Suicide attempt: With 6k in my pocket and this being my final day on earth, i hit the bars, about 9am in the morning. Started drinking at my usual keg haunts, buying booze for anyone who wanted and all this time plotting how it would go down. Didn't want to get too high...
I had to buy pesticide and i actually did. I'm a farmer's son and i knew some pesticide brands, actually i asked the agrovet which was the best and bought it i think for almost 1k. It was nicely packed and now i only had one last thing; goodbyes
I wrote messages to my wife and teaching colleagues at Magutu Girls and walked for my final drink at a certain club, i actually met a drinking buddy and laughed as we drank.. at around noon, i went to the toilet.. locked myself, quickly opened the pesticide bottle...
There was a measuring cup btw but hey i didn't want to measured death, i wanted to go in a bang ... Well, I don't remember much from that point but the pungent smile is hard to forget...i really don't know what happened or how long i stayed in that toilet...
Last thing i remember was mother shouting... How she came to town... I really can't remember... My eyesight was gone, people were shouting, that one I know and the pain, the pain in my throat, my head.. thought i was in hell
Long story short, St. Peter didn't have room for me, I didn't die. I failed... I was now in a speeding vehicle, my mother wife, where did they come from? I've never asked. Hospital ward was where i woke up. Don't know why or how but my hands were tied to the bed😳
Someone was inserting something through my nostrils into the stomach. The pain, i was vomiting all this time and i couldn't see clearly.. voices, voices, voices, what was happening, the pain🙆🙆... And i guess i fainted again...
Next i woke up still with hands tied to the bed and the acrid pesticide smell all over me... I was shouting,, struggling to get free, with my poor eyesight i was seeing ghosts coming down from the ceiling... someone injected something and i felt calmer.
Don't know after how many days i was able to see visitors but my mother was there. Tough woman that one💪. And the doctors came and i asked why i couldn't see well.. i had almost lost my eyesight. I was lucky, they had managed to pump most of the pesticide but tests were needed
To confirm my vital organs were ok, my mum and wife came every day, my teaching colleague too... Everyone was asking me what had gone wrong, i had no answer. Still have no answer to date. I just wanted to rest and leave it all behind.
After a month or so in hospital, i started mental psychosis drugs. But i would go to Nyeri for the drugs and counselling and still drink and drink. The stigma of attempted suicide came fast, guys avoided me and i drank more. At least i knew which pesticide not to buy next time
Job absenteeism increased, family trouble and amidst all these struggles, God blessed me with a handsome baby boy... But this wasn't enough to stop my downward spiral... Within a month or so of his birth, i had gotten interdicted...
I missed work for days to drink properly and the interdiction letter came fast after the principal gave up trying to reach me and help😓😭. That's when shit now got worse (acha nilale, the emotions man😭)
On my own: No work, writing from a cyber cafe to get just something for some drink, marriage breakdown...2014 was tough but I was yet to know what tough was. I was now on the streets literally, nothing to do but drink, hang around bars, write an article and drink...
I would roam the streets of Karatina like a mad man, if i saw someone i knew, i would beg for anything. Yap. I couldn't go back to my parents. It was just too much. No one wanted anything to do with me. I've never felt so lonely in life and YET, fellow drunks welcomed me..
And so drink we did. I stayed with a kinyozi friend in a mabati hovel at Muthua, one of the worst slums in Karatina town. Our shanty was a community of people waiting to die. 6am would find us walking to town to drink anything we had..
15shs was enough to get you started to stop shaking... Otherwise it was impossible to think without killing some brain cells... December came and went and i was a pariah at home and i fully understood it. January 2015.. facing a New bleak Year, i willed myself to stop drinking.
Amazingly this lasted for 3 long months😳. Yes, i bought clothes and started looking smart. Around March 2015, i got invited for a disciplinary hearing at TSC. I went 3 months sober. Now, i found young teachers in worse conditions than mine
Actually, one was referred to a counselling room before his hearing. I cried my my way back to TSC with a posting to a day school in Kieni constituency. Most principals declined to take me after reading about the alcoholism history..
