My father's way

                                                              

It was the last place that I envisioned to be. I found it disgusting watching men and women, boys and girls walk out there drunk, useless and aimless. It was not only a place of distraction but a life changer too. Well, it happened that was my honorable father’s favorite spot. He did not keep it to himself but made me a part of it. Maybe it was because I was the only child, it may have been different if I had siblings. Every morning, evening and sometimes afternoons, I will be found at the drinking spot in our neighborhood. My father just could not eat anything without an appetizer. According to him, alcohol was the one thing that boosted his appetite and nothing else. I was surprised my mother bought into that idea that each time food was ready, I will be sent to get some tot of local gin or bitters for my father before he could eat. I did this every day that I wondered what the woman at the bar thought of me. Maybe she thought I was a drunkard too like those in the neighborhood, maybe too not. Well, whatever she thought did not matter. What mattered was the struggle I went through having to smell alcohol like two times every day and seeing how terrible and disgusting alcohol made people. My father also annoyed me a lot. I just did not understand why he could only eat after he took alcohol. But who was I to question what he did?

If you ask me, I cannot tell you because I cannot remember when I also started taking alcohol before I could eat any food. All I can remember is, I did not only buy for my father, but I bought for us. I also started drinking alcohol for appetite. My father’s case was not that bad. He only got a little drunk when he took alcohol before eating. The worst he did was talk and talk about things that none of us found reasonable. When he got tired, he slept it off. My situation was very different and I have not been able to figure out what made me drink so bad since age nineteen. I did not have to get food before I drank. I drank morning, afternoon and evening. When I turned twenty, I joined a group of friends to train and work as masons in the neighborhood. Before that, I always heard the saying that masons liked drinking a lot. Well, I always thought it was just one of those stereotypes but my friends proved me wrong. Each evening after work, we went to about three different spots to drink and drink till we could drink no more. They saw it as a form of relaxation after a hard day’s work. But I seemed to need alcohol instead of just wanting it to eat or relax. I saw how my friends drank and I drank more. I could not stop at just two or three bottles. I couldn’t work any longer because no one wanted to work with a drunkard. The saddest part was, I had no idea what I did, what I said or even how I behaved when I got drunk. Hearing the terrible things I did always had me swearing to stay away from alcohol forever. Then I felt angry, lonely and unacceptable. And the only way I could hide from these feelings was to drink again and again.

Blames and Pain

                                                         

                                                           

I always never understood why people relied on alcohol because they had to relieve pain. To my best understanding, I didn’t see the correlation between the two: drinking to let go off pain. Well, anytime people drank because they needed to relieve pain from loss or something, the alcohol only aggravated the situation. I believe it only made them shy away from reality for but a moment. In my case, it was not my loss that caused me to drink but the pressure that accompanied it. Indeed, when times change, people change too. Three years into my construction business, I lost everything. It happened so quickly that I could hardly figure out what triggered the collapse and the loss. Losing my job meant severe hardship since it was the only one my family depended on for a living. With my responsibility as the man of the house, my wife didn’t have to work for any reason. She only stayed home to take care of the children and the necessary house chores. Having a house wife wasn’t a weird thing to do especially in the town we lived in. However, what became weird was when I asked my wife to search for a temporary job that could sustain the family for the time being as I continued to look for a new job. With the little money I had left, she started petty trading in foodstuffs at the town market.  We at least had some money to survive with her work until things changed. She could rarely find market for the goods. Some went bad overtime which meant a loss to her. Things became harder than ever and having to live to be blamed for everything that happened was heartbreaking for me. She blamed me for her loss. She blamed me when we had to eat once a day. She blamed me when the children were sacked for fees and when the landlord threatened to throw us out if we didn’t pay for rent. Having to be blamed for our every misfortune was a blow to me. I could no longer live in the reality of my loss and unending blame. To shy away from the reality, I started drinking.

I spent every little money I got from friends and what I stole from my wife on alcohol. I drank so much that, I no more had an ear for insults from my wife or anyone. But when I wasn’t drunk, I regretted that life that I lived. Alcohol gave me a temporary shield where I got away from the blames and pain of reality. Deep within me, I knew it did no good to me, my wife or my children. But it put me in a world where I could live without blames, a world where my loss could be seen as restorable. I try, but it gets even harder coming out of this world.

