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It's after receiving mixed blessings that I was almost forced to sit down and reassess how I run the goinghomedotcom Trust which is mainly through my wife's and my pocket which at the end of the day are not that deep.

For here I was on Monday sitting in my office feeding my Telkom pre-paid phone with its last meal of Shs 100 which it gobbled up all too greedily. Beside me on the desk lay my cellphone which had long digested its meal of Shs. 100 airtime leaving only an indigestible four bob. No avenue of communicationg to the outside world there, not unless I brought some more "phone food" from Celtel

I would have to prioritise the calls I needed to make for the 100 bob airtime wouldn't last long either and then I would be well and truly cut off from the outside world. yet today I really needed the phones. I needed to get in touch with schools to organsie drug absue awareness talks during the holidays.

I needed the phone to get in touch with companies to organise talks for their staff. I needed the phone to talk to the mechanic as the Trust's vehicle affectionately called the "airbus" badly needed service and I needed to convince him to extend us a credit line before the airbus was well and trully gorunded. I needed to get in touch with those who owewd me cash for services rendered.

But this was a Monday and it is usually a bad day to look for one's cash, for most of it has been drank over the weekend. A bad day to ask favours from mechanics for the free serbvice while vehicle owners are queuing with wads of cash for panel beating on their cars bashed over the drunken weekend. A bad day to lookf for work from headteachers who are trying to cover for classes whose teachers have called in sick but are in reality sick like dogs - but with hangovers.

So I decide to play it safe and save my remaining airtime for sure-fire calls. calls I will probably start making on Tuesday. Tuesday's are always a safer bet. Everyone has readjusted to the excesses of the weekend.

As I think of excesses in relation to alcohol, my eyes are inexplicably drawn to my cellphone lying on my desk the Motorola m3888 huge by today's tiny phones and which many of my friends laughingly call the phone booth. I am constantly warned to beware of people forming queues behind me if I dare use the phone in public mistaking my cellphone for a Telkom phone booth.

But to me my Motorola m388 is more than a mere cellphone for in many ways it marks sveral milestones in my receovery inlcuding my relapse four months after I left the rehabilitation centre in Asumbi. It is also my third m3888 all bought by Eileen my long suffering wife. I was "relieved" of the two before this one in Modern Green that seedy yet (in)famous bar also known as United Nations on Latema road. So famous is this bar that not only did former President Moi mention it but it also features in renowned tour guides luike Lonely Planet.

They were not stolen from me however for I left them as collateral for small loans, one as little as shs. 500. But every time I got the money to pay back the loan I would agonise over paying or drinking and the drink always won. Finally, the deadline I had signed tp pay back by having expired and been extended several times would not be extended any further and that would pay for it.

The phone I have now was bought by my wife in 2001 as I tried to get back into active journalism fresh-faced from the rehab and burning with zeal to "save the world" from alcoholism. I needed a number where editors could contact me. I tried getting my parents to buy me a phone but they were having none of that no matter how I cajoled.

Finally Eileen scraped up enough money to buy me the phone and off I was to try and relaunch my career. Then came my relapse which with hindsight I realsie was of the type classified as an overconfidence relapse and for the next four months I was drinking again. A little bit at first and then getting home later and later.

One day with no money and in one of the dens where second generation drinks in pastic bottles are sold at shs. 30 a bottle I did what I hadn't done since I went to rehab. I ordered drinks worth shs 300 and offered up my m3888 as security. I was to pay the next day at 2.00 pm with interest of another 300.

By this time the disease of alcoholism had convinced me that as long as I did not sleep out, I had not gone back to the bad old days. As long as I got home before the sun, I was okay. But the sun rose as I was still on the bus on my way home and it dawned on me that had slipped back into the old predictable patterns of alcoholism.

Now here I was getting home broke, and I needed 600 shillings before 2.00 pm or my phone would be gone - again! The only person who could give me the money was my wife and why should she do that? She had gone through this kind of thing thousands of times before. Why now after I had even gone to a rehabilitation centre and then started drinking again would she believe that this time was different?

But I told myself it did not matter if she did not give me the money and I lost the phone. For even though I would lose the phone I had found something more precious and that was the realisation that I was an alcoholic. Not a misdiagnosed problem drinker, but a real dyed-in-the-wool alcoholic and that until the day I died, I could never drink alcohol safely again.

This realisation was worth its weight in gold for sober I could do or be anything I set my mind to including buying 100 phones while drunk I was useless not only to myself but my family and I would probably end up in jail or an early grave.

So as I walked with a new spring in my step to knock on the door to ask my wife for the Shs. 600, I was safe in the knowledge thatwhether she gave me the money or not I would not touch another drink in my life. I would pray to God daily for this strength.

Happily Eileen gave me the money and I collected my phone, my "booth" and so I hang onto it as a reminder of how far we have come with it on a journey we are still on leading us to only God knows where.

The landline rings and it was a client who had a problem with cigarettes (and maybe alcohol) saying that he was running late and would I still be there at 12.30 pm? Yes I said I would still be there. (he never did come or call again but usually they call even months later and eventually do make it to me or someone else for help).

This is brought home to me later in the afternoon as I went for a meeting at Bruce House, a lady stops me at the entrance and says: "I saw you on TV, you are the mlevi ((drunkard). Please give me your contact, I have a brother who has really harrassed us in fact I wanted to call the station and ask for your contact. I will call you by tomorrow."

I give her my number not having the heart to point out that the programme was almost one year ago and that the person who interviewed me had not only left that programme but the station as well. But the lady made my day (even though she has not called by the time I wrote this article) for she brought back into focus why we run this Trust with Eileen even though we have no funding. The sheer satisfaction of putting hope where previously there was only despair. If that is why my family, friends and I first had to go through the sheer hell of alcoholism, then I would do it again.

David Ogot is a recovering alcoholic. Website: www.goinghomekenya.org

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