 12 years yes okay and the most active addiction I would describe that as the point at the time where you are heavily addicted to a drug or a substance or even a habit so basically it was for me it was alcohol for 12 years and the events that led me to go to rehab I didn't want to go to rehab because one I didn't have a problem I was in denial so I didn't know had a problem but one morning I woke up with conversions and my wife got scared so at my workplace there is there's a program to help people who are addicted so she actually called at workplace and when I was to report to work the next morning I was directed to a counselor's office and I would say the rest is history because when I went to talk to the counselor she asked me a few questions and then she called another person who happened to be a psychiatrist and then I was referred to a treatment center for detox but all that time when I was doing that I was doing it because I wanted to please people to tell them I'm trying to get help but in me I didn't I didn't think I had a problem I was okay I was drinking and going to work so I'm fine so that is what they say it's denial it's called denial because I didn't see the problem passing and I didn't see how it affected me and other people around me so it's basically it was basically a very selfish 12 years yeah it was about me me me me now it took some time for me to actually accept that there's a problem you think over a month over a month yes because I was in rehab for three months so the first for the first month you were still like no I don't have a problem yeah I was I was fighting everybody and telling them no I don't have a problem in all that yeah but slowly there are a lot of counseling a lot of psychotherapy education and all that I started seeing things from a different perspective of course yeah so you accepted what was happening and you then went into active treatment yeah now back to our counseling psychologists your expertise opinion when it comes to mental health and addiction in the sense that you had mentioned earlier that sometimes mental health could be the underlying root and then people self medicaid with addictive substances I'd like to know and then you also touched on the issue that mental health actually know that alcoholism and addiction is actually a part of a mental health condition I think that most Kenyans we have what we call a drinking culture and that's what I'd like to you know think and we you know every weekend people go out have their beers then Yama and do whatever they have to do you know I think we have very much a drinking culture but at the same time those that consider it just a drinking culture I don't think know that if I drink certain number of times doing a week that simply just means I'm an alcoholic number one and then number two if I'm addicted to something that means I have a mental health condition could you kindly explain why alcoholism is an addiction is a mental health condition because we have such a bad stigma in Kenya when it comes to mental health you have no idea when but actually you do have an idea when Mburu was discussing what he has gone through when he opened up that he had ADHD there's such a stigma negative stigma when it comes to mental health but when people learn that oh my gosh drinking being an alcoholic being an addict to any particular thing is a mental health condition in itself I think that we could remove that stigma when it comes to other areas of mental health could you kindly discuss this when when when you find that you're drinking more than your peers your buddies when you think when you find that you're usually the first one to the pub and the last one to leave when you find that you're starting to have debts in your local in your locals and they know you by name and by your drink and you can drink any day of the week when you walk in they know what to serve you they don't have to come and ask your your trending on dangerous grounds okay but now to back to basics addiction is simply a combination of three things yeah there is an obsession with a drink so you continuously thinking about the positive effects of the drink continuously yeah there is a compulsion which is what we call the irresistible large right they call it tacky tacky q yeah and when that tacky comes you will give your 30,000 phone and tell them give me drinks I'll when I get money I'll come back for the phone that's that's crazy that's that's not normal yeah and then finally there is a loss of control yeah simply means that I usually like putting it in so the two of you can't coexist you can't go and take two beers and live yeah once you start you you have the inability to stop you can't stop you can't stop yeah when you find that you're continuously having negative effects due to your use we are talking about booze here when you find that your drink your drinking is causing problems at work your drinking is causing problems at school your drinking is causing problems at the home front then there is a problem right all these people cannot be wrong you're the only one who is right of course but now unfortunately like Edwin alludes to one of the biggest symptoms of alcoholism is that denial we are always fighting that tag we are always thinking we're in control even when it's very clear that we've lost control yeah now to the mental health angle we need to understand that alcohol acts on the brain yeah brain imaging shows that when compared between somebody who does not drink and somebody who drinks heavily and is in alcoholism you'll find that we may have a condition that's called a wet brain a wet brain yes what is a wet brain now a wet brain occurs when alcohol has affected your brain to the extent that when imaging is done you you find there beats and pieces of holes in the brain actual actual holes wow caused by excessive cost by excess remember when alcohol is taken in excess it becomes a poison to the brain yeah so even physical physically you'll find that it has a star affecting the brain once the brain has started being affected it becomes a mental health challenge yeah of course so there is there is a reputable proof that alcoholism the DSM diagnostic statistical manual which is what psychiatrists used to distinguish between the different mental disorders classifies alcoholism as a mental disease simply because it affects the brain it affects the brain it's that simple it's that simple yeah yeah so and the saddest and again I like the way Edwin puts it the alcoholic is usually the