I lost my family, job and mind, but I’m here with a testimony

Isaiah Muthoi during the interview. PHOTO | BILLY MITO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Isaiah Muthoi’s life was going where he wanted it to, but alcoholism ended up costing him everything.
  • He lost his plum job, his family, and eventually his mind. Seven years later, he talks about his turnaround and new lease of life

It was a chilly Monday morning on April 17, 2009. Isaiah Muthoi woke up earlier than usual. Reason? He had just had a series of nightmares, which left him panting and sweating.

But this was not out of the ordinary for Mr Muthoi, then a manager at a multi-national company, one of the largest flower and fresh produce exporters, with branches in East and Central Africa.

He had been having such nightmares for a while, and had even come to accept them as normal. This reaction, he explains with a humourless laugh, is commonly referred to as tetemesh, ka’stima, or arrosto, in alcoholism and substance abuse parlance. It is triggered by a drop of alcohol level in one’s blood.

Careful not to wake his wife, he got out of bed and tiptoed out of the bedroom, using the light from his cell phone to navigate his way to the living room.

Mr Muthoi, like most alcoholics, had a secret place where he hid alcohol. He had converted the top-most book shelf in his living room to a mini-bar of sorts, with various brands of alcohol tucked behind a row of books.

He took three gulping swigs of his favourite brand and all of a sudden, he stopped shaking and trembling. He explains that most alcoholics normally observe this ritual, which is commonly referred to as kutoa lock.

As he sat down on one of the seats holding a 750ml bottle of his favourite liquor, listening to the chirping birds announcing a new day, he planned for the day. Unbeknown to him, this was the day his life would change for the worse. As “high” as he was, Muthoi had a field assignment that required him to use the company vehicle.

Oblivious of what lay ahead, he prepared and left the house for work.

At about mid-morning that day, a police dispatch reached the offices of Muthoi’s place of work, saying that one of its vehicles had been found crashed in a ditch, abandoned. The driver of the said vehicle, as it later emerged, and to no one’s surprise, was Muthoi. This was not the first such accident he had caused while under the influence of alcohol. In fact, it was the third one. And it marked the beginning of a down fall so bad, those who know him are still surprised that he got up.

At 40 years, when the urban myth of ‘life begins at 40’ ought to be confirmed, the opposite happened for Muthoi. His life stopped at 40. For a man who had enjoyed the privileges of a manager, his eventual sacking a month later was a blow to his self-esteem. His life started to crumble down right before his eyes.

BROKEN MARRIAGE

His two children, then 14 and 10, who had known no other life other than that found in an affluent leafy suburb, had to go live upcountry because their father could no longer afford the master en-suite bungalow they had known all their life.

Muthoi was forced to move into a single room in Nairobi’s Dandora Estate.

Also, he could no longer afford the expensive alcohol he was used to and resorted to cheap spirits, eventually downgrading to chang’aa. And just when he thought that things could not get worse, they did. His wife could no longer take it and left him after 18 years of marriage, marriage shattered by alcoholism.

His meagre savings run out fast, and after a few months, with no job offers forthcoming, Muthoi found himself on the streets. That was in 2012.

On good days, he would sleep at a local chang’aa den after feigning a black-out, but on most occasions, he spent biting cold nights on pavements.

Life became so hard, for food, he would rummage restaurant bins.

On good days, he dined on throwaways that enterprising kitchen staff in some restaurants sold when he was lucky enough to get supermarket customers who were willing to allow him to carry their luggage.

As days went by, even chang’aa became a luxury, and he had to look for an alternative cheaper drink to satisfy his drinking urge. Muthoi turned to ‘jet’, sold in informal settlements, especially in Bondeni and Nigeria areas of Mathare.

“The spirit evaporates right there in your eyes, and being a newbie, I was advised to drink it as quickly as possible before it disappeared,” Isaiah says, and adds, “There were many disputes between the seller and the buyers on the quantity of the liquor, since it seemed to evaporate within minutes of being exposed to air.”

MENTAL CASE

It may seem as if Muthoi had reached rock bottom, but still, life had another curve ball to throw at him. He lost the last functional thing he had. His mind.

It started by him mumbling incoherent words and moving around aimlessly with no regard to his safety, a factor that prompted his friends in the streets to tie him up and take him to Mathari Hospital, the only psychiatric hospital in the country. Here, he was diagnosed with manic depression and admitted.

So violent was Muthoi that he had to be held in the isolation block. Even then, he is said to have broken loose by bringing down an iron door. He does not have any recollection of this particular event, but does not to rule out the possibility.

Fast-forward to August 2016, Muthoi has an incredible story to tell. He is a picture of health, and his firm handshake exudes confidence. His is an extraordinary and inspiring story of courage in the face of alcohol addiction, a story that he hopes will save someone in the throes of alcoholism.

