 Welcome back once more I trust that you're having a lovely evening and once again you are watching the power talk show my name is Cheryl blessing and right before winter break we were talking about drug addiction and its intervention and joining me in studio is Chris Pasquimaru a man who has battled alcohol addiction and eventually got to becoming an addiction counselor and an intervention therapist so you were just explaining how you went through your journey how you got into it and the effect it had through your university the effect on work and the effect on your relationships with others so right before we proceed this I want to bring up the comments that you have sent us on our social media okay I'm being told we're going to wait a minute so you can continue sending us your questions your comments your feedback through our social media pages at Y254 now Chris Pasquimaru you are just telling us that you blacked out woke up in Westlands and found yourself at Jerome or Rehab but you went to the mortuary first because can you explain why you are convinced that that was where you are at what mental space were you in for you to not value your life I was in a situation where every waking morning every waking day I wanted to die that's how bad my addiction was and this is something that I never explained to the family or maybe I never really understood how bad it was sometimes if I found myself in a mortuary I would be wishing why can't it just get involved in an accident and then I die alone and God saves the other people so that people will not say I died out of maybe an addiction or alcohol something like that and maybe when walking I would wish why can't that truck just hit me I remember there was a time I went to when it was a thick road being built and then there was the horse of Spridge and I remember the last two months ago there was a lady who wanted to maybe attempt to say that and it triggered those memories I also took there one time wishing I had the courage just to jump it was that bad that's the mental state I was in feeling that I was a failure of course I had been caught a failure many times when when asking for money from family friends when reading I know you find your friends maybe schoolmates who are doing well and here you are a graduate asking for alcohol even 20 shillings just to take some changa that's the mental state I was in and even when I finally went into Jerome there was a detox that was that for three weeks and my sister catered for that my circuit and then we I was supposed to rehab and then I convinced her that I was fine and I stayed for two months and of course relapsed so again it was another spiral down until my mother sent for me and I was taken back home to Nyeri that's that's where another phase of my life started I thought maybe when being close to parents I would maybe recover but you see people in the village knew I had good job as far you come the stigma you lost the job because of drinking and luckily I got another job now at you see as a high school teacher and I even started beating somebody someone a collegemate from a college mate and we settled down kind of started a family but I was still drinking and when the money started trickling in again it got worse the women the drinking the fights missing school scored in duty the the warning letters and eventually I was interrupted because I just stopped going to work I would feel like everyone knew I was a failure and all that and when it came to 2014 eventually I got the courage to maybe go to the suicide and I remember I saw the TV went to a bar drunk and all that and I found myself in a hospital for most a month and I was diagnosed with mental psychosis I was supposed to go for therapy I couldn't even afford therapy and eventually because of now the stigma with the stigma with the suicide it even got worse again I was interdicted the second time and eventually because even my space out of maybe 50,000 shillings of course I would only get maybe 9,000 or 10,000 but I didn't want to tell my family how bad the situation was with the loans microfinance all those all those there were so many problems and then of course my wife had to leave because I don't even blame her she left with my son and it was her right because I was just too much and I had not started dealing with my underlying issues these underlying issues they could be many and every situation is unique everyone is unique everyone in addiction is unique you have could be having childhood trauma you could be having low surface and many other emotional issues you can be having a mental issue that is causing you to be pushing you towards substance use or a drug addiction so it got so bad that even when I was transferred maybe after the first interdiction the second school I went to I still stopped going to work I fought with the principal and all that and eventually I thought maybe I can't go on with the teaching my everyone knew I was just this dream to teach a kamualim kamualim kamalim but how did you how did you get through all that because you've the several times that you tried to stop you took some months over then you went back how did you eventually get to deciding that I am done with alcohol I want to turn over and you leave and become any person I can say it was something progressive because every time the interventions that were being done by my parents maybe even the prayers I didn't really share I would get born again every other two months or every other week in crusades and then I would even look for pastors just to talk to me so I think it was progressive and eventually I came back to Nairobi after losing my teaching job and one day in 2017 February I talked to somebody in touch and he was a counselor I think and that's the turnaround that was my turnaround because he listened to me and guided me on how to go back go to alcoholic anonymous and that is the way I started networking with other people who I in Kaveri now for me to make that turnaround I had to admit that I had finally I was powerless that I had tried all other things and I really needed help and and that is something that most people in addiction don't do they always think I can do this on my own every day because this is what I do every day they think they control when I finally admitted that I didn't have control that's when now my turnaround started that's when people came through and started helping me I had tried stopping many many many things before but I never admitted even to myself my God and to someone else because that's what we always say I had not wound up that I