Back to articles for the 'family, spouses et-al articles' listing

One of the most disheartening scenarios I constantly come across in my attempts to create awareness about the disease of alcoholism is that talented, gifted, warm and loving intelligent human beings who should be enjoying their lives and indeed have a lot to contribute to the Kenyan society - just continue on their tragic downward spiral as family members agonise over their seeming inability to find help for them.

Family members asking "what can we do? Why does he drink Like this? Why did she have to die is there no way we could have saved her?" Yet help is at hand help is available but do people want to know?

Of course they want to know what to do. The main obstacle preventing them from asking however, is stigma. Stigma which surrounds the disease of alcoholism the flames of which are fanned constantly, consciously or unconsciously by Kenyans of all classes. Stigma which is supported by massive misinformation, prejudice and out and out myths many born as is usual in such cases out of fear which is in turn born out of lack of understanding.

Where does one turn for help? The Church? The Government? The Media? All three institutions usually have answers when all else fails. This then is the paradox when it comes to the drug alcohol and the disease of alcoholism. In an intricate jangle of centuries old myths and misinformation, denial and vested interests of those who benefit from its' manufacture and sale the loser is the alcoholic and their family. Yet one would have though at least the Church which is usually very vocal when it comes to issues impinging on the welfare of Kenyans would stand up and be counted. But no for the Church is also a purveyor of prejudice when it concerns alcoholism

Last week Fr. Peter Migwi of the Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi was quoted by a section of the print media thus "most of us live in denial. We don't want to confess weaknesses such as alcoholism or deviant sexuality because we fear that we will be rejected."

Weaknesses! This was a senior member of the clergy unconsciously speaking his mind and consequently revealing his true feelings on the subject of alcoholism. Not only calling it a weakness but talking about it in the same breath as "deviant sexuality" clearly shows that our clergy still have a long way to go on this subject. For how will the church help you if they too are not only ignorant but seem to feel there is nothing to learn for is not drunkenness a sin and alcoholism merely some scapegoat to allow people to escape their responsibilities?

By hanging on to the age old myths about alcoholism the Church is indeed doing a great disservice to hundreds of thousands of alcoholics and their families. Drunkenness is a sin for it is willful, a result of conscious choice. Alcoholism conversely is not a sin for one has lost control over alcohol and indeed has become powerless over alcohol and therefore there is no choice in the matter. For somebody to sin, the element of choice must be present.

Fr. Maurice Gelinas sums it up extremely lucidly in his very revealing book Alcoholism and You in which he emphatically states "alcoholism is NOT A SIN"

"A sin is something judged to be (a) wrong, done (b) freely and (c) knowingly, with all these conditions fulfilled together. If any one of these conditions is absent, there is no sin.

1. Drinking in excess of what is socially acceptable or to the point of intoxication is objectively wrong. No argument.
2. Drunkards (given to excessive use of alcohol: often drunk) are not necessarily alcoholic. Generally the drinking alcoholic is a drunkard. The basic difference between the two is a matter of control: the alcoholic has lost the ability to control his drinking of alcohol (the main characteristic of this disease), while the drunkard still has that ability. If no ability to control, then no freedom of choice.
3. The alcoholic does not intend becoming one, no more than the syphilitic intends his disease. In both cases there could have been, and most probably were, objectively sinful acts linked to the disease but the disease itself that is linked to those acts is not a sin."

"Further proof that the alcoholic did not plan becoming one is his vehement and adamant denial that he is one, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence, irrefutable to everyone but him, of his habitual alcoholic behavior and of the problems his drinking creates in one or other area of his life."

Yet the clergy still persist with their 'demon rum' sermons castigating their congregation to "repent your evil ways! Stop your wickedness! Do not give in to Weaknesses!" On and on they harangue and thus turn away any would be alcoholic seeking for help as well as recovering alcoholics who having embraced God or a 'Higher Power' during recovery or are still in the process of finding Him find they cannot reconcile what they have learnt about alcoholism with these sermons.

These sermons and attitudes further reinforce false beliefs held by family members that indeed their loved one is only suffering from "weakness" and "lack of will power " or is "immoral" and this prevents them from seeking out help as they cover themselves with the smelly, thick, oozing coat of shame. Ultimately by doing this they continue to suffer. Trying everything in their power and spending vast sums of money (where it is available) to try and 'help' their loved one 'get serious' with life. They feel guilty, that somehow they caused the person to drink like this. "It must be something we did or didn't do! She is angry at us. If we get him a proper job he will settle down." are all reasons I hear time and time again from pain crazed mothers, fathers, wives and husbands.

But worse still, when the Church is not busy perpetuating misconceptions and peddling myths, they simply duck the whole issue and hope it will go away. They do not talk about it instead praying that things will somehow make themselves right. Well they do not.

Early this month I presented a paper during a one day workshop organised for the Diocesan Clergy St. Stephen's Cathedral Nairobi where the target audience were the entire Church Clergy, lay leaders, mothers union and other opinion leaders. It was during this function, that another presenter Dr. Samuel Gateere did not mince his words about what the Churches role.

