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BIOSAFETY NEWS
Alcoholism digest with David Ogot
July/August, 2002

"Ting Badi Malo" (lift up your arms) was a big hit by the local, talented, dynamic duo Gidi Gidi Maji Maji and nowadays, that’s what I feel like doing (and many times do) every day when I jump out of bed and get ready to tackle a brand new, glorious and sober day.

So what's the big deal you might be thinking, seeing as you probably also get of bed feeling the same way? Is that something to write a story about? Well for me yes. For it is still a very novel experience, in fact one, which I have not had for well over ten years. Sounds strange? Well not once that I admit I am a recovering alcoholic.

I had got to a stage where when I did sleep it was after a binge. The obvious result was that I awoke with a hangover, craving for another drink or if had not been drinking for a couple of days a feeling if listlessness and general lethargy. This then is the story of how I went from the seemingly hopeless pit of an active alcoholic to the ‘ting badi malo’ stage of recovering alcoholic.

I first tasted alcohol in first form due to pressure from my peers and mainly also to impress the girls. Stole one of my father's beers but the taste was so vile I wondered why people drank the stuff and even seemed happy doing so? By this time my friends and I were dabbling with cigarettes as the image we all had of 'tough guys' from the movies was that he always had a lit cigarette from his lips; always drank (preferably whisky and from the bottle and he always got the girl and beat the ‘bad’ guy.

But girls or no it was not until the following year that after forcing myself during the holidays because friends were laughing and calling me a sissy and I really had to impress the girls that I was able to keep down a whole beer.

It was the Christmas holiday before going into second form and one I will never forget. Forcing beer down my throat and puking my guts out. Terrible headaches and nausea and overall, the taste. The ghastly taste. But I had to. For as my friends and I knew only too well, girls went only for 'tough guys' and tough guys smoked and drank. Thus now in form two I was not only smoking but also now able to drink. I was at par with my friends. I had become a fully-fledged tough guy.

That was the beginning, alas unknown to me, of a gut wrenching ride into the long, cavernous, dank, dark, scary tunnel of alcoholism. A tunnel seemingly with no way out the other end and no way to turn back. I seemed to be trapped heading to the inevitable end all alcoholics reach if they do not cease drinking; jail, institutions or death!. My school grades ultimately suffered and though I eventually got to India on the strength of my writing abilities, my one sided affair with alcohol did not allow me to get a degree. Alcohol was cheap and there was nobody to put a damper on my activities. I was answerable to no one except myself. It was bliss (or so I thought) nobody to ask me 'where were you?' Who were you with? Why are you late? Best of all no one to ask 'were you drinking?' One failed suicide attempt, a few missing teeth after a motorcycle accident (yes I had been drinking) umpteen scars from various misadventures, a visit to jail (yes jail, not a cell) sneaking into parks or rooftops to sleep, going to several towns and cities all over India (without paying train fair - Fob 'free on board' as it was known) no passport, no degree and four years later with only the clothes on my back, I was back in Kenya. The only thing I had to show for it was the massive manuscript for a novel.

Sorry, I forgot. There was something else I came back with. My alcohol dependence or alcoholism unknown to me was still with me and stronger than ever. But this disease is strange or as described Alcoholics Anonymous, (AA) 'cunning, baffling, powerful.' An alcoholic does not see that the problem is within him. They always blame others or events around them. This is the nature of the disease and this helps the alcoholic continue denying the fact that it is them who have a problem.

Now began a series of jobs and being sacked. Somewhere in all this turmoil I managed to get married to a wonderful lady whom I had known since my high school days (and am still married to by some miracle) until finally no one would employ me as word had got round that I was unreliable.

But I was now into comedy and music under the stage name Nyamabite hence money for drinking was now not a problem with the added plus that nearly all the entertainment was done where alcohol was not only freely available, but the audience was also drinking and buying for me ‘apewe’.

But the more I drank the more unreliable I started becoming - sometimes to the extent of forgetting I had a gig somewhere with the inevitable result that I would arrive later or not at all.

This went on until early 1988. I was applying for a visa to the United States of America when I saw a newspaper ad for the same course. This was to be at the Mohamed Amin Foundation, which had been newly established by his son Salim in memory of his late father. This world renown photojournalist had died a botched hijack attempt of an Ethiopian Airlines plane.

In the face of skeptics and fierce competition, I secured one of the six places on offer and begun the course sober. This was what I had always wanted and since the course content was heavy I felt I could 'suspend' my drinking until graduation day. All went well until towards the end of term and my bugaboo reared it’s ugly head and I was kicked out. No exam, no diploma.

Even I who was always optimistic and all along felt my problems were due to other people or events beyond my control and not of my causing felt as if my world had come apart at the seams. Film making had always been my dream and here now it seemed I had blown my only chance.

I now took to drink with a vengeance. When I was 'high' everything was viewed through rose coloured glasses. There did not seem to be any problem that I could not solve and my resolve to get back at the world which had conspired to bring me down only strengthened. But at the back of my mind, try as I might to blanket it in a fog of booze, was a little niggling thought trying to burst forth into the light of my reasoning that maybe, just maybe I did have a problem with my drinking.

Still I was comfortably wrapped in my warm cocoon of denial which is every alcoholic's forte and still trying to find the right 'combination' of brand, time, venue and company that would allow me to drink normally like my friends. In short, I had not admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and that it was alcohol and not the world that was responsible for all my problems. Without this admission, there was no hope on the horizon.

Chang’aa (a local fire water which in it's adulterated form has killed tens of hapless Kenyans) was now a regular tipple on my DDS (Daily Drinking Services). It was cheap and the characters one met in the dens were not critical of my drinking habits. In fact in the dens, we were all one big happy family. But the binges were getting worse. I experienced my first blackout which contrary to what most people think is not a physical passing out after overindulgence, but a memory lapse.

Until one experiences one, it is literally impossible to imagine how scary it is to wake up and not remember portions of the last few hours or even a whole day. The brain has simply no record of events and one is left wondering what happened? Where did I go, with whom, how? Did I misbehave? And the worse it got the more I drank so as not to think about it and to smother feelings of guilt.

I was getting into nasty scrapes and barely squeaking through by the skin of my teeth. Ordering drinks all round for my 'friends' in luxury establishments while well aware I had no money to pay. Taxis to a friend’s place to borrow or con-money. It became like a game to see how I could talk my way out of it. Who was the smarter one them or me? Well I could not have been that smart judging by the number of times I was tossed into police cells. Something had to change. By this time, even I realised that something was wrong though I still did not see that it was the alcohol. The last straw came when I was kicked out of my main chang'aa den when the other customers complained to the 'mama' that they would not drink there if I did. The reason was simple. A skin rash, which had started on my forehead, had spread all over my body and I looked weird to say the least. It also looked deadly infectious hence the apprehension.

David Ogot is a freelance journalist/producer who has personal experience with alcoholism. He can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com