Book review: Let’s talk about alcoholism in Kenya today

Recently the Daily Nation had a long story on alcohol and alcoholism in Kenya. The report explained how alcoholism is damaging the lives of Kenyans, women and men, young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural.

Alcoholism, according to the story, is breaking up families and destroying the livelihoods of Kenyans because drunkards cannot retain jobs or work to fend for themselves.

An earlier story in March this year, ‘Tales of courage: Rising from the murky waters of alcoholism,’ Daily Nation reported how a young woman who had vowed to be a teetotaler got sucked into the world of alcohol and ended up an alcoholic.

This story, however, is also about her own redemption from the tipple and journey into sobriety.

Kenyans need to tell more stories of the tragedy that is alcoholism. More individuals who have been trapped into alcoholism should write and speak publicly about how easy it is to fall victim to excess consumption of alcohol and end up in the land of perpetual drunkenness.

This is why Jacob Oketch’s book, Jewel of Sobriety: Reflections of a Recovering Alcoholic (Dani Tegan Inc., 2023) is a worthy addition to the few books out there by Kenyans on alcohol and alcoholism.

In the first sketch of the memoir, Oketch explains why it is important for a recovering alcoholic to tell his or her story.

This is what he writes: “The most effective aspect of therapy to an alcoholic is a personal story told about the experience of a recovering alcoholic. I am curious about the potency of the story of an alcoholic. There is a sense in which a story by a recovering alcoholic is a more convincing way of passing a message to an alcoholic. Such a story is more powerful than counselling by a doctor or a psychiatrist.”

Oketch’s memoir is a series of anecdotes about his addiction to alcohol. Many of the anecdotes are about everyday experiences that draw the drinker deeper into the world of alcohol and alcoholism.

He starts off his story in the preface with a simple statement, “I became an alcoholic in 2000. But I had started drinking three years earlier. As my disease progressed gradually, I had no idea that I was sick. Many things that are said about alcoholics happened to me. I had blackouts. I developed resentments against family members and friends. I became ill quite often and was irritable most of the time.”

This is not seemingly a very worrying state of affairs.

But the situation that Oketch describes above has more consequences for the person, the family and the community.

The immediate family of the alcoholic suffers the pain of knowing and having to live with the drunkard. They endure their relative’s inebriation.

They may have to deal with the damages the alcoholic causes, including having to pay for drinks, compensating other people whose property the drunkard may have broken. Sometimes they may have to bail their son or daughter out of the police station.

Should the alcoholic fall sick, relatives would have to bear the cost of treatment. This is why Oketch feels that the first conversation a recovering alcohol addict should have is with the family.

Indeed, whilst at Asumbi Treatment Centre in Karen, Nairobi, Oketch was advised by his counsellor to start the journey of recovery by making amends with his departed relatives.

Even though some of them may not have directly felt the consequences of his heavy drinking, he felt that he owed them apologies.

So, Oketch wrote his late mother, father, sister and two brothers letters expressing his remorsefulness for his alcoholism and behaviour.

Oketch’s letters to his immediate relatives are really about coming to terms with his own psychological world. How does a recovering alcoholic interact with his relatives that he hurt in the past; relatives who paid the price of the social stigma that their alcoholic son or daughter or nephew carried in the community?

However, because alcoholism is a disease, it is the patient that suffers most. The alcoholic lives with physical, mental and social ill-health, which in many cases they deny. People who are addicted to alcohol eat less, sleep less, take care of their bodies less, and end up antisocial.

Yet, society tends to simply dismiss them as ‘that alcoholic’, when clearly they need treatment. It is surprising how the family will be quick to seek treatment for a member suffering from, say, malaria, dysentery or flu, but will ignore their son or daughter who is trapped into alcoholism.

Society tends to lack sympathy for alcoholics. Oketch’s book suggests that society needs to embrace the alcoholic because they are carrying a heavy load.

Oketch writes the following in Jewel of Sobriety: Reflections of a Recovering Alcoholic, “My drinking used to weigh down on me heavily. I also deliberately kept most of my family members out of my life.

It is a very crushing thing to have members of your own family cast aspersions on your character. In fact, this is one of the things that made me think hard and conclude that I had to reverse my state of affairs. My family came out in full force to support my recovery.

That warmth of belonging washed over me and made me whole. In recovery I have gone back to my many relationships with various people and pictured how I want it to be.” In these words, Oketch highlights the importance of the collective in addressing the tragedy of alcoholism.

Considering that most people get introduced to alcohol in a gathering of many, such as when it is given in church, at a wedding party or some other celebration, or even at family mealtime, purging the individual of alcohol addiction also needs many people to be effective.

Oketch demonstrates that the alcoholic needs the family, friends, counsellors, the community or even fellow addicts. The people around the alcoholic offer moral and psychological support, they are the listeners to the addict’s stories, they are the community to which the individual returns when he or she recovers – they have to put in place social structures to ‘accept’ the person back into the community, be it the family, school, workplace or social group etc.

The most significant lesson in Jewel of Sobriety: Reflections of a Recovering Alcoholic is the simplicity and empathy in Oketch’s anecdotes.

The author does not waste time talking about his escapades when drunk. He doesn’t condemn alcohol itself in the manner some recovered alcoholics and preachers do. Instead, Oketch highlights how insidious alcohol is. He notes that alcoholics often begin as just social drinkers – one, two or three beers a day, for instance.

The volume and regularity may increase for one reason or another – simple stopover at the ‘local’ pub, regular meetings with friends such as to watch sports, an attempt to resolve a stressful problem at home or work, or simply because they are idle etc. Some alcoholics may not even know that they are already addicted to drinking.

Yet, even though Kenyans talk about alcoholism, they tend to see it as ‘someone’s problem’, until the issue hits too close to home. This explains why many families wait till it is too late to intervene when a member is deep into alcohol.

Even when families seek to address addiction to alcohol, they find themselves helpless because many regions of Kenya do not have rehabilitation centres. Where therapy from alcoholism is available, it is too expensive, with no guarantees of effective treatment.

Thus, one way of dealing with alcohol addiction is to talk about it openly to everyone. However, the focus should be on the youth. Let’s not wait to call Alcoholics Anonymous, when it is too late.

A book such as Jewel of Sobriety: Reflections of a Recovering Alcoholic is a good start in such conversations on this debilitating social problem.

- Tom Odhiambo teaches literature, performing arts and media at the University of Nairobi. [email protected]