Launching into the Church Gateere came out shooting from the hip. Christians he felt have almost come to believe the world is as it should be. "They feel that if they repeat this again and again it will be the truth. You think things are the way you wish things to be, the way you would like them to be. This is self delusion and Christians are swimming in this."

What makes the whole issue all the more painful is that alcoholism is a treatable disease. What hinders this is lack of widespread recognition of the fact that it is a disease. Even during a lot of the workshops I have attended the very persons charged with passing this message are the self-same people who do not believe in its' validity. How then do they expect to effectively pass the message when somebody says "alcoholism is a chronic disease" yet you can see they feel in their guts that it is a moral or self inflicted problem.

The Kenyan Church needs to come out openly and learn about this disease so as to help their congregations. They need to store away for good the 'demon rum' sermons whose time has passed and which are of no use to alcoholics or their families. All manner of relevant literature and audio-visual material abounds. Let clergy talk to recovering alcoholic's (and there is no shortage of them) as well as allow them some minutes to talk to the congregations all over the country. For alcohol is here with us and it is here to stay whether we like it or not. Trying to ban it is a pointless task. The only way to conquer alcohol is to understand it. I fought it for 27 years to no avail. Everything I tried failed. But today I understand it and with that knowledge has come a miraculous change.

Kenya is at least 25 years behind Western countries as far as public awareness of alcoholism and the effects of alcohol is concerned given the fact that the Kenyan public are totally unaware of two ever so basic facts namely that alcohol is a dangerous drug and that alcoholism is a disease. We have no comprehensive up to date policy on alcohol to regulate its manufacture, sale and consumption.

Even in the United States of America where permissiveness is flaunted they long ago realised the dangers inherent in unregulated alcohol sale and consumption with the result that most States revised their minimum drinking age upwards from 18 to 21. Here in Kenya there does not seem to be any minimum drinking age and the Church is resolutely mum as several generations disappear. For it is at this age that many disastrous decisions and consequences occur as young people consume alcoholic beverages. They drop out or are thrown out of school, get pregnant, are raped, rape, riot, steal, rob, are jailed, get STDs', HIV/AIDS, are maimed for life and - they die! To add insult to injury alcohol consumption at an early age is not only more injurious but also more likely to lead to compulsive use later in life. All this long before the effects of full blown alcoholism manifest themselves, kind of like the dessert if they survive the enticing but deadly main-course. Who then will be left to attend Church?

Some kind of outreach programmes are needed to educate people on this disease. To inform all and sundry that treatment is available, for treatment does not begin at a treatment center. Treatment begins when there is correct, accurate information about the disease available to Kenyans who are ignorant or unaware of the facts. Just going up to someone and saying "did you know..." is doing your part. I was told. I am telling you - now you go and tell someone else. Today!

Information about alcohol and alcoholism is invaluable whether you live with an alcoholic or not. Whether you are related to, or know one or not for it helps you not to take things for granted. It helps you avoid many tricky situations where someone else's use of alcohol might put you at risk. Suddenly riding with a drunk driver from a bash as he weaves slightly from side to side on the road all the while laughing as he calls "iishhh okay, professional driver in control" is no longer funny.

Suddenly you realise that having a drink every day after work is a habit you fell into and need to fall out of. That forcing cheap liquor down your throat until it brings tears to your eyes just to fit in with your peers does not make you cool but instead a fool. But most of all it makes you wake up the fact that you are the one suffering while your loved one is having a never ending party. They drink — you suffer. Needlessly!

But most importantly, it makes you understand that you and your whole family are also not only as powerless as the alcoholic over alcohol, but that your lives too have become equally unmanageable. Constant let downs, unfulfilled and broken promises, shattered dreams all serve to smother the people close to the alcoholic with shame. They begin to see themselves in the same light as alcoholic's view themselves — weak, dependent, having something wrong with them, an overwhelming feeling of being useless goods

Though you do not know it you are a codependent, carrying as horrendous a load of shame as the alcoholic for your seeming inability to stop the constant shouting and arguments, your apparent weakness and inability to control the mad drinking and behaviour of your loved ones.

This shame and resulting denial result in greater tragedy, hurt and suffering as instead of seeking treatment, families' doggedly brace themselves to weather the constant storms. All family members, from spouse to the children, take on all kinds of new roles which mean organising living around the alcoholics drinking. They do this all the while assuming they are total failures as they have not successfully 'sorted out' the drinking problem in the home.

For alcoholism is a 'whole family' disease. The afflicted person is sick and infects all those who are in constant close contact with them. However now is the time to stop suffering. First off you have to start start healing yourself the easiest way — learn about the disease. Read. Talk to recovering alcoholics. Heal.

While we wait for the Church to pull up its socks, what is to be done for those who are suffering now? Those who have been suffering for years? Firstly you have to accept that there is nothing to be ashamed about. Your loved one has a chronic disease. Pure and simple. Secondly it is not caused by you and so too no need for one to feel guilty. Alcoholism is caused by the affected persons bodily makeup and its' subsequent reaction to alcohol ingestion. Alcohol does not cause alcoholism. Alcoholism does not come in bottles. It comes in people. There is also no way of telling if one is alcoholic or otherwise until one starts drinking so the best protection against the disease ultimately is abstinence.