had I really had a big problem but when I did that and I opened up to someone and opened up to my God and said I needed help that's when the turnaround came then number two I identified what my triggers could have been I didn't have the knowledge that I have now as an addiction counselor but I knew I had anger issues I knew I had low self-esteem issues I knew I had maybe issues with my family I knew I had issues with maybe in my relationship with maybe my first wife and I needed to resolve all these and then the sense of failure that I had because of the failures I had in form for ideal performers I wanted in class 844 I never achieved what about or what other people expected of me so there were high expectations from maybe even my parents and I always felt like I failed them so all these things would combine into a complex course of my yeah and then of course there was a spiritual disconnection over the years I didn't have this grounding in spirituality so all these things I had to start working on them one by one and even when I when my recovery journey started I didn't have the resources to finally maybe go for therapy and all that and it even affected my relationships at the beginning and because I really wanted to retire everything where it was I even found myself going to gambling you know betting and all that photo betting to try and win a lot of money again to ruin my finances so all my life I never felt like I was enough and that's something I struggled with and even in recovery until now I was able to go for counseling and talk to somebody and learn through behavioral therapy how to deal with my that low self-confidence again I had a lot of anxiety all my life maybe it was the environment I grew up in maybe the very strict father and very high expectations I always had a lot of anxiety again these are issues I'm seeing with so many young people a lot of anxiety issues and cope with that by using drugs and alcohol because they feel like it helps especially weed now weed is being smoked just like cigarettes in the 90s everyone is using weed and when you talk to these people you realize there's always an issue with anxiety and you know weed can be a depressant to some people's stimulant and hallucinology to some people so at the end of the day they feel like it's numbing their pain or their anxiety I can say I had childhood trauma I had a nice childhood and I can say that my parents were to me or anything but maybe the expectations I even placed on myself were too high I have started working on that the perfectionism that I wanted all these things to go my way those are things I really struggled with even in my working So you have to come to terms with that it's not always going to be perfect and you just have to accept it and it doesn't have to go my way yeah so simple they might look like simple things but when you combine them they become a vortex of a storm and you have to find a way to numb them to resolve them and do you think this this factors you're talking about the low self-esteem and the anxiety and all that do you think they contributed to the mental struggles that you endured while you were addicted to alcohol Yes actually they contributed not only to the mental issues they contributed to me seeking a solution in alcohol and even seeking a solution maybe in sex without a connection you know sex addiction they contributed because when I was drinking and like other people who are having fun for me it was a coping mechanism but it wasn't at the beginning it was supposed to be fun but with time a few months maybe a few years I realized this thing was coming me down you see alcohol is a depressant it's not a stimulant it was coming me down and I was you know like I didn't have any care in the world you know I wasn't aware that maybe I had failed or maybe I was expected to do this you know maybe I had failed in exams or anything like that and that's why I continued drinking the anxiety I feel when when I was sober was just too much yeah so when I drank alcohol it was like a drug for me it was like a medication for me I will say I'm medicating one way or the other and you see what happens with time what happens with time is you you require your brain to reward circuitry okay so instead of having natural stimulation things like love or maybe relationships or enjoying your food and drinks you now get hooked on this drug of choice whether it can be a prescription drug feeling that you're looking for the high that high and you keep looking for it because with time the brain the brain now gets gets dependent yeah and it's also a hormone because certain hormones are released to give you happiness or give you peace so when you get addicted to that and your body is reliant on an alcohol read for you to produce that hormone then it becomes you the way you say you've rewired your internal space your internal mechanism in the brain we talk about the neurotransmitters especially dopamine and that's that's involved in the brain reward circuitry they feel good we for a long time it is because they feel good hormone or they feel good neurotransmitters anytime you eat good food anytime you maybe make love or anything with that dopamine is released but you see natural stimulants like food or drinks soda they give you just a little bit of dopamine but for something like alcohol these artificial stimulants alcohol weed mogoka mirror give your dopamine rush okay so your brain kind of gets hooked with time but after a few years of using or a few months the dopamine will be reduced that's why you find yourself using more alcohol or intolerance and then with time because these are chemicals that you're using every day you become not only physiologically dependent you also become psychologically dependent you can't you believe that you can't do without it even though maybe you can thank you for that because that has given us a very clear example on what leads to addiction aside from our daily usage it's also something that physically happens to us in our brains so i want to read some of the comments that you have sent us on facebook we asked how you can tell a friend of yours is addicted and how you can help them overcome it we have money karlane who says you can know someone is addicted to something if he or she can't do without it that is very true if someone is reliant on something they are addicted mangale madeni mangale says thank you so much for watching david ogillo says you moderate the level of addiction down slowly until they quit yes that is one way you can help them cope with it and overcome it thank