I was back to teaching BUT unfortunately, in the excitement i had started drinking once again. I reported to Irigithathi Sec in Narumoru come May... No money or anything. I was living on borrowed funds
But it was the same thing all over again... I started missing classes and one time went missing for weeks. I conned everyone including the principle, teachers, students.. anyone who could part with a coin was game😭
August/September 2015, the looong teachers' strike hit and there was no pay. I was now a good content writer and would go to a cyber cafe in Narumoru and make 2k or so daily...and drink it all
My single room was locked around this time and that's when i finally learnt what sleeping outside felt like. Yap, i would sleep in dingy lodgings and pay 200shs or if i drank and forgot to pay for a bed, a watchie friend would share his cartons under stairs to a bar
The musty, dirty, smell of thos dingy lodgings is hard to forget. Anyway, the teachers strike ended and i went back to school for two days then reported on the third day drunk... Found the deputy and told her i wanted to quit on the SPOT!!
Yap. That's how i quit, she gave me a piece of paper and i scribbled gibberish and said i was done. I had a mulika mwizi and the principal tried looking for me all over town but i hid ... Never returned to a classroom after that🙄😓
After a few weeks of drinking and debauchery in Narumoru, i knew i had only one solution,; go back to Nairobi. And that's how i found myself at my sister's place in Ruai.. contrite and promising to change, same sister who paid for my detox
But it couldn't last, i was back to drinking and messing all over the estate. With no option, i ended up in Chokaa estate near Njiru/ Kayole.... This is one of the most scary estates to live in.. but i felt at home, nothing to lose, just waiting to die☹️
I sank low, got so sick i would rush out of the keg joints to vomit blood. My ulcers or gastro.. something as the doctor once called them got worse... I would writhe like a snake in pain at night .. and in the morning i would rush to the bar to get something for relief...
The few hours i would be sober, i worked fast from a cyber at Midax, and when the client sent money, i would run to the bar to drown my sorrow and shame, " Chris, ulikuja huku kufanya nini🤔" The late Wamwangi once asked.
" I came here to die," i replied. But i didn't die and while i was totally lost, God was on my side. Now before i end this (or before you say it's fiction) have a look at me in 2016 and today. Good night🙏
Damascus: February 8th 2017. I succinctly recall the day, a Wednesday. Was in my single room, lying on the 2nd hand mattress i had bought on moving here (it had a hiking trail for bedbugs😳), i had not eaten for 2 days, i only had a jug of water besides the mattress...
There was a putrid stench from my body, yeah, i had fallen into a trench two nights before. I had excruciating stomach aches (the gastro something), and i was also sweating... No one in my family knew where i was...
I cried and cried and for once in my life (in this state), i didn't wish to die. I remembered a son i had not seen for years, and my mother. I had always bargained with God to give me a swift death BUT this time, i prayed for life. I cried to God,
No, i harangued God asking why all this was happening. I didn't have a blanket just an old bed sheet over my body and i recall it was wet. With no booze for 2 days, I was shaking, having nightmares and itches....
After another whole day of pain and hunger, i finally crawled out of my mattress, legs shaking. Opened my door and knocked at one of my neighbor's doors. I begged for food and poor as they were i got a small bowl of rice...
I had no friends, no phone, no ID, if died there, i would end up at City Mortuary. I walked to a Catholic church near my house and knelt. I prayed to God to take my thirst for drink away. F
February 8th 2017, I'm sure God had a had time coz i had tough damning questions... Why didn't he rescue me? Why did he give me that darkness of suicidal thoughts, why me? Why give me such a good brain and then throw in such doom🤔
Well, i went to sleep on my old bedbug-ridden mattress sober, shaking and sickly but with ONE RESOLVE. I WON'T DRINK AGAIN IN MY LIFE!! I was out and i knew my redemption would not come from any man (so don't bother castigating me). Yap, i filled my void with prayer (God).
That's how it all stopped believe it or not (why not believe it😳😳)... I've told my story and nah, this ain't no jeremiand seeking sympathy. It's been 5 sober years, I don't fear anymore. I started meeting alcoholics like myself to get encouraged.. AA meetings
But always God, always God. One of my employers had once told me, "Chris ukiacha pombe hii kitu ya online writing inaeza kufanya millionaire" ... I had never forgotten that. That's where i started. 🙏
I'm happily married now to the most supportive wife any man could wish for, two lovely kids, i still do my writing and other digital-based stuff. I thank everyone who supported me, my mum, my sister Kate and Angie and Jackie my niece. These are my power women.
Thanks all for following. If you've someone who's manacled by alcoholism, DON'T GIVE UP ON THEM. God bless you. 🙏🙏
@KimaruChrispus @Techie_rich