It made me bold

                                                

Moments like those were ones that I was used to. But that day, I felt I had had enough. I just came back from visiting some friends in the town next to ours. I didn’t even make my way into the house when my mother began raining all sort of insults on me. This was not the first time. Each time she did, I found a reason to justify her actions but that day, I just could not take it. I was 21 years and having to be laughed at, mocked, teased and disgraced in the presence of my little siblings and all the children in that compound house was really something I could no longer cope with it. It was true that I had to drop out of school because I repeated every year but that didn’t mean I was “good for nothing” like my mother mostly described me. At least, I didn’t quit school to stay idle. I have a carpentry job. My friend who quit out of his own will didn’t even go through quarter of the problems I went through. He was the man of the house not because his father wasn’t around. But because no one treated him like a child. No one challenged when he spoke. More than ever, I wanted to gather my friend’s courage to talk back and talk for myself. He advised that I needed to be “high” for people to mellow when I talked. For what could possibly make me high, I had not the least idea until he took me to a nearby drinking bar one cold evening. He placed bottles of bitters on a table in front of me. I didn’t hesitate at all, but I drank for the first time in my life. I wanted to get over my shyness and timidity so much that, I didn’t think twice about that decision. The next day, I took a full bottle, then two, three until I drank day and night. I gathered a kind of courage when I drank: courage to talk back, then to insult, argue, fight and disturb. That was how high I got. I no more had time to work. By 6am, I will be crawling on the ground to the bar, spending each pesewa on more and more drinks.

When I drank, I put on a new me, one who is not shy, and one who is destructive and disturbing. I didn’t like my new self entirely because it caused me a lot. I could no more work. I lost some of my friends, those I believed were not smart because they could not be bold enough to drink. I lost my mother’s love and care. But anytime I took a second to think about how bold I became to do whatever I wanted to do, I found myself going back to drink again and again.

Lost

I don’t know if it is the many problems I faced that caused me to drink or what I drank that caused my life. Whatever the case, I find myself in a loop that pulls me back each time I try to escape. About ten years ago, my company was the most booming enterprise in the small town I lived in. I helped households and businesses with loans. My siblings depended on my job for funds for their education. At that time, I had a young but happy family. Everything was ok until the tables decided to turn around one day. My life changed completely with no residues of the past. My company collapsed, my children had to move to a school where they paid less fees. It was my wife’s trading business that we depended on for a living. As time passed by, things became critical. My relatives abandoned us from the family house we lived in so we moved to Accra to seek greener pastures. In Accra, I began working as a laborer: I weeded, mowed and sprayed for money. My wife continued trading but in second hand clothes, even so, things became tougher for us. The friend who we stayed with had to ask us to leave because she had to sell the house and relocate. We hired a kiosk in which we lived for the time being. A time came when we couldn’t afford the rent too. But we were lucky to get an uncompleted building to make our home.

Things got worse. Every day, my children being sent home for school fees, starving for days, creditors chasing after my wife for repayment of loans, my children performing poorly in school because they had to spend the entire night selling pure water in the streets, were situations that made me lose myself. What I lost myself to however, is what destroyed me and it was drinking. Whatever money I got, I spent on drinking. The pain of my loss was too much to bear. I could no more face reality. Drinking did not get rid of the pain. It aggravated it. I behaved no less than a mad person when I got drunk. I disturbed my neighbors, disgraced my children in school. I beat my wife, I beat my children. I put the house in chaos: throwing relevant things away, spoiling food, throwing money away, to the extent of nearly raping my oldest child.

All these I did and continue to do, even now. Not because I want to, because they cause more pain. When I drink, I shy away from the reality, but for only one minute moment. With all the misfortune, I feel destroyed and broken to face the world. I try to get out of it sometimes, but the more I try, the more I get lost in it. I am helpless.

From the street

The harshness of her voice kept reminding me to leave and never come back. She felt no pity even though she had to. It was true I was an orphan, she didn’t have to care like she brought me into this world, but she had to cater for me with contributions from some generous relatives. Eating soaked gari and left-overs from my aunt was the best I could thank for but being stranded in a place where I could die was terrifying. It wasn’t my fault that I found myself in her care but one thing I wanted was the freedom to live, like any child. At age seven, I left my auntie’s to live in the streets. Moving about in a street where I knew nobody was aimless but it marked the beginning the beginning of a free life. The sun quickly came down and I found myself starving and lying helplessly on a veranda in front in a cold store. My torn t-shirt and khaki trousers were not heavy enough to give me warmth in the cold of the night as a lay shaking. Two strong slaps at my back woke me up, but what I saw afterwards shook me up that the hunger I left me. It was a gang of street boys, short and the tall, big and small, surrounding me. They didn’t have to ask me before my story.