So too for the alcoholic. The only way for them to manage the disease is total abstinence from alcohol consumption. But how do you get someone to stop when they do not recognise alcohol as the cause of their problems in the first place? For no alcoholic ever willingly agrees that alcohol is the root cause of their problems. Rather they always have on hand a long list of reasons as to why they drink and not for them your run-of-the-mill mundane every-day reasons. Never. The alcoholic is always equipped with extremely convincing reasons. What then do you do in this classic Catch 22 situation?

Well — you let them drink. That's right. Just let them drink. For we never allow them to drink freely. We nag and worry about them. We play the futile game of 'what if?' every time they are out drinking. "What if he gets hurt? What if she has been in an accident? What if I am comfortably asleep here and they are lying hurt somewhere in a ditch bleeding to death?" Soon it is morning and with bleary eyes you head off to the office having memorised every inch of the ceiling as you stared at it the whole night, starting every time you thought you heard a knock at the fron door.

Ultimately you stagger with a pounding head into the office as everyone tells you how awful you look imploring you to see a doctor. Too tired and worried to protest you instead mutter some unintelligible reply. 20 minutes later, informed you have a visitor and wondering who it could be you call out for them to enter. In comes your slightly disheveled wife/husband/son/daughter/father/mother... apologising why they hadn't been home last night (or last two or three or ten nights) and launching into a fantastic story why finishing with "...and that's why I need a thousand bob just to go and sort out this problem. Then I will head straight home." No real remorse. Just a rueful grin and loads of charm.

So much charm coupled with relief that they are alive and apparently no worse for wear leads you to part with the thousand bob plus another five hundred for any 'emergency'. Faster than a bat out of hell, they are out the door heading straight for the nearest bar. That night as you lie awake tossing bleary eyed from lack of sleep but kept awake by that gnawing worry-knot in the pit of your stomach wondering what has happened this time, it never occurs to you that they were lying.

What you have to do now is to close your eyes and go to sleep. Believe and admit that you too are powerless over alcohol. What if they are arrested — tough luck. Let them sort it out. Let them start handling the consequences of their drinking. If they come home act as if everything were normal. Do not ask where they were. If they start selling things, let them pack and go. Do not play 'what if' it does not work. Let them drink and let them suffer the consequences of that drinking. Do not pick up after them, for it is this very mopping up the consequences of an alcoholic's drinking after them, that enables them to keep drinking. Note that as long as you keep enabling an alcoholic, he/she will not stop drinking until the body or mind packs up or they die. This like their being alcoholic is writ in stone.

By thus detaching ourselves from our alcoholic's problems and instead focussing on restoring ourselves to some sense of equilibrium, we actually help encourage the alcoholic not only to seek but to keep sobriety.

By this carthitic act of accepting that we too are powerless over alcohol a great load is lifted off our shoulders allowing us to straighten up from the disabling stoop and look with confidence into the distance wherein lies the long, but richly rewarding recovery road to be traveled. For never has an alcoholic been helped by nagging, threatening, preaching or violent scenes. In fact anger and humiliation will only increase the alcoholic's guilt and hence his drinking.

In the process they will suffer, you will suffer, the children will suffer - immensely. Stop enabling and the consequences pile up with unbelievable speed forcing the alcoholic to begin looking closely at themselves probably for the first time and hence probably more agreeable to listen to the truth about their condition say during an intervention.

What are the alternatives? Nothing. You just continue suffering and wait for your loved one to die and they will die. For for an alcoholic to continue drinking only three possible outcomes exist; institutionalized due to insanity, jail or death. This has been proved millions of tragic times over by alcoholics all around the world.

You have the power to make a move. A move that might save your loved ones and maybe even your own life. When I remember that you do not have to wait for the Church or the Government or the Media to make this radical move I am no longer disheartened. Clouds of despair and gloom which have been hanging stagnant over me pregnant and malevolent threatening to burst and chill me to the bone with their stinging, freezing drops of surrender disperse. Almost instantly I feel the bright rays of hope flood warm and pleasant over me. Once again I feel Gods presence and love. I feel hope, for myself with Gods help to keep sober today one day at a time and for you out there, to begin your 'one day at a time' journey - TODAY.

Today is Sunday so after reading this message, please tell your pastor about it. Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your life. For this message to start working instantly, apply it now! If not for yourself rather to start helping a suffering family immediately, go up to them or just a friend and tell them "psssst...did you know that alcoholism is a disease and there is help for it?

David Ogot
26.08.03

A condensed version of this article appeared in three parts in the 'The People On Sunday Newspaper' In the column 'Alcohol, other drugs and you with David Ogot'. Part one entitled 'Of alcoholism and the role of the Church' on Sunday 31st August 2003, followed by 'Healing wounds of alcoholism' on Sunday 7th. September 2003 and finally 'Coping with alcoholism' on Sunday 14th. September 2003.

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

This site is designed by David Ogot snr. and hosted by
Science & Engineering Research Center
©goinghomedotcom 2001 - 2006
Disclaimer Privacy Policy