you so much for watching us louise a b lory a b lory says a person seems to be hallucinating and doing some things let them overcome those addictions yes hallucinations is one of the signs of alcohol or drug abuse denny's new guess i say is following thank you denny's mwene karlane is the one i read saying you can know if someone is addicted if they can't do without it now we have understood from your story it greatly impacted your your work life and your family life with your direct family your siblings your mother your father as well as your spouses so how how did those relations get deteriorated through time is it because they actively tried to help you overcome the addiction or is it because they got to a point and they gave up on seeing you as someone who can be sober initially they they were present they were there they wanted to help but you see the problem is like many other people in in our modern society even in our Kenyan society especially they didn't understand how addiction works so the way they were helping was even pushing me further and it happens for so many point addiction even today you'll hear them saying these people don't understand me my family doesn't understand me my man my sibling they don't because a week by you know making a lot of noise you know embarrassing you in front of the pastor in front of the rest of the family the link that is helping the big city can shame you into sobriety it never happens so for me because of this scrutiny at every at every social gathering be in the in the family it was about chris chris is drinking chris has messed chris has said this so i would not even attend such gatherings you see and then if if i was calling it was mostly i was calling either to khan i had become such a good khan i would even khan not only the family members i would khan the priests i would khan the chief i even khan the ocs one time i khan the chief i would khan anyone yes i had such a good tongue and because of maybe even the things i was saying my father is sick you know i would go in the village maybe in the town nearby town lying my my mother is sick my mother in hospital all those things of course i had i burnt so many bridges of course i would maybe get drunk and call asking for money if they didn't give me money i would insult them so i i i burnt bridges in that way um if they called now to maybe try and correct me now maybe help i would feel like they were interfering because you see that the truth has so if they would call me and ask you are a graduate why are you doing this enormous it would just push me further away yeah i would say i'll never talk to you and that i stayed even for years without speaking to some of them that is how the relationships broke down i would make promises i would borrow money and say i would pay back even when working i would even for my spouse then with my spouse it was even worse because i would steal you see with my parents it was worse because i would steal from the house and all that and and this is a situation that happens with the with so many people in addiction whether you're using or any drug of choice that you're using that always happens because you see there are stages of addiction where you start with the experimental stage you go to the social stage sorry you start with the experimentation and then you start you move to the social stage where you're drinking with other people to move to the instrumental stage where now you're using this as a coping mechanism then you go to the habit where now you you can do anything to get get the drug to maintain the habit and then there's the last stage where now you're in the compulsive stage where you have to drink to unlock what you're saying and i was in that stage so i could do anything i i once sewed my shoes in a in a bar and i sewed them to chaco dealer you know and i remember the way he derided released told me let me let us all party 180 and to me 180 was like a million because that was maybe a bottle that you could drink we didn't drink from bottles we drank from cups if someone is there the compulsive stage because i am aware so many people have family members of friends who have gotten to that point people who even fathers and have abandoned the children they will sell anything like you said you sell your household items you lie to your parents you lie to your friends you get that you go you have maintained the habit how will you advise a family member or a spouse to someone who is dealing with someone like that how can they help them because you've said they didn't understand your diction how can someone understand and help their partner okay and the first thing you you have to understand this is a disease is a mental health condition and like with any mental health issue there is loss of control so if you notice the other person is dysfunctional in one way or the other in one aspect of their lives or the other then you have to take control you you can't just say they are going to turn around one day if it's possible i always tell families just like you can't leave if somebody wakes up one day and they start collecting papers in the neighborhood you have to intervene at that moment so even for an addiction this person might be going to work but they are not in control so if you leave them to their devices most likely they are going to die so i always tell families um first of all try talking to these uh this individual but have it in your mind that they are not doing it to just harm or just harm the family or just harm themselves they have a mental health condition so try talking to them okay if it's not possible try learning more about whatever they are the the stuff that they are using are they taking moguka are they taking mirror what is it doing to them you can talk to a professional as a family before i have seen families come to me to learn more about their loved one before taking any action then uh if there is there is no change with with your loved one then you can just wait you have to do something about it because there is loss of control there's compulsion this person is going to die as as as you watch and you are going to write very good tribute i always ask families do you want to write tribute in a few months time why don't you do something and that's why we have forced interventions and they work i'll tell you many people have argued that forcing somebody into a rehab doesn't work but i've seen the highest number of people who would form in rehabs are actually those who are taking their first how do you force them do you drag them into the rehab or how do