Let us have a sober chat about alcohol and addiction

Nothing is as frustrating as witnessing someone struggling to change their life and failing every time. This is the kind of frustration I feel whenever I bump into a former student of mine whose life has been stolen by addiction. Ian, my once brilliant student is a sad and saddening shadow of his former self. Emaciated and frail, he can hardly meet my gaze anymore, when we meet early in the morning on one of his purposeless journeys.

At dawn, with the hope that a fresh day brings, he seems determined to do something about his life as he greets you politely and offers a few coherent words. Meet him a few hours later after a few rounds with his drinking buddies in the local kafunda and he will be a different person. The polite and genial young man becomes violent, rude and ready to attack anybody who dares to cross his path with the bravery of a hundred soldiers. Before alcohol stole his future, everyone at school agreed that he would do great things because he possessed the twin blessings of being disciplined and brilliant. He was always among the top four in class and every statement he made was sweetened with please and thank you.

 In high school, he was elected unopposed as head prefect, a feat that has never been achieved since then.  One of the perks of his office was a private room and that is when everything unraveled.

To an onlooker, it would appear as if the privacy and comfort the room led him to neglect his studies and get into alcohol use and other miscreant behaviour. But dig a little deeper below the polite and disciplined surface and you will discover dysfunction and a long history of addiction in his family.

At the time, his father had been laid off and he started abusing alcohol, which is why Ian often chose to remain at school during the holidays. I think he turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism as he had seen his father do and as many others do.

I am not claiming that his broken family is the whole reason Ian got into trouble with alcohol but it is a contributing factor. His world was turning upside down and he wanted to run away from that reality by seeking the oblivion alcohol brings.

After a while, the alcohol had its own momentum. He might have started out trying to forget his problems but he had no idea he had opened the door to a bigger problem of addiction.

Dysfunction breeds dysfunction; this is not a new idea. And yet when it comes to alcohol, people for the most part act as if alcohol is the cause of the problem. Instead of addressing the core cause, we choose to attack the symptom. There is need to address the true causes of alcoholism holistically without apportioning blame, especially to victims who are as helpless as their families in the face of this monster. The work and stories of many researchers such as Bill B, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, show that alcoholism is a disease of the minds, just like depression.

We need to start having honest conversations with our children from a young age, especially if there is a history of alcoholism in the family, the same way we do with cancer and other genetic disorders.

Let us remove the stigma from the addicts because most of these people are usually victims themselves and need all the support and interventions they can get. Our children or friends need to come to us without shame for help because alcoholism is not a personal failure or moral issue.

And while policy changes such as higher taxes, age limit and others can play a role, more effort should be invested in creating a sustained public health campaign that influences people to make a personal decision not to drink.

The truth is, you might close bars the whole day but since when did an alcoholic need a bar to drink? You might hike the cost and these victims will choose to sell the shirt on their back for a sip of alcohol.

I believe a less punitive and judgmental approach to alcohol would help users get treatment and encourage those who have not started to stay away from it.