My 20-year struggle with alcoholism

My name is Isaiah Waititu. I teach geography and business studies at Gatero Day Secondary School in Laikipia County.

I have been to the abysmal depths of alcoholism and back having grappled with the addiction for close to 20 years. A duration in which I would get employed and abscond duty, or get sacked, from ten private schools! I would get in and out of two relationships, in addition to doing immeasurable disservice to scores of secondary school pupils.

I was born in 1976 as the third born in a family of seven children. I believe it is peer pressure that pushed me into alcoholism since nobody else in our family has had this problem. I have since been rehabilitated and today I am a staunch anti-alcoholism and drugs crusader working with several organisations.

My downward spiral into alcoholism began when I started sneaking out of school to take chang’aa and other cheap brews while I was in Form Two at Leshau High School in 1993. I hail from Leshau area of Nyandarua County and, therefore, knew the school’s backyard well. A glass of the killer brew was retailing at ten shillings then. Surprisingly, despite my misdeeds, I managed to score a B- (minus) of 66 points in KCSE.

My drinking problem intensified after Form Four in 1995. It took on an even greater magnitude when I began working as a lorry loader in Nairobi, while waiting to join university. With some money in my pocket, I would drink the cheap liquor and take the drug ‘Kubel’.

In 1997, I joined the University of Nairobi studying education at the Kikuyu Campus and went full throttle into drinking. I would frequent the drinking shebeens of Thogoto and Dagoretti and at one point, I began buying chang’aa and other cheap liquor which I would repackage for sale in campus.

Life became a roller coaster of inebriation and missing classes in campus but I somehow managed to scrap through and graduated with a Bachelors of Education in 2001. There was, however, a hitch since I had squandered all my school fees in third and fourth year and therefore could not get my degree certificate. I had to search for a job, regardless.

I started teaching at a secondary school, which is a stone throw from my home under the employ of the board of management in 2003. You would have thought this was the best time to portray a good image of myself since I was now working but I would drink every penny I earned. I would desert duty for up to three weeks in a row to brew my own chang’aa. The reason I kept on deserting and coming back is that there were very few teachers in that school.

Seven more schools later, I managed to raise enough cash to liberate my degree certificate in 2008. With my papers, my salary became much better but, ironically, my drinking would also intensify. The longest I would last in any school was one term. In 2012 I applied for and got a Teachers’ Service Commission job posting at Thiru Secondary School in Laikipia.

Now securely in Government employment, I started drinking even more, and it began to affect my health. I developed paranoia and suicidal thoughts and would end up being hospitalised for days. Soon as I was out of hospital, I would be back to my imbibing ways and would be an inpatient again. I became sworn enemies with food and would retch at the sight or smell of food. As a result, I started drinking on an empty stomach which caused me to begin vomiting blood.

I would get to school quite early, teach a few lessons and abscond for the rest of the day. At some point, the board of management met and recommended I go for counselling. In July 2013 I took a three-month sick leave and booked myself into a Nyahururu rehab facility. But after only one day at the facility, I jumped over the fence at night and fled to go drinking.

Everybody seemed concerned about me. It took the concerted effort of local police, a local charitable organisation and my wife to take me to Oasis of Hope rehab in Kiserian.

It would take me 90 days to get on the path to full recovery. While there I was interdicted by the TSC since the last my head teacher heard of me was when I fled from the rehab. But this suspension was lifted when I explained my absence.

Today, I am advocating against the use of alcohol and other substance abuse. I counsel the youth against the dangers of alcohol as well as those who are trying to kick the habit. I would not wish even my worst enemy to take the path I traversed. Alcohol has, quite literally, taken me to hell and back.