you force them to go to because there are people whom they have maybe the family has tried this for so many years they have sought counsel they have sought help they have talked to the person they've even supported the person financially to get them out of that situation but the person the individual does not seem to want the help that they're being offered how do you force them into rehab to ensure that maybe they can get away from this addiction okay before we even come to the foster intervention there's something i've said they have your mission about supporting um their loved one what what i have noted is while there is a deadline between supporting and enabling enabling means uh you're giving maybe resources to this person who is already in addiction somebody who has a mental health condition you set up a business for them you have uh some things you you you're even finding a why a pause for them because you're paying rent and paying rent and all that is i understand it comes from a point of love and you can do it maybe for a few months to set them up but if you're doing it for years then that is enabling okay so when if you're giving support then let it be support and it has to be support with uh conditions you have to tell them we are setting you up for three months and then after that you have to uh start uh chipping in because this is your life uh families don't want to speak about these issues they don't to confront um their loved one their loved ones and tell them you have a problem yeah it doesn't have to be confrontational you know like uh matusia or anything like that you can see it done with your loved one and get a need uh somebody like an addiction counselor and you have an intervention it has been done for so many in many other societies it can be done even here i have done it so many times you sit down with the family and the loved one and he speaks out of the uh they speak out and then the family speaks out and then we have we we come up with the the solution um if that doesn't work that's when we are talking now about maybe a forced intervention it doesn't have to be for every uh every family the families who have tried it again and again you can't advise them to do it again okay uh sometimes we even tell families to help from a distance for instance for instance you can provide shelter you can give shelter maybe if somebody wants to stay in your uh in your compound you can't tell them to go and sleep with it you can offer you can love from a distance okay i'm talking about particular steps you can provide them food without an ugly you know just food for themselves but you can't you can't tell me that you provide food for the for them and their spouses and all that um what i have found uh bark is communication if we are we are to improve communication the way we communicate with people in addiction um i i only find it um working more than even forcing people to go to rehab uh you sit down with them you talk from a point of love from a pinch not from a point of higher moral authority because that is what we do we talk down on them uh you know we have you know we have taken to eight rehabs this is a man we could have used to buy a matat this is like a plot of chamber you don't if you do that you're just pushing them away okay you have to start listening to maybe the love one yes you can see it his life it's her life but it's affecting you this is a family disease if you don't get better then all of you will stay sick they have to your loved one has to get better for everyone in their family to get together so if you approach it from uh maybe the professional assistants or with some love you tell them what you want yeah with that compassion and empathy not simple empathy you please try to understand where they are coming from could they maybe have gone through something that they don't want to tell their family because you find uh for instance a boy who was sodomized in in primary school or in in high school they you don't expect them to come and tell you so sometimes even as families we need to appreciate that some things could have happened to the person in addiction that they might not share okay they we are not aware of uh that's that's when we now start considering something like uh professional counseling yes because they may open up to a therapist as opposed to opening up to you that's a new person and then they are tied down by uh confidentiality closed they will not go revealing all these things okay i'm talking about uh techniques have seen work practically yes there's a lot of very practical and you know that's that's what we need because the practical steps that you can do are what help not the theory now you've also mentioned you've you mentioned this a few times with the family shaming you and people living in society seniors are failures seniors are an addicted person who's just a burden what are some of the misconceptions that people have about drug addiction that push the addicts further into the addiction itself first one is it's uh it's uh choice you're the one who goes to the bar you're the one who buys uh mogoka you're the one who buys weed so you're in control chris you're the one who um you know who buys prescription drugs you are in control you you no one no one and i have heard so many parents saying this one brings the alcohol to you okay in that argument comes again because we have not accepted that this is an addiction is a mental health condition you see there's the normal drinking people have alcohol has been there uh some of these drugs have been there and some people drink and manage their lives properly without any problem and then the addiction with addiction there's lots of control total loss of control and that compulsiveness this person can sell their shoes this person will have to drink in the morning this person will have to drink in the evening yes they are working they're in a suit a good suit but they have to work in the uh to drink in the evening so um telling them that it's a choice um then that's the myth that's a misconception i don't i don't see anyone who would have liked to find themselves at five a.m knocking on a bar with a window to to beg for alcohol i don't see any graduate who have liked to go begging uh a dog peddler for for a show or something or even pass out and the way you said yeah the first to your recovery was you accepting that it was not in your control yes so it wasn't your choice you were driven by the addiction it's the urge and the yearning for alcohol a sip of alcohol that drove you to drinking and buy all these things