One drink for the road equals two downhill

What you need to know:

Drugs and family: At last week’s eighth edition of the Full Woman health camp, Ezra Napoleon Tumuhirwe, the country coordinator at Uganda Christian Counsellors Association who also doubles as marriage and family counsellor spoke about alcohol and drug addiction. Esther Oluka captured some insightful extracts from his speech at the event.

“In a previous health article published by Daily Monitor, it was highlighted that about 20 per cent of the admissions at Butabika National Mental Referral Hospital are alcohol and drug abuse related. The patients, who are mostly youth, are admitted at the alcohol and drug unit where they are treated and rehabilitated.
Heroin and cocaine are the most abused drugs as well as alcohol. A regular user of heroin may need about Shs120, 000 per day to be high. And just recently, Uganda was ranked as the eighth highest drinking nation globally, and second in Africa.

Why do people take drugs?
Nobody plans on becoming an addict. If someone comes from a dysfunctional family that is hostile, chances are high that the children will resort to doing drugs as a coping mechanism. Other family members copy the habit from already addicted family members and colleagues. Other people do it out of curiosity or simply because they have poor life coping skills.

I have heard of mothers visiting rehabilitation centres and smuggling drugs for their children who are being helped to recover. Some of the drugs are the advanced type, very expensive, and imported from abroad. Most of the children in these recovery facilities come from well-to-do families and it is not always a guarantee that they recover. They come in and after six months, they are off starting to do drugs again. I have seen some youth rehabilitated about four times and have failed to recover. People will not trust you with their children in case there is drug addiction in your family.

One time a mother called me on phone and said that her son, an addict, was looking for his gun. I could actually hear him on phone asking for it. But the man never owned a gun. He was hallucinating and up to now, he is still battling heroin addiction. He has now started piercing the neck because he has nowhere else to prick. He has done all sorts of things at home and the sisters are not safe because he can do anything.

Why addiction is bad?
Once you are addicted, you lose control of your life and the respective drug interferes with your normal (body) functioning. Drug addicts make the substance their priority in life. Other things including their spouses and children become secondary. This is why you will find spouses of addicts complaining of sex issues, neglect of children, among other problems.
You marry two personalities; the sober and the addict. The addict may initiate innovative plans with their partners but once they receive their salary, their phone numbers become unavailable as they go about solely spending their earnings.

When drugs come into a family, the members hardly acknowledge that there is a problem. For instance, I have heard of incidences where wives call offices and lie to the bosses on behalf of their partners. They will say that he cannot go to work because he has malaria. Now, the moment a wife does this, she becomes part of the disease. The shame and guilt makes her hide the truth from other people. We have seen women battered because of addiction issues and when you ask them why their face is bruised, they will instead lie that they fell off the stairs.

HIV and drug abuse
More condoms and money is being injected into fighting HIV and yet many people are still getting infected. Why? Because when addicts are going to have sex, they do not even remember to use condoms and if they do, they will not use them consistently. They sleep with people they had not planned to be with and the following day, wonder how they got HIV. Spouses have raped their partners when they are high and have passed HIV on to them. In the centre of the challenges of life, there is not only drug abuse and addiction, HIV but also trauma. There will also be family violence, health problems and crime related cases.

What can be done?
If you are a parent with a drug or alcohol addition, seek professional help from recognised rehabilitation centres. Similarly, seek the same help for your children also battling the same addiction. Internet has all sorts of useful information on substance abuse. Download this material for your children to read. Communities also need to work together to sensitise the masses on this problem. Spiritual help is also vital in redefining one’s life journey and purpose.”

Charity begins at home

“The foundations of our families make us who we are. Family origins determine our life experiences. Sometimes though, we wonder why children turn out a certain way and yet their family foundation is strong. In such a case, the parents should not be blamed but rather other factors. If you give alcohol to children less than 18 years, it will definitely affect their brain development, the way they relate with others as well as education. We have had students who do not complete their studies while others are deported from foreign countries. Then, there are those who have failed in almost five universities and those who have been in second year at the university for the past five years.”

ezra napoleon tumuhirwe.