We've hit the bottle hard and lost battle to stay sober

‘Minimum staggering distance’ is a phrase many Kenyans, men and women who love their tipple, use in reference to their drinking habits and the duration they spend in the pub.

As a person who saunters most of the time, I have never quite internalised the ‘staggering’ bit of their minimum distance, or even the ‘minimum’ bit of their staggering distance.

The point is, I never stagger, so please excuse my ignorance, and my low opinion of any man who thinks that his masculinity is measured by the number of rosy-coloured bottles before him.

Add to this list those who think they are more skillful behind the wheel when they have downed several shots of non-premium spirits. They insist that their vehicles know the route, and will always end up at home — which can be a funeral home.

That Kenyans love alcohol is not in doubt. Also not in question is that they never want anything to come between them and their drink.

This is why when the breathalyser was introduced, or drinking hours regulated, some rushed to court, in their drunken stupor. How they were inconvenienced by these rules, they could never tell, but the law is that animal, and the breathalyser was put on hold.

I want to trust that even now, there is a pending case that is challenging some anti-alcohol directives.

The irony of alcohol–related cases is that when there are any deaths, the country is united in grief, while pointing fingers at the ‘corrupt and lazy’ police officers who cannot enforce the laws because they are busy collecting bribes.

This is not an apology, but do not think that I hate drinking, or drinkers, or alcohol.

No. I just have a distaste for Kenyans who think they are better drivers after drinking, or those who want everyone to be a part of their so-called fun when they are a nuisance in public.

Then there are those men who zip down by the roadside, empty the contents of their bladders on their shoes, then stagger away with the fly open, and want to greet everyone in the vicinity.

Oh dear. There has never been a worse sight than a man whose fly is open, whose hands and shoes are wet, and whose speech is slurred.

Please do not get me started, otherwise I will write that I always sympathise (but sympathy is just but half justice) with their partners or spouses. I would not spend a minute with such a person, even if we had vowed to be together for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part.

The sad predicament is that each Kenyan drunkard thinks it is the other drunkard’s problem.

Individuals or different classes of people divided along economic lines, real or imagined, and sectors of the economy think that this problem is not theirs.

When people die after drinking poisonous solutions packed as illicit brews, it is attributed to poverty. The middle class think they are protected by the blood of the Scottish distillers and their father who art in Islay and other Scottish towns.

When there are road accidents, or when the authorities use breathalysers, the illicit brews brigade contend that drinking, or alcohol as a problem, does not belong in their shanties. After all, their cheap drinks prevent them from expensive illnesses, they have always been told.

So where does that leave Kenya as a nation? In a drunken stupor behind the wheel, in a state of confusion — with minimum staggering distance to the grave, rehabilitation centres, or roadside where men urinate on themselves.

Kenyans’ love for hangovers is legendary, and as a matter of fact, it should be used as a payoff line by those task forces hoping, against hope to revive the tourism sector.

‘Kenya, the Land of Hangovers’, their tourism campaign materials should read.

On the rocks

Wildlife as a tourism promotion plank is so last year. Drunk drivers and politicians drunk with powerlessness should make more tourists come and boost the rebased economy whose effects everyone talks about, but no one can pinpoint.

Kenyans’ love for hangovers is known the world over by any organisation that cares to conduct a poll on the overall health of a nation ordering democracy on the rocks, mostly because safe drinking water is a problem in many areas.

Now, the World Health Organisation is weighing in with some facts and figures, the types that many Kenyans love to dismiss because they give the country’s sober considerations bad names and scare investors.

And so, WHO reports that Kenya is failing to understand the extent of the alcohol problem because systems to monitor its effects are lacking.

I would not take WHO’s word because systems are there, literally, by accident.

On second thoughts, I would, since “52.3 per cent of alcohol drinkers in Kenya are to blame for motor accidents…” because “Kenyans who are addicted to alcohol do not care about alcohol levels in their blood when they drive, and that leads to accidents…” Further, “the state the drinkers are in could also lead to violence.”

The 2014 Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health vouchsafes that Kenya lacks data on alcohol production and consumption, yet alcohol is blamed for 2.6 per cent of all reported deaths. Also, cheap alcohol can cause sickness among men and women, more so teenagers and the middle-aged, or lead to their deaths.

Disorders related to alcohol affect more men than women and women (who drink) suffer from neo-natal conditions that threaten their reproductive health and the health of their children as they have signs of stunted growth and other infections that at times lead to their deaths.

The report is compiled by the WHO Kenyan office, and not by some people who flew in one weekend, collected the wrong facts and figures, and left to go and tarnish Kenya’s name.

Yeah, people who are within minimum staggering distance of the facts and figures on how Kenya has lost the plot against the bottle.

Cheers!