My 25-year battle with alcoholism

That was to be the beginning of his 25-year battle with alcoholism. “Most of the pocket money I got from my father, then a primary school headmaster, was used to buy beer,” he recalls.

His drinking escalated when he was employed as a trainee technician by the then Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation in 1979.

The training took three years. Everything was provided, including food and accommodation, as well as an allowance of Sh2,000 a month.

“My father was able to pay fees for my siblings, therefore, I had a lot of money at my disposal,” says Irungu, the second born in a family of eight children.

His drinking sprees normally started on Wednesday and extended to the weekend, when he would drink even more.

By the third year of his training, his drinking had reached such alarming levels that he would go to class drunk and was sometimes rude to the instructors.

At one point, he was even ordered out of class and later sent home. He was asked to report back with his parents.

“Instead of going home, I paid two strangers to pose as my parents,” Irungu says with a slight shake of his head, as if unable to reconcile himself with the man he was then.

His phony parents failed the test when the management noticed that they were not too concerned about their “son’s” behaviour.

“I was given a second chance only after I convinced them that I had tried to deceive them because my parents were harsh and would not have tolerated my bad behaviour,” he explains.

However, even the second chance was not enough motivation for Irungu to stop drinking. It had reached a point where his salary was not enough to buy beer to quench his thirst.

He says that his first assignment as a telephone installation official was like manna from heaven.

“I would collude with the storeman to steal company telephone cables, which we would sell, then split the money. Of course, I drunk it all away.”

His destructive habit interfered with his work and he started to get sloppy. In 1985, he was temporarily discontinued from work for a year with half pay while the company investigated him for misconduct.

Somehow, he was found innocent and reinstated a year later. “I was reimbursed the money that had been deducted from salary — it came to about Sh24,000,” he says.

Irungu, determined to celebrate his good fortune, decided to pass by a bar and have a “drink or two” before heading home.

By the time he boarded a bus, he was so drunk that he passed out. When he came to, he did not have a coin in his pocket.

He married his wife, Beth Wangui, the same year. Irungu says that she had no idea that he had a drinking problem.

She only knew this other side of her husband after marriage. “We courted for a month only, so it was easy to hide my drinking from her,” he says.

Soon after they started living together, however, there was no hiding his destructive habit. Wangui questioned his drinking, but she could not do anything about it.

By then, Irungu says he was earning at least Sh20,000 a month from illegal installations, which he used to try to quench his insatiable thirst.

In 1989, he was transferred from Nairobi to Nakuru, and his drinking got worse. Whenever money ran out, he would switch to chang’aa, which was cheaper.

Irungu was hopelessly addicted to alcohol and could go to any lengths to get it.

For instance, in 1992, when Kenya held its first multi-party elections, he was promised a crate of beer if he would walk all around the town, shouting “Moi must go!”

“As embarrassing as that was, it is exactly what I did. I got my crate of beer and Sh1,500, which I used to buy beer that same day when the crate was empty,” Irungu recalls.

By then, his marriage was in trouble. He and his wife quarrelled constantly due to his drinking and irresponsible behaviour.

“By then, we had three children, but I behaved like a bachelor most of the time and rarely gave my wife money for their upkeep,” he says.

The only saving grace was that his wife had a job at a bakery and supplemented her salary with what she made selling milk on the side.

In 1993, his luck ran out after he was caught doing an illegal installation. He was sacked.

Two months later, Irungu and his family moved to his parents’ home in Murang’a since they could no longer afford house rent.

“My father and brothers constructed a two-bedroom timber house for us since I had nothing, but even this wasn’t enough to make me re-evaluate my life.”

If anything, he abused his father’s kindness by insulting him whenever he got home drunk.

He would even steal and sell his chickens so that he could get money for beer. Once, he drank Sh8,500 that one of his brother’s had given him to pay his daughter’s school fees.

But it is Wangui, his wife, who really tasted the wrath of his drinking. Irungu admits that he would often beat her “senseless”.

“I hated myself and what I was putting my family through, especially my wife, and several times, I tried to stop drinking, but I kept sliding back,” he says.

Wangui says she stayed in the abusive marriage because of the children.

