Too much consumption of alcohol is a symptom of some underlying condition. Illustration/John Barasa
With the recent deaths from alcohol in several counties, I remembered my friend. He was an engineer and we were classmates. We stayed in the same house after graduation before he started his own company in Nanyuki, got married and had two children. He then relocated to Nairobi and left the family in Nanyuki.
He had good contracts but soon he started indulging in alcohol and became reckless with his work and money. The company was put under receivership and my friend started going down very fast.
What I don’t understand is what triggered him to start drinking heavily. The more I look at him today, the more I lack answers. His wife and children are still in Nanyuki and my friend lives in Nairobi — struggling for bus fare and small contracts. Is there any way out?
-----------------------------------------
Yours is perhaps one of the most important questions that one could ask at this tragic time in our country. I understand you to be seeking answers to the question. “At what point in time does alcohol consumption became a disease?”
You tell us that your friend was an engineer, was in your class, was married and had a good business and now, is “struggling for bus fare and small contracts”. You imply that at one point in time, your friend was in full control of his life and possibly alcohol, and that this control is now lost. You now ask, what happened?
The first and critical thing you must understand is that excessive alcohol use, from the perspective of a doctor is a symptom of a disease. A doctor confronted by a person with the symptom must proceed just as he would when confronted by a patient with the symptom of fever. Let me explain.
In evaluating a patient with a fever, the doctor must establish, first, how high the fever is, how long it has lasted as well as other symptoms that the patient might have. For example, fever with a cough might lead the doctor to consider a chest infection, while fever with pain on passing urine might suggest an infection to the urinary system.
In a similar manner, a recent visit to an area where malaria is prevalent, might suggest this diagnosis, while a cough lasting one month or more might lead the doctor to consider tuberculosis.
Any doctor attending to a patient with a fever and proceeds to treat the symptom without finding out the underlying disease will fail to cure the patient, and at best the treatment given would be nothing better than guess work.
From your description, it is possible that your friend has the condition called alcoholism or your friend could be described as alcoholic.
That said, and as we have explained in the case of fever, too much consumption of alcohol is a symptom of some underlying condition.
Far too often, people diagnosed as alcoholic are condemned as being lazy, stupid or careless, while others are said to lack moral fibre.
With this (mistaken) attitude, treatments are prescribed that do not have a chance of working.
Many lose their jobs, families, respect and even liberty, all acts intended to “teach them a lesson,” while others are taken to lay counsellors to talk them out of this “stupid” habit of excessive drinking.
Since this approach of treating symptoms will not work for a fever, let us not express surprise if it does not work for your friend, and many like him.
Let us look at your friend and the symptom that he presents, and see if the “fever” approach might help us understand him better, and perhaps help him. How long, has your friend abused alcohol?
Since he was doing so well in Nanyuki at one time, is it possible that something happened to him say two to three years ago that pushed him off the rails? Is it perhaps something in his marriage, or perhaps death of a parent or other close family members? Might he have come across a difficult patch in business?
Before seeking to help him, you must be sure you know if any of these and other adverse factors were at play.
Many well-adjusted people — including engineers — take to heavy drinking because of some other mental or psychological problem.
Depression as an illness is very common and upto to 20 per cent of the general population will suffer the condition at one point in their life.
Some depressed people try to treat the depression with increasing amounts of alcohol intake. Is it possible that your friend may have suffered from depression. The treatment he needs therefore is for the primary condition that is the depression, even as we deal with his drinking symptom.
The same strategy would apply if your friend was diagnosed with any other similar condition, including anxiety disorders.
Other symptoms can lead people to drink too much. Many people “take a beer or two” to help them sleep at night. Sadly, this is a first step toward the slippery road to problems of alcohol abuse.
The way out for your friend therefore is to seek the cause of the problem that has led to heavy drinking.
Employers are reminded that there are many instances where organisations have lost very highly skilled experts because of failure to understand this condition.
Companies that moralise and send these “bad workers” away fail to understand that alcohol abuse is a treatable condition.
Do what you can to salvage your friend. He needs you now more than ever.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
