Leonard Njoroge was introduced to alcohol by a family friend shortly after high school. He thought that first sip was to prove he had come of age and to validate his acceptance in his father’s circles. Little did he know that sip was what was to pave his way as an alcoholic wreck. He shares the story down the gallows of alcoholism and his self-determination to break free after twenty-five years as an alcoholic.

I was born fifty-one years ago in Eldama Ravine in Baringo County. I’m the second-born out of three children of my late parents. They were civil servants, and growing up was normal like any ordinary child of my age. Attending local schools like any other kid, but much of my upbringing and schooling was in Nakuru County.

Their status as civil servants in a government parastatal accorded us children a decent life. I was able to mingle freely with my parents’ family friends. They treated us like their own children. In fact, a family friend introduced me to alcohol right after high school, a man I viewed as a father figure to me. The year was 1993. The venue was an upmarket pub whose patrons seemed the well-monied or heeled in society. My first taste of alcohol was of a beer. The taste was at first revolting, but to show that I was a man enough and not to disappoint, I steered myself to finish the bottle.

I pursued a career course, graduating with a diploma in education and later got employed in a private academy as a teacher. This saw me working in places like Ruiru and Murang’a. With a stable career at the age of twenty-two years, drinking was a weekend affair, as in winding down and catching up with friends in social joints. In fact, most of my friends in new places were fellows we forged friendships over a bottle of liquor.

I did advance my career by enrolling for a bachelor’s in education at Mt Kenya University, and with a good salary upon graduation, I married and started a family. Back then, when I was a bachelor, drinking was a weekend ritual, but as a married man, it became a daily habit. That “one for the road” bottle would graduate to two to three bottles before heading home.

Because my career was speaking for itself, I got noticed by a prestigious private academy in Nakuru and was poached. The pay offer was irresistible for one to turn down the job offer. More, I was reporting to my new workstation as a deputy principal, not as a mere teacher.

If they say the more money flows, the more an alcoholic spends like there’s no tomorrow, then that described me. I would disappear from the workstation and into pubs because the bottle was irresistibly calling more than the career itself.  I had by this time graduated to taking hard stuff like spirits doled in measures that are referred to as kanusu to stay high. Sometimes I hardly had quality family time. I don’t know who between my family and myself was the stranger to the other. I think my family was more the fellow drunkards at joints I patronised than my own flesh and blood. Despite being an irresponsible and deliquescent parent, I was somehow providing for the family or rarely at all, when I squandered everything to the last coin.

I never saw the axe falling and the end of my prestigious career. One morning, I decided alcohol was more noble than that career. Instead of reporting to my workstation, I headed straight to the pub. No word to school or reason given for my absenteeism. I never attended work in the successive days. I was fired. That was in the year 2017.

It is at this point that my family abandoned me, and for the next four years, I’d be estranged from my wife and children.

With no income source, I resorted to selling anything of value from my house to sustain my drinking habits. Electronics went. I could hardly keep mobile phones. Would sell them days after purchasing them at knockout prices, and blow the money in a single drinking session.

The society around me saw a once respected family man and a school deputy principal wasting away. Some would shed tears of sadness, wondering whether the pitiable and skeletal-looking character was the one that at one point moulded their children. Even my own family members looked down at me.

In my first twenty drinking years, I’d not reached the alcoholism dependency stage, but the latter five years were worse. Miss alcohol by a single day and signs would show up. Mine were characterised by loss of appetite and nausea. Shaking hands at times but not always. At night I’d experience hallucinations and insomnia.

By the year 2023, I’d hit rock bottom. I’d reached the point of despair. If there’s anything that I wished to end my life peacefully, it was alcohol. Sometimes I wished I slipped away when dead drunk at night. But a saving grace happened.

I met with a friend called Mike. He was a certified drunkard in his heydays and at the time of our meeting, he was a recovering alcoholic. In fact, he had established a rehabilitation centre known as Taraji House and was looking for characters like me to save them from the gallows of alcoholism. One look at me and he knew I was a wasted case, but not one that cannot be redeemed back to its former self. He asked me to join his rehab centre for my recovery journey. But a part of me was willing, but the other part was resisting.

When you see alcohol as the elixir of life and a source to drown your sorrows and frustrations with, you get the broader picture of where the resistance was coming from. Each time he reached out, he would tell me the door was wide open to receive me, and he would not force me against my will.

One day, while drowning my sorrows in cheap liquor, I’d that flash of a mind reflection. Was this really me? Had I fallen this low, losing the respect of everyone, that even the village dogs could piss at me just to humiliate me? There, at that drinking den, I made a decision.

I was quitting drinking.

In my drunken stupor, I went to see Mike and told him of my willingness to commence the rehabilitation journey.

The recovery process was itself another experience. It seemed that while I was an alcoholic, my body was deriving nutrients from alcohol, because I would take a mutura worth ten bobs and squander hundreds of shillings in alcohol and not feel hungry, only to wake up with more cravings for alcohol and not hunger pangs. At the rehab, I’d little appetite as the body slowly coped and adjusted to the new reality. I advise anyone looking to quit the bottle to seek out those who have walked similar paths and know what recovery is like. Steer clear of anyone who tells you this can be prayed away in isolation. You need real, monitored support when withdrawal hits. Alcoholism is more of a social problem than a spiritual one.

 Anyway, my appetite did return, completely replacing that urge for the drink.

Because of my strong resolve to quit and break free from the chains and the demons of alcohol, I was out of rehab in three months.

They say there’s restoration for the years the locusts have eaten. Though what I lost in alcohol could not be reclaimed, as what goes down the drain is lost, what was not lost was starting a new slate of life. I got back my family. I got my health back. I’m no longer gaunt-looking or a formerly ridiculed walking skeleton. To crown it all, I got a job.

I’m currently the principal of Mizpah Mara School in Maasai Mara, Narok County, which is under Mizpah Foundation, my employer.

Many regret looking back, but your past is not what determines your future, nor is it the yardstick to judge you. God’s goodness and mercies are there when you cry out to Him. Don’t hide your sorrows and frustrations if that prayer is your last resort to the help you’re looking for.

From my experience, it takes that little influence from that friend or a trusted close person to set one on the path to ruin. That person could be more disciplined when it comes to imbibing alcohol, but your case turns out to be different. My last eight years as an alcoholic were the worst, marked by intense drinking.

Let my story serve to inspire you if you’re that irredeemable alcoholic struggling to break the vice; there’s hope. Maybe you’re that next success story we’re waiting to hear from.

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