“When I could no longer persevere the beatings, I rented a room at a nearby shopping centre. I just couldn’t walk out since I was unable to pay fees for our children — my parents-in-law were supportive and were doing everything for us,” she says, and adds that she felt that she would abuse their hospitality and deny their children a bright future if she walked out.

It is Irungu’s sister, Jocyline Wambui Kamau, who was instrumental in his recovery. With the help of her siblings, they had him admitted to Asumbi Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre in June 2004.

“I was a willing patient. I felt sick most of the time, and was tired of my drinking,” he explains.

The treatment programme took three months. Irungu says that those were the three longest and most difficult months of his life, but when he walked out of the gates, he was a changed man.

“I was anxious about being out there on my own, but was determined to start my life afresh. I was determined to succeed and win back my family’s trust.”

It was not easy learning how to be a husband and a father. “Initially, there was friction between my wife and I because for a long time, she had been doing all the things I was supposed to do — I just couldn’t arrive and take over.”

Eventually, they agreed on how he would take over some of the roles. Irungu says that having his children accept and forgive him is one of the best gifts he has had.

“For me to just sit down with them and talk is unbelievable. My children would run away whenever I came home — they were afraid of me, yet now, we are the best of friends. How blessed can one be?

“There are many shameful things that I did in the past and I had no idea how to face them with a sober mind. I’m still trying to make right the wrongs I did. I’m doing it slowly, one step at a time,” Irungu says.

Irungu is a drug and substance abuse counsellor at the Asumbi Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre, the organisation that gave him back his life.

Talking from an insider’s point of view, he says that the drug problem in Kenya is serious, one that needs urgent and consistent intervention.

“It is also important to have affordable rehabilitation centres. Most of our facilities are out of reach for most of those who need help,” he says.

A daughter’s perspective

Mercy Njeri, Irungu’s second born daughter, recalls what it was like growing up with an alcoholic father. Njeri is a 24-year-old Fourth Year student at the University of Nairobi.

“Growing up, I thought it was normal for all fathers to come home late in the evening, drunk. My father drunk a lot and when he did, he would pick a fight with my mother and beat her up.

“Sometimes the beatings were so bad that mum would run away and leave us behind, although she always returned.

“My father’s violent behaviour when he was drunk scared us and we did our best to avoid him whenever he came home since he would also bully us.

“I dreaded nightfall, because it would bring dad home. I only felt happy and at peace when he left for yet another drinking spree.

“I can count the number of times I saw dad sober. I was in Standard Seven when I realised that there was nothing normal about my father’s behaviour because he was the only one around our neighbourhood who drunk himself silly.

This bothered me a lot, especially when I reached teenage. I even approached my grandparents and begged them to talk to him so that he could stop drinking.

“His performance at work was affected by his heavy drinking and in 1993, he was sacked.

“I naively thought that since he no longer had money, his drinking would stop. I was wrong; it only got worse. He started to sell personal items to get money to support his drinking.

“I was a bright student throughout school and always led in class. At one point, dad sold all the items I had been awarded for my good performance — umbrellas, mugs, flasks.

“Later, after sobering up, he apologised and promised to replace my presents. Of course he never did.

“Mum, with the help of dad’s brothers and parents, was the only one doing everything for us. It bothered me that he was unable to pay our school fees or buy us clothes, things that my friends’ fathers were doing for them.

“In 2004, mum left dad and rented a house at a nearby shopping centre. However, she kept tabs on him and informed us that he was trying to kick his habit and had gone for specialised treatment at a boarding facility, which I would later learn was Asumbi Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre.

“He came back home in September a changed man and reconciled with my mother. We had been living with our grandmother in Murang’a, and we moved back home.

“At first, I was skeptical about this stranger who was trying to reach out to us, desperate to forge the relationship we never had. I feared that he would fail the sobriety test and walk through the front door drunk again.

“Although it didn’t happen overnight, it wasn’t hard for us to nurture a close relationship with dad, since that is what we had all yearned for for many years.

“He is now a loving and responsible father who works hard to make up for lost time. I’m very close to him and besides mum, he is the first person I reach out to whenever I have a problem or need advice.”