last person to know that they have a disorder yeah I usually say alcohol is in is is one of the saddest disease because everybody around you can see that there is a problem except the person who is suffering from the disease yeah so everybody everybody will be constantly continuously telling you you need to change you need to stop you need to and most people deep down they know when they cross the line they know we have a problem deep down deep down you just know within yourself yeah and they will continuously try to address the problem they will try to cut down they will try to switch drugs are drinks they will try to do whatever it takes they will switch to wine they will think it's it's a whiskeys that are problem are switched to beers it's beers that are problem are switched to and all that but unfortunately for most people unless you seek treatment those self remedies do not work and when it comes to someone who's undergone living with addiction and you've come out on the other end sober for three years nine months and 12 days that's amazing I know that there are people who maybe drink every day at the end of the day like by their Kazi and I don't know if they see what could be happening or where their life could be spiraling to because at the same time they keep telling themselves I'm just having one beer at the end of work and I go home but for you I'd like to know how it's spiraled out of control number one and number two our counselling psychologist James Maudi he said that it affects family it affects even your work how did it affect you at work and also your wife because you said she did call in and say maybe my husband needs help or something but it there could be more negative effects than what you went through in a different home it could be a wife who's breaking down because she doesn't understand why her husband is drinking so much she doesn't know where to call she doesn't know where to go to look for help but she's just watching her husband go down this drain or vice versa because it happens to women as well which is what we'll discuss next please could you touch on how it's affected your personal life in terms of family and relationships in terms of family you know the process is gradual right you don't get addicted on day one so as I con as I continued using people started pointing it out that I'm doing it too much they pointed it out yeah and when they do you automatically become my enemy because I want to drink okay I cut ties I can't come to your place when you call me I can't pick up so those ties started getting severed slowly and by the time I was I was going to rehab some of them are nonexistent because people had you know when you see somebody with potential somebody who is young and is can thrive in whatever it is that they are doing and is drawing all that away and he can't see it or she can't see it even new as a person you just let it be because there's only so much at times people can do and now for my wife was just concerned she didn't know actually what to do and she had seen it by that time had been married for about four years so she had seen it she had suffered through it my parents and my siblings also had seen it to the point that they were like he is our son but there's only so much you can we can do and at the end of it all they were like if you they actually told my wife if you need to leave this guy we would support you because P.S.E.C. I'm a Tushinda is only so much we can do and we don't want you to suffer so and I wasn't violent physically or verbally I was just never there I would go for three four days but I'm going to work but I'm not going home and when it came to work you find that at times I would be late consistently and I always convinced the bosses that I had a genuine issue and addicts people who are in active addiction they are very convincing they are very manipulative so I always head away of turning things around so that you can look at it from my own view not from your own view so I am late and I passed by about I left the bar at 2 or at 5 in the morning but I'll come to work at 10 or 9 and I'll convince you that something actually had happened and you will believe it. I believe you hey wow that's interesting so you've touched on the fact that addicts can be very controlling manipulative and they're very good at convincing people but when it comes to that I'd like for people to know because then again we've already discussed about Kenya being a culture of drinking it's just something we see and we can't label everybody as an alcoholic because we don't know what they're doing during the week we might see what they're doing during the weekend but we don't know what they're up to during the week so we might not be able to label all of us as alcoholics but let's now go to the issue of gender this is also an issue where the stigma is so bad when it comes to females it's a it's a point where it's rare to see a lady sit at a bar you know maybe having her glass of wine or whatever it is without people thinking she's a prostitute it's just that simple and so when you find women who are alcoholics or who are addicts or women who have ended up in rehab there's that stigma for if you're truly a lady I don't see why you should even be in rehab if you're a lady why do you have a drinking problem if you're a lady why do you have an addiction problem this is something only for men but that's not true and I'd like to hear your expertise on this please it's good that you touch on the ladies because currently we are trying to formulate a program for women only okay reason being like you rightly put it there's a lot of stigma on women who pick up an addiction or the other society has not been kind on the woman that's very true woman is considered to be the homemaker she should be on top of things and we think the men are allowed to fall around the roadside and everything but not women yeah all this is doing is the women who have issues are not taking help exactly they are going under and the more they go under the worse the addiction becomes and and you find that apart from the alcohol they start picking other things I know I've had women who are addicted to cough syrup yeah so she always has cough syrup in the bag nobody will suspect yeah so every time but we've had cases where people women are getting into big huge deaths because of cough syrup because in a day she's doing 12 bottles 12 bottles yeah yeah because it's a chemical in there there is the code that alleviates your mind there is the