that causes it especially through the media's wide reach, as I am a trained journalist and producer. From this last year we produced a 40 minutes documentary on alcoholism entitled Nobody Kicks A Dead Dog.

This video the first in a series, was launched at the French Cultural and Cooperation Center on August 21 by assistant minister for health Abdi Kochalle who stood in ably for the then minister of health, Prof. sam Ongeri.

Also present were the then health ministry PS, Prof Julius Meme, and the National Coordinator, National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA) Joseph Kaguthi.

The media too was amply represented including the Kenya Union of Journalists Secretary-General, Ezekiel Mutua at the function which was also organised as a mini work-shop by goinghomedotcom.

The video has since done extremely well having been sold to tens of schools and educational institutions throughout the country. But in keeping with getting the message to the widest audience possible the documentary was also aired on Citizen TV in December 2002 and then due to public demand in January, this year.

But to us perhaps the best thing the organisation has done is to put up its website to help not only families who are suffering, but those who want to get a better understanding of the disease of alcoholism.

This website is in fact the first of its kind in the region and a major breakthrough in using the so called 'dotcom' technology to help people 'go home.'

The site www.goinghomedotcom.org also has a permanent listing of various places one can go for help or advice and this list is being constantly updated. This site was my answer to the suffering my family and I went through, quacks and charlatans when we quickly discovered that even when finally accepted that I needed help, nobody seemed to know where to go next.

Right now I am happy to live one sober day at a time as I continue to create awareness by not only giving talks a schools, workshops and seminars all over the country but also through articles in the press and talks on radio and TV.

For it is only through our stories that the stigma will finally be overcome, for that is in line with goinghomedotcom's motto touching lives through inspiration.

The writer is a freelance journalist/producer who has personal experience with alcoholism. He can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com Website: www.goinghomekenya.org

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