Three women and their battle with alcoholism

They started out like the next woman, a little for fun to loosen up, to share with friends. Today, they are in the battle of their lives trying to repossess their lives from the all-controlling thirst for alcohol. Three women delve into the dark past, for some as recent as a few months, sharing with Christine Wanjiru Wanjala their experiences during their affair with the bottle, what they were before and what they hope to get back if they stay away from the bottle

Clare 23: I only started boozing so I could fit in with my peers and ended up hooked

I was one of the very few teetollers at the UK University I went to. Actually, for a long time, I was scared of boozing. I started to drink alcohol to fit in with friends and discovered it was not half bad, so, I gradually upped my intake.

By the time I graduated with my Bachelors in Hotel Management and Tourism, I had long surrendered to the insatiable thirst for alcohol. I was taking anything that could calm the tremors or alleviate the maddening thirst, anything that could give me a kick.
I resorted to drinking crude Waragi and Malwa from the local drinking dens.

My parents, who should have been reveling in pride of their UK educated daughter instead had to put up with my wild ways and drunkenness. My father, ashamed among his peers as I was now reputed as a Kafunda regular, withdrew and it was left to my mother to tussle it out with me. She is the one who dragged me to rehab where I have been for the past three months.

I have lost a lot; respect among those who knew me, valuable time I would have used to launch my career, a relationship with my dad, and by far what makes me saddest, breaking my mum’s spirit. She has aged just trying to help me. I see the worried lines on her face and I see that is all me.

In hindsight, I should have stayed scared of the bottle; my story would be different then. But on the other hand, I would not be the person I am today.
I know better than to take anything for granted and I definitely know a lot about alcohol and addiction. This experience has made me who I am today; a strong determined person, and I’m hoping to stay that way.

RITA: 30. I was told alcohol would help me lose weight

Today, I wish I could touch alcohol and it did not affect me the way it did. Sometimes during the dark days when I was battling with the thirst for alcohol, I would wonder if I was cursed.

Why me? Why do so many people drink and are able to keep it in check, yet my drinking at the mature age of 26 turned out so bad?
My first taste of alcohol was part of a weight loss regimen a friend had “prescribed”. It consisted of several spoonfuls of Waragi daily, accompanied by fresh lemon. I was in my first year at the university and was bent on achieving the svelte campus figure.

I never actually lost the weight, but I did develop a taste for the bitter gin and before long, I was taking it for pleasure. This was soon to change, as by and by, I began noticing that I was beginning to need it. By the next year, I was addicted and had to have alcohol in my system to go through the day. I stumbled through graduation and was lucky to find a job immediately after. The drinking however turned around that luck, I lost the job shortly after, and consequently the two other jobs I got.

The low points are so many but none beats those countless days I woke up in a stranger’s bed with no recollection of how I had got there. The experiences, depending on where I was, varied but the constant was the same every morning, I would feel ashamed, but then realise I also badly needed a drink.

My family tried to take me for rehab, but I would run away after just days. only after realising that life was passing me by while I lay in a drunken stupor did I want a solution for myself. I came here determined to turn this around. I’m still positive that I can still come out of this and make my dreams come true, like starting a family, having children and excelling at my career.

MILLY 42. For seven years, I boozed trying to cope with my husband’s death

I’m no longer drinking, but I was an alcoholic for seven years and during that period, I all but missed out on mothering my three children. I could not take care of them as I was either passed out, too drunk or searching for my next drink.

Before the addiction, I only drank occasionally, limiting it to a few drinks and only at parties. But then, my husband died and life became hard so, I began drinking to be able to cope. In no time, I was spiralling out of control and could barely work. When my sister noticed, she took us in and let me work in her shop.

As much as it helped my children get a stable home and close to a normal upbringing, it did not change me. I kept drinking, abandoning beer because I did not find it potent enough, and drinking spirits. People who knew me before thought I had gone mad. I would come home in the dead of the night and disrupt the whole household. My children would beg me to stop every time I did something embarrassing or missed out on their visitation days because I was too drunk.

I would promise to never drink again, only to go staggering back home the same evening. I cannot count the number of scars I have from falls and crazy antics I got up to while I was drinking. I once almost lost my leg to a wound I got while jumping the gate.

I tried to hide it, and it turned septic. I made a personal decision to go to rehab after several failed attempts by my family. I want to do it for me, for my children (eldest is now 16, youngest 11), and also for the family members that refuse to give up on me. I have now come to make peace with the fact that I’m weak with alcohol, and completely avoiding it is really the only way.

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Why addiction to alcohol is more likely in women

The factors that could lead to alcoholism cut across gender. Martial Magirigi, director of National Care Centre, a rehabilitation facility in Buziga, lists them as genetic reasons, where the tendency to drink runs in the family, which account for 60 per cent of the cases , and environmental factors where stress, availability, war situations, expose one to drinking.

However, when it comes to how the two genders respond to alcohol as well as how it affects men and women, several differences come up. But, women battling addiction take longer to be discovered and thus to seek help.

Bonny Bagonza, a resident counsellor at the same rehab centre, explains, “Men tend to be public with their drinking and consequently, their alcohol addiction tends to be public.” He notes that women present the exact opposite when they are drinking, choosing to consume at home, away from prying eyes and quietly. Dr David Basangwa, a psychiatrist with Butabika Hospital, concurs, saying women with drinking problems are often discovered late due to their tendency to drink secretly.

Women cannot handle alcohol as well as men
According to Dr Basangwa, this has nothing to do with general perceptions of what a man or woman can or cannot do.

“It is a biological fact that ladies bodies don’t handle alcohol patiently,” he says. Reason? Women tend to have more fat tissue, which does not favour the absorption of alcohol, its eventual break down and excretion. “The fat inhibits the taking up of alcohol and thus circulates in the body longer,” he says. As such, a woman and man may consume equal amounts of alcohol but the woman will be found to have more alcohol in the blood than the man.

The effect of this is that effects of alcohol on the human body as we know them tend to be more severe in women, as a direct result of the alcohol circulating longer around the body. This fact Basangwa says also explains why women consume lower than men.

In summary, why women should not try to compete with men in swilling alcohol is because a women who drinks large amounts of alcohol is more likely to get addicted compared to a man who drinks the same amount or even more.

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The statistics

More women joining the drinking wagon

Alcoholism is commonly associated with men. And for good reason too. According to a Global Status report, Uganda, which is ranked one out of 189 in per capita alcohol consumption, has one in two men drinking and only one in four women drinking. Statistics, even if they do not directly put alcoholism, indicate men are leading in the drinking department.

But, according to a 2003 Gender Alcohol and Culture International study (GENACIS), the numbers of women drinkers are slowly growing with available figures showing women making up the bulk of new drinkers(people who have just started taking alcohol). New women drinkers stand at 28 per cent, outnumbering the men at 26 per cent.

Partly to blame, Bonny Bagonza, a Counsellor at the rehabilitation facility reasons, is the more permissive society and/or women having money as opposed to wait on the men for what they want.

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Signs of addiction
Dr David Basangwa, psychiatrist from Butabika Hospital, tips:
• You cannot seem to control your drinking. If one is spending most or all their time and resources on the habit.
• Drinking is jeopardising work, relationships, you doing your chores, personal hygiene.
• You have thought about reducing your drinking but felt overwhelmed when you tried.
• You are preoccupied with drinking and find yourself thinking about it a lot.
• You get angry when people take issue with your drinking.
• You take alcohol in the morning to be able to get through the day.
• You develop health issues as a result of drinking like liver complications, acute weightloss.e.t.c and still are unable to stop.