codein that that creates that high basi feeling and she needs 12 to get that high exactly because consistently throughout the day and she doesn't want the smell of alcohol yeah yeah so there's there's a lot of stigma when it comes around to women but what we need to understand is that again coming from what you point out about the culture that we have we are going more towards the western way of doing things where a woman and and and self empowerment and all that a woman is working and we'll want to unwind at the end of the day so she will pass by the pub and take a bottle or two and go home but then again I've heard Boru say it does not start on day one you do not become addicted the day you touch booze it takes a while right the same way that a man would get into addiction is the same way that a lady will get into addiction right there's no discrimination there's no there's in fact studies are showing that the woman is likely to become an addict faster than a man right yeah so studies have shown that women are actually getting a chance to become an addict more than men exactly chances are higher exactly right but then the inverse is women seek treatment less because of the stigma and and again it's it's I think the African culture no father wants to say my daughter is in rehab he'd rather say my son is in rehab it's considered manly to drink yeah and and bragging rights than a woman so women we have a problem we have a problem we have a problem and we need to address that issue so that women can feel comfortable enough to come out and fight for their life and fight for you know a new beginning because so many women I know are going through no not I know but so many women are just going through addiction I know that they won't speak out they will not go to rehab they won't even see a psychologist they won't tell a friend they're not gonna tell even even their best friend is not gonna know this is something they're probably doing the house by themselves let me let me give you a flip side on the on the woman the woman is more emotional than the man okay because of the hormonal imbalances during menses and all this yeah so the woman by nature is more hormonal is more emotional going back to the beat of self-medicating it's easier for woman to train self-medicate against these up and down moods than a man yeah now when this happens and then that's why we are saying women are likely to be to develop addictions than men it's because of all the hormonal issues yeah look at the postpartum depression that comes along with childbirth right that men never experience yeah so there's this woman who has just given birth she feels the man is not supportive enough the man is out in the pub drinking with his buddies because he's just got an a son or a daughter yeah the woman is at home feeling helpless crying and all that again it's tired exactly tired and so it's easier for women because of the hormonal imbalance it's easier for women to pick up self-medicating right so as as that's going on she's slowly getting depressed at home and she's self-medicating at home without the knowledge of the husband without the knowledge of the husband for women again because of the stigma people discover when they are deep in it when they are already too deep in it when you look at the statistics in rehabs very few women seek treatment and the women who come in what are the statistics for women that come into rehab probably if I give a ratio of men to women it's about seven to one for every seven male who come in one woman yeah but again unfortunately that's not the case on the ground yeah especially with today's culture like you say I would say women are drinking as hard as their male counterparts wow females are drinking as hard as a male counterparts this is something not hard if not harder females actually drinking as hard as a male counterparts if not harder yes wow we know the more we give out these statistics the more people understand that look this is something that does not discriminate genders this you know addiction and mental health as a whole does not know how this is a woman or this is a man it doesn't know it's just circumstances in life that will lead you to you know the path of mental health or addiction and I'm bored lastly and very shortly I'd like for you to give a chance on maybe for someone who is struggling with alcoholism who right now is watching the show and they need a word of encouragement that things can get better that they can't stay sober for three years nine months and 12 years just like you and even more could you give short word of encouragement please and what I would like to say is addiction is a disease and just like any other disease it can be addressed and treated it can be addressed and managed I've been able to manage mine for three years heading on to four get so these I know there's a lot of stigma about it but rise above it seek help they are people who you can talk to just like I said last time know your support system when things get tough look for that one person tell them I think I have up because deep down we all know there's something wrong you will know I knew I had a problem but I didn't want to it was easier for me to drink than to come and tell somebody I need help but what I've come to realize is these help help is there a lot of it support groups are there there is a a alcoholic anonymity is in Kenya right go for meetings I do I go for meetings okay that is a support system in itself and it helps so many people get sober so these help right yeah and it's a disease just like in here right yeah right wow there is hope and before we close down the show I'd like to for addiction maybe a couple weeks from now we'll touch on other sorts of addictions when it comes to drugs hardcore addiction and how we can help our youths to that I'll come out come out of that excuse me thank you so much for staying in thank you for tuning in to help on Monday it has been wonderful to talk to you guys and we've seen some of the questions and suggestions that you guys had we shall get back to you on those but we didn't have enough time to do that but what I can suggest is continue to interact with us the hashtag is help on Monday and why hashtag why in the morning my name is John Machache this has been help on Monday please remember that we shall be discussing hardcore addiction in the maybe couple weeks to come so if you have anyone that's suffering with this or you yourself you're suffering with that please continue to tune in thank you