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by David Ogot snr.

Saturday Nation Magazine September 8-14, 2001

The myths and stories which surround alcoholism are as myriad and as assorted as the different brand names.

Basically, though, there are only two types of alcohol - methyl alcohol (methanol) and ethyl alcohol (ethanol). It is methanol, when added to your kumi-kumi or other illicit brew that causes blindness, coma, even death. To understand the disease, alcoholism one must understand the substance, alcohol, an oddball combination of food, chemical and drug capable of creating exquisite pain or pleasure.

Ethanol, the active ingredient in your beer, wine or spirit, is made by fermentation. Typically, yeast (a fungus with a hunger for sugars, found in food grains, fruits, berries and other plant materials) eats natural sugars and releases an enzyme which converts them into alcohol.

Because yeast expires when alcohol concentration reaches 13 - 14 percent, natural fermentation stops at this point. Distillation continues the process where the yeast leaves off. (Alcohol is derived from the Arabic word alkuhl, meaning essence).

The percentage of alcohol in distilled liquors is commonly expressed in degrees ‘proof’ rather than as a percentage of pure alcohol. This measure developed in the seventeenth century from the English custom of ‘proving’ that an alcoholic drink was sufficient strength by mixing it with gunpowder and attempting to ignite it. If the drink contained 49 percent alcohol by weight or 57 percent by volume it could be ignited.

Proof is approximately double the percentage of pure alcohol. Thus 100 proof whiskey is 50 percent pure alcohol; and 86 proof whiskey is 43 percent alcohol.

Since alcohol is a derivative of sugar, and sugars can be absorbed directly into the bloodstream without any chemical change (without digestion) it is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. Once in the body, it is carried to wherever the blood goes.

In a healthy person weighing about 70 Kgs, the blood circulates throughout the body in about 30 seconds. That means that within thirty seconds the alcohol will have passed throughout your fingers, heart, liver, brain, earlobes, everywhere! You now have alcohol in your body.

Let us begin our journey into alcoholism

With all the stories that abound and the dozens of articles that have been written, none seems to answer clearly the seemingly simple question namely, what is alcoholism? Yet every Tom, Dick and harry can tell you what an alcoholic mlevi Kiswahili for a drunk.

What exactly is a mlevi? Well there is a drunkard, irresponsible, a person who spends all his time in the bar, broke, unkempt, no fixed abode, shiftless, vagabond, jailbird and so on.

So is thin an alcoholic or are these merely manifestations of alcoholism or alcoholic behavior?

Alcoholism as defined by The Concise Columbia Encyclopaedia is "a chronic, illness characterised by the habitual consumption of alcohol to a degree that interferes with physical or mental health or with normal social or occupational behavior."

In simple terms if you drink until it interferes with your health and social, family and work relationships, you are an alcoholic.

But what causes it and why is it tat the many can drink socially yet others descend into alcoholism?

There are several reasons advanced ranging from racial or ethnic groups); biochemical imbalance (too much of one thing, not enough of another); Psychological (mind and will, guilt, stress, resentment) and socio-cultural (peer pressure, problem drinking in the home).

But some of these "causes" could very well be "effect". Nobody knows the answer.

But one thing we do KNOW - alcohol does not cause alcoholism. If that were the case anyone who drank alcohol would become alcoholic.

Defining an alcoholic

According to consultant psychiatrist Dr. Fred Owiti of Arrow Medical Center, "an alcoholic is someone who is controlled by alcohol but denies it" he reckons that alcoholism is a much bigger problem than narcotic drugs in this country, save for the fact that alcohol is socially acceptable.

Dr. Marx Okonji, a consultant psychiatrist at the Chiromo lane Medical center, defines an alcoholic as "a person whose dependence on alcohol has major effect on mental, physical and social life and he/she cannot perform in the absence of alcohol" Dr. Okonji believes that thousands of deaths as a result of alcoholism are wrongly attributed to other causes such as heart failure, liver failure, road accidents etc.

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