and they're underlying issues the issues that i want to numb uh are the ones that uh spiraled into into their addiction and when i started working on them for once um i found myself going for a month for the second month for that month uh i was able to maintain a relationship for some time and i found myself now with that conviction that you know i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not going to drink again another myth is that uh it's a curse you are cursed your family is cursed it's these uh your family and all so many things and uh and even in africa to saturday they say it's a showy yeah it's another misconception and another one is you they can stop anytime they want you can stop anytime you want and i hear even uh even in church and so many other platforms you can stop anytime you want if i really wanted to stop i would have done it maybe many years ago if it was that easy why would i have um waited until losing my job suffocating losing my job at tc losing my family losing all those things good things why would i have waited i would just have stopped if it is that easy why would somebody with the maybe liver disease wait until they're dead okay why would they continue drinking and it's true because there are people who have drank to the point of even getting the liver disease yes and even with the condition they would seek out some drugs or alcohol so it's it's not within they can't stop it's just something that they have to talk to someone about yeah and get over the addiction progressively as you said now i also want to the youth of kenya if we're being honest kenyas have a very bad habit i witness this personally once a club someone was blacked out and because it is birthday his friends are still chugging alcohol down his throat and pouring water getting him up and this person has passed out the kenyan culture has promoted and glorified alcohol and drug abuse and even the usage of mirad tobacco velo things like that how would you advise someone who's right now maybe dealing with the wrong group of friends or getting into addiction without realizing how can they stop as early as now before they lose 20 years of their lives and their families and dogs and so many other things i don't know whether we have time but um these are diagnosed ds m5 or some criteria we use to maybe i'll it's this one's for alcohol um we can just maybe highlight yes just just to highlight yes if you have tried to stop uh maybe the drug you're using and are successfully if you are taking it in larger amounts and for longer if you have cravings if you have a higher tolerance you're using more than when you started if you're using despite negative consequences even in situations where it's a physically hazardous maybe you have found yourself in such a bar you're blacking out all these are signs that you have a substance use this or what we call sd okay you have most likely addicted and you need to seek help if you have the raw symptoms that shows that most likely you're dependent on this substance that you're using it could be prescription drugs like uh valium and many others benzos and uh it could be alcohol it could be any any drug shows that uh you need help yeah so that is a questionnaire or something um this is what we call ds m5 there are so many uh screening tools that we use like cage and then this mast and then most of these are even online uh these audit audit uh these are tools that you can download you can tell and and if i hope back home you're taking note of that the the one of noted is dsm 5 i will encourage you and your friends sit down take this this test and figure out are you addicted how can you work with that and how can you prevent it before it gets too far so because time is running out you could give us your parting shot and then share your contacts because there's so many people who would like to be able to access you so just give us a parting shot and then you details your social media phone number if available and that's some way that we can find you simply don't die alone if the substance you're using if the drug you're using is affecting any aspect of the life negatively if you have had to borrow money to hide when using that substance if you have had to maybe take a leave a sick leave from work if it's affecting your relationship it's time to get help talk to someone get help yeah um you can reach out to a professional counselor you can reach out to maybe someday recovery recovery quote there's alcoholic anonymous these are meetings you can just walk in that they are all over the country and you can even google them online alcoholic anonymous meetings you can walk in and start connecting with people who can help you yeah we even have a mental mental mental health hot wings where you can even walk into any government hospital and you'll find a mental department and you can ask for counseling services some of them are even offering even in a lobby they're offering free you know counseling services yeah for my contact on social media on tiktok on facebook on twitter i'm chris kim recovery chris kim recovery if you're such that you'll see my content and you can we can you can dm and we can talk my number my mobile phone number it's a 0 7 2 6 6 1 9 0 7 9 that is 0 7 2 6 6 1 9 0 7 9 thank you you can reach out please don't die alone and there's hope i think i epitomized that yeah i was down i was rejected i had given up even on myself but here i am talking about trying spreading the gift of sobriety thank you and that is what i do every day thank you that was very wonderful i love the testimony of his journey of overcoming you saw how he started it was just a fun thing that he did with his friends but it led to 17 years loss in all this addiction and so many things that could have gone different that what baby blight sided under but overcome by the addiction so i'm just being told time is running out but thank you so much for tuning in i hope that you seek the help that you need and you get help for family members friends and anyone thank you once again chris bus thank you for the entire team team or rose the technical team the camera operators thank you for helping this show run smoothly we will have a repeat of this show tomorrow between 1 and 2 p.m and it should also air on our youtube page so stay tuned for that so you can all find me on social media actually blessing and that's it for today i hope you've gotten something from this conversation and if you haven't gotten anything please do not die alone that's the only thing i can tell you that's it thank you stay tuned y254 tv