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I drank jet fuel, chang’aa, busaa to maintain my sanity

County_RiftValley
ann njeri mathu
 Ann Njeri Mathu, a former Miss Kenya contestant

Ann Njeri Mathu, a former Miss Kenya contestant lost two husbands after they succumbed to alcohol related complications. She got married to her late Germany hubby when they were both  piss-drunk.  It took a near death experience to rehabilitate her. She spoke to CATE MUKEI of her 20 years as an alcoholic

Alcohol ruined your life in many ways...

I met my first husband in 1994, an alcoholic doctor. Five years into our marriage, his body gave up. The last thing I remember of us together is him vomiting blood and within an hour, he was gone. My in-laws took away everything and blamed me for his death.

I moved in with a friend while my mother cared for my children. Broke and jobless, I was hooked to cheap alcohol. A friend who lived in Germany took one look at me and decided I had to travel back to Germany with her. She believed a change of environment would help me quit.

In Germany, I met an alcoholic, sickly German man who, by the look of things, was over 70 years and did not have long to live. In 2003, I brought him to Kenya, where we got married at the Attorney General’s chambers in a wedding ceremony where we were both so drunk. He died a few months later.

I began to sell my property to survive. My mother took away my two children from the previous relationships and my last born daughter, who was born in 1994.

What happened next? I started praying, asking God why I did not have a normal life like other people. I questioned why it was impossible for me to drink with moderation like other people. One Sunday morning, I decided to go to church with the aim of speaking to a pastor, but the ushers threw me out. I remember them asking me what I had taken. But how could I know? It could have been chang’aa, busaa or both.

That statement still rings in my ears to date because it drove me to my first suicide attempt. I stayed in hospital for two weeks and on being discharged, attempted to kill myself again by taking a concoction of drugs. My brother found me writhing in pain and rushed me to hospital.

Did you quit after that? No, I discovered mandege. They called it jeti or mandege, coined from mafuta ya ndege, the Kiswahili phrase for jet fuel. I think it was some kind of industrial fuel mixed with water, and my brother and I thought we could have quite a lot of fun drinking it. All I cared about was getting high. It is the drink that led me to rehab at Asumbi.

When did you have your first drink? I was only 10 years old when my father gave me my first sip of alcohol. He also used to ask me to light up his cigarettes then tease me to puff a bit, and when I coughed, he would tell me that if I smoked more, the coughing would stop. By the time I got to form three, I was a star drinker and would smuggle my fix into school. Needless to say, my final grade was nothing to write home about.

You contested for Miss Kenya in 1982 and was the first runners-up. Did it contribute to your drinking? Yes. I became a socialite in college and enrolled for the Miss Kenya beauty pageant. I started getting invitations to make appearances in events. I had complimentary tickets to big gigs in town until the fame and the money got into my head. I stopped attending class because I was either too hung over to show up, or had a gig to attend. My life started revolving around nightclubs and other entertainment spots of the 1980s. Due to partying and drinking, I failed the final exam at Kenya Polytechnic and was asked to re-sit but I couldn’t!

Did you at least manage to get a job? Yes. In 1983, I got my first job at Moi Equator Girls’ in Nanyuki as a cateress and was also blessed with my first daughter.

Due to the heavy military presence that drives the economy of the entire town I continued with my binge drinking courtesy of cheap alcohol from the barracks. I established strong supplies network with soldiers at the Nanyuki Airbase, some of whom would even bring the drink to my house. The school would not accept this, and so I moved back to Nairobi, where I soon landed a job at the Panafric Hotel.

At Panafric, my situation got worse. I drank to stay sober, not to get high. If I missed my quaff, I would shake, diarrhoea or have hot and cold flushes. I would start drinking as early as 6:30am to avoid these withdrawal symptoms.

The management at Panafric did not mind? Since I worked in the house keeping department, I had access to all the vacant rooms in the hotel. I would carry drinks to work and hide them in the toilet cistern of any vacant room. Every now and then, I would sneak to the room for a sip.

My work ethic was pathetic, but the management hoped I would change for the better. Eventually, they transferred me to Kericho, where I moved in with my brother, my little girl and a house help. We finally clashed with the management over my drinking. I resigned and moved to Thika.

How was life in rehab? I felt loved and needed for the first time in a long time. But it was not easy getting ‘cleaned up.’ I couldn’t take any solid foods during the first days of the 90-day programme and my care givers had to blend it like a toddler’s, my hair had thinned and greyed to the scalp and would fall off if I attempted to comb it. I was also severely malnourished. After a week without alcohol, I shed off my skin, from the head down to the soles of my feet.

When the withdrawal signs ended, I decided to accept that I needed help and focused on how to get better. The programme became a personal spiritual journey for me, a way of self-rediscovery and rebirth.

How is life after rehab? It has been hard but worth it. My daughter even calls me mum. I run a programme called ‘Sober Again Outreach’ which reaches out to alcoholics. I can totally relate to what they are going through. I also wrote a book titled Sober Again.

Tell us more about the book.

It took me a whole year to write it. I would write and then take a break for a week just to reflect on my past. Luckily, the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation offered to publish it after hearing my story during one of my motivational talks. 

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