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"Is there hope for an alcoholic?" wonders the heading on the homepage of my website (www.goinghomedotcom.org) a question I typed in seemingly another lifetime and to which many Kenyans daily await an answer.

Four days ago on Wednesday October 1, 2003 to be precise I celebrated three years to the day since I first set foot at Asumbi Treatment Center, in Homa Bay District. Three years since I started my life as a sober person. Three years in which I have been sober (apart from one relatively brief relapse in the beginning) and not drank any alcohol or smoked cigarettes.

Three years in which I have written thousands and thousands of words on the subject of alcoholism. Three years, three regular columns in the media, numerous television and radio presentations, one regular newsletter and one documentary and a website under my belt.

Three years in which I have talked at various fora and to different audiences all over the country. Three years of counseling, families and individuals on the subject of alcoholism. Three years of being happy and celebrating with them as they succeeded in getting onto the road to recovery or crying with them where we could not seem to make any headway or failed outright.

Three years of rediscovering my family, my children, my wife, of rediscovering myself. I could go on and on, but in short all I am trying to say is that it is three years since I surrendered.

Yes - surrendered! I stopped fighting the fact that I was alcoholic. I stopped denying. I gave up trying to hang on while blaming everybody and everything under the sun as my reasons for drinking, always finishing pathetically "so if it wasn't for", I would not be drinking like this." As they say in recovery 'when you get to the end of your rope - let go.' Or better yet 'when the horse dies, dismount.'

With surrender, came the knowledge that I was no longer a prisoner of stigma nor shame surrounding the disease of alcoholism which had shackled me and my family helplessly and thus prevented me from getting help much sooner. With this surrender came acceptance and with acceptance - freedom!

Freedom to get on with my life. Freedom to get well for alcoholism is a treatable disease. Yes I was an alcoholic. I could never safely drink again. Simple. A chronic disease but manageable.

With this freedom came other gifts. One, I was not useless, or weak-willed and morally bankrupt with no guiding or motivating purpose in life, I was sick. Then there was the biggest gift of all, that of God's love, for in recovery there is space again for God and acceptance of His love and mercy.

Where would I have been now had I continued drinking? Most probably in jail, a mental institution or dead, as is the way with all alcoholics. I meet many of my former drinking acquaintances who always try to palm a few shillings off me (as I always used to do) to go and get themselves a drink and I say to myself 'there but for the Grace of God, goes me.'

Three years might seem a very short inconsequential amount of time to most of you out there, but not so for me. When I have been drinking for 27 years, three years sober is a lifetime, to hear my children's laughter and to laugh with them. To try and untangle the emotional ropes my alcoholism has bound them with along with my wife.

Yet I have been accused of suffering from the fanaticism of the recently converted, of campaigning, nay crusading against alcohol and wanting to have it banned. But nothing could be further from the truth.

How you drink and what you drink is your problem and has nothing to do with the cost of tea in China for me. If you want to drink yourself senseless everyday it is none of my business for it is your money and your life.

I simply go round telling Kenyans or writing about the disease of alcoholism so that the myths are cleared. I talk about the simple truth of surrender for those who would listen. Nor am I trying to control your drinking or tell you how to drink.

My message is only for those who feel they have a problem with alcohol, whether personally or a loved one. It is only for those who feel they need assistance or help in quitting. I stand up publicly and admit I am alcoholic not to win a contest, but to tell others who are still shackled by the bonds of shame and stigma that theirs are bonds based on ignorance, an ignorance with often fatal yet unnecessary consequences.

To tell them not to despair for they have in their possession a magic wand and all they have to do is wave it and their fetters will drop away magically. The name of that wand, 'surrender.'

But the truth be told, it is for a more selfish reason I must admit that I tell these stories and write or publish these articles. It is for myself, for by doing so as rap artiste Eminem would say, 'I'm cleaning out my closet.'

By telling my story all over the place and why I had to stop, I keep myself sober and my being sober I now know is a matter of life or death. Thus it is for my sobriety first and then and only then for those who would feel the need to act on my story.

So what is the main lesson I have learnt after three years drug free? Well, that's easy and that is that there is no difference between me and the 'wet' alcoholic who is having his whisky, chang'aa (fiery illicit local hooch) or beer even as you read this and me, no difference at all except one drink.

He or she who has continued drinking with a vengeance as the disease progresses even as I have been writing and practicing abstinence is an alcoholic as much as I am with only that one drink separating us. Should I ever forget that I am alcoholic (as I once did) I will be sitting right next to them again.

I have learnt that 'the further I am from my last drink, the nearer I am to my next' for abstinence and recovery are two very different things. Abstinence is a decision done in an instance while recovery is a way of life, living each day as it comes and trying to become a better person while recognising that you are not perfect.

Recovery is a journey for life, taken at your pace with time out to smell the flowers and laugh (and cry) on the way. Of growing spiritually and accepting myself as I am, knowing that yesterday is gone forever, tomorrow I know not what it brings or if indeed it will come and that it is only today which is cash in the bank.

Would I drink alcohol today if they discovered a pill that could allow me to drink safely again? No way! Life with a sober unclouded mind is to good to give up for the foggy living of alcohol filled days. Alcohol would not add any value to my life.

So what does my report card say for the last three years? Simply this 'making good progress, but definitely room for further improvement.' And that is as it should be - milele.

David Ogot is a freelance journalist/producer with personal experience on alcoholism. He can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com. Website: www.goinghomekenya.org

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