Seated in an office that can only be described as functional, nothing in Muthoi’s demeanour communicates the title or the position that he holds in this company. We find him having a light-hearted conversation with a couple of employees who report to him, a conversation that is complete with backslapping and fist shakes.

Isaiah Muthoi in 2009 when he was recovering from alcoholism. PHOTO | BILLY MITO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

To a casual observer, he may pass as any of the many farm workers around the company premises, yet the fact is that he is an assistant manager at Vegpro (K) Ltd, a fact that he is reluctant to announce.

He says,

“I was not born humble, far from it. In my Ameru community, humility is considered almost weak, we are inculcated from birth to be macho men; in my culture, a man must never show any signs of weakness.”

He continues,

“My humility grew out of what I went through when alcohol took over my life – the grace of God is what finally pulled me out. I tend to see myself as the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, who earned his humility from living as an animal for seven years.”

Exactly how did he become an alcoholic, we want to know. His story has a common ring to most alcohol and substance abuse stories told: It starts with a dysfunctional family. Muthoi started to drink alcohol right after primary school.

“I was the first born of seven siblings in a fairly well-to-do family. My father was a successful farmer, and owned several herds of cattle. We were never in want. My mother was a disciplinarian but dotted on us and was a dedicated wife. Nothing in my formative years would have pointed to the hardship I would later suffer in my life.”

“Things started going wrong after my coming of age ceremony,” he says.

 With this remark, Muthoi stares at a spot in the ceiling and his eyes cloud with tears. He removes a handkerchief from his pocket and hastily wipes his eyes. Even in his humility, he refuses to allow himself to shed tears in public.

He takes a deep breath and continues, “Our good, secure life started to crumble when my father married a second wife, a woman barely out of her teens. This broke my mother, and even though she tried, she could no longer live with my father, and moved out, leaving us under the care of an increasingly irritable father and a stepmother determined on proving her dominion. All this happened when I was about to sit my final primary school exams.”

 “With my mother gone and my father keen to affirm his authority, his favours and love seemed to be transferred to my stepmother, who was only too eager to see us follow our mother. As the first born, I was the receiver of all kinds of abuse from my father on account of my stepmother; it is this development that made me run away from home and go to live with my grandmother.”

The “everything goes” attitude of his grandmother gave Muthoi great latitude to do whatever he wanted, including experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes. By the time he was reporting to Form One in Meru High School, he was a habitual smoker and chang’aa drinker.

BRIGHT STUDENT

He had a checkered history in school that included punishments and suspensions.

“However bad my habits were though, they were always balanced with above par performance in academics and extra-curricular activities. No headmaster would have had the guts to expel me when I was the science congress champion nationally, an accolade I achieved while in Form Three. I was also always among the top three in my class.”

He performed well in his final exams and joined Egerton University to study for a degree in Agri-Business Management.

This qualification is what led to his job, a job he lost because of alcohol.

But he has a new job now, a job he intends to keep.

So how did he get here from rock bottom, we want to know.

He pulls a drawer, takes out a Bible and then turns to Joel, chapter 2, verse 25 to 26.

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten, the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarms, great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed,” he reads.

He explains, “I was rescued from Mathari Hospital by a kind man of God, Bishop Absalom Ndungo, who runs a rehabilitation centre in Eastleigh called Greater Life Concern Ministry. The bishop knew the administrator at the hospital, who recommended me to the centre after my condition improved.”

“The same day I was admitted to the centre, I gave my life to Christ. Bishop Ndungo impressed on me that salvation was my only way out of alcoholism.

“He welcomed me to the community of addicts who were being rehabilitated at the centre. It is a moment that changed everything.”

Muthoi went through a three month programme whose purpose was to help him overcome his addiction. After completing, he got a job to peel potatoes at a roadside kiosk, a job that he took with “both hands,” as he puts it.

“Soon after this, I started to reach out to my family. I reunited with my two sons – one had just completed Form Four and the other one was waiting to join college. I organised a harambee that raised enough to register the eldest one to a local university.”

He adds, “I further made up with my father after 10 years. It was a tearful reunion, which took place on the same day I was baptised.”

 “While still peeling potatoes for a living, I got a call from my former company, where I had applied for a job early last year. They wanted me back – now tell me,” he rhetorically asks, “If this is not God working, what is it? My old boss wanted me to go back to work – how often does this kind of thing happen?”

One of his priorities now is to make up for lost time with his children and to see to it that they get the best education there is.

As for his wife, there is no chance of reconciliation – too much water has gone under the bridge.

He does not rule out remarrying though, but that is not in his list of priorities at the moment.