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EAST AFRICAN STANDARD, Tuesday, May 21, 2002

In reference to your story in the Sunday Standard (May 5 2002) by Dennis Lumiti titled ‘Officer weeps as drug addict narrates ordeal’ I wish to point out that your writer made certain mistakes.

It is apparent from your story that writer does not know the difference between hard drugs and alcoholism and thus used the two terms interchangeably in his story. This seems to be a common misperception even with members of the public.

Since alcohol is also a drug (which, defined simply for the purposes of this letter, is any mood and/or body altering substance) many people perceive alcoholism and drug addiction to be one and the same thing. It is however very common to find that many addicts on drugs like heroin, cocaine or even ‘bhang’ do not even drink alcohol.

An alcoholic is somebody whose body, through genetic disposition among other yet to be isolated factors, does not process alcohol like a ‘normal’ drinker does and thus leads him to an alcohol addiction.

Addiction here can again be simply defined a chronic or habitual use of alcohol to alter the state of the mind or body. It is at the same time a state where the person addicted develops a physical dependence and experiences withdrawal symptoms when the use of alcohol is stopped or intake reduced. These withdrawal symptoms can be as minor as a slight hangover to dangerous as DT’s or Delirium Tremens where the victim suffers from violent trembling, deliriousness, hallucinations and even seizures.

Alcoholism produces physical as well as psychological addiction with the psychological aspect being the hardest part of recovery. Every single day for the rest of my life I have to be alert for situations that can make me relapse. I.e. take a drink. This could be at a wedding, a funeral, fundraising, a birthday party in short anywhere where there is a gathering and alcohol is present.

It can be triggered by song on the radio reminding me of a place, a person, a bar or to smell of nyama choma (roast meat) because most of the times I ate ‘nyam choms’ was drinking with buddies or even the day, TGIF (thank God its Friday) which was usually the start of a long drinking weekend.

This a recovering alcoholic (as opposed to a suffering alcoholic who is still drinking) has to be on guard for the rest of his or her life. Just as the diabetic has to watch out for sugar and their diet for the rest of the lives an alcoholic has to watch out for even the contents of his mouth wash or cough mixture for even that slight amount of alcohol can trigger the strongest of cravings and lead back to drinking.

This is not rehabilitation but applying what one has learnt in rehabilitation which is the restoring of one to a semblance of their former selves through therapy ad education - a journey of self-discovery.

Long term alcoholism inevitably leads to death through a variety of illnesses e.g. cirrhosis of the liver, or brain, heart and other organ damage or mishaps such as car or industrial accidents, fires, fights, suicide, recklessness and other deaths by misadventure. Unfortunately, a lot of these deaths are later wrongly attributed the reasons above instead of being laid at the rightful feet of alcoholism.

Since alcoholism is a chronic and progressive disease the only way to manage the disease is by total abstinence from alcohol consumption. This also applies to the so-called hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin and LSD.

I hope this has cleared up some of the misperceptions about the term’s alcoholism’ as opposed to ‘hard drugs’ namely that they are not inter-usable and mean completely different things to those afflicted and their families. For those families who have an addict or alcoholic among them, there is hope. What will kill them are your shame, silence and the hiding of your loved one. You might as well go buy a gun and shoot them!

Alcohol does not cause alcoholism. Thus alcoholism does not come in bottles, it comes in people! If you have to, really must drink, drink responsibly.

David Ogot Snr.
Nairobi.

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