 Living under the care of my aunt was the only “care” I got in life until I became one of them, the street kids. Our mantra was “work hard, play hard”. I didn’t know what that meant until we started “playing”. During the daytime, we sold all kinds of things: gum, pure water, airtime, yam, coffee and ice cream. In the night, we surrounded a table in a drinking bar where we began to play. For my first time, I was scared to take even a tot of local gin down my throat. My friends convinced me that I will enjoy it and had me take three tots. In a state I couldn’t recognize as my own, I lived a different me. I screamed, danced, laughed out loud, made friends, things I couldn’t do with my real self. That was my new life, a street drunkard.

I am only 22 years but I look like a 42 year old reckless man. My teeth have turned brown, my lower lip red. Each time I recover from drinking, I say to myself:  “I will never drink again”. I work hard during the day but I end up spending every coin on alcohol. Not that I like how I behave and the things I do when I’m drunk, but it is hard coming out of that shell. Each time I try, I get back to my street life: work hard, play hard.

Just a sip

I blacked out the first time I took a sip. I was at a friend’s party that night when I had to be in bed to wake up early for school the next morning. In all my life, I had never seen a party as big as that. People everywhere, hot girls in all manner of hot dresses. My friends and I sat around a long table occupied with girls on every side I turned. Most were strangers probably not from my neighborhood. I was expecting food, plenty food but what I saw on every corner of the table we sat around shocked me. There was club, bitters, Guinness, ginseng, star, Don Garcia, Smirnoff, local gin and those I had not seen before. As if at the sound of whistle, everybody began drinking. I liked what they did: crazy dance, screaming, twerking. My friends were basically having fun. So I decided to take a sip of the chilled Guinness that happened to sit right in front of me. It tasted bitter but it sent a shiver all around my throat that I kept drinking till I finished a bottle. Until that day, I didn’t know I could ever drink. I hated the people who drank and misbehaved like my father did. He bullied us, especially my mom, stole money, hid bottles, and crawled on the ground in our compound house till the children in our neighborhood gave him a name. Whether or not I was burning coals of fire on my head I didn’t know, but the rest of my days transformed me life into someone no less than my father. I kept drinking day and night. Anytime I recovered from intoxicating however, a shock in me made me regret. I realized that among my friends, I was the only one who got drunk with the least alcohol. One tot and I will be dizzy, with two, I will be tipsy, three and I will be well gone and out of it. Alcohol took away my shyness and paralyzing anxiety. It gave me a happy feeling that freed me to do anything. I yelled in the streets, danced at parties, talk back at my parents and talked to strangers. It made me fearless and I loved it.

At least that was what I thought. That alcohol made me the “real” me.

Considering the person it made me, barely unable to do anything without drinking, I still thought it was good for me. I finally stopped school because Sunday evenings were days that I got drank the most. I would crawl on the veranda leading to our room door Monday morning. It didn’t end there but continue throughout the week. My single mom could no longer cater for a life like that so she let me be. She thought I would learn from the lesson of my father’s death, but I didn’t. I rather began drinking secretly. I sneaked to drink, hid the bottles, stole money and lied. The funny thing was, even though I would hide while drinking, the effects were always visible. At age nineteen, I got a job as a construction worker with a couple of my friends. Now that I had money more frequently, alcohol became a part of me. I spent every cedi drinking and still do. I feel ashamed when the children in the neighborhood call me names and make fun of me when I walk almost legless in the neighborhood. I really want to stop but the more I try, the more I get tempted to take only a bottle, two and I’m out of it.

Maybe I shouldn't Have

                                        

Across the dusty Berekuso road, I heard someone call my name. The voice sounded familiar so I tried turning even though my neck hurt really badly. The food-stuff and fire wood I carried from the farm was extra heavy that the last thing I wished for was conversation from a friend. I wanted to get home as fast as I could. The moment I tried to turn and respond, a bicycle from nowhere that I could recognize hit me and for the next minute, I found myself lying down helplessly on the ground. I didn’t get hurt but the tomatoes I carried got smashed. I was so angry that I almost threw insults on the man. He apologized and helped me get back on my feet. That was where our friendship began, friendship with a bar owner. The first time I entered his bar was to greet him as I was in a hurry on an errand. He offered me a seat, asked me what he could offer me. He didn’t finish his sentence when I said: “I will like malt”. He told me that a mixture of malt and bitters tasted nicer. I hesitated for a while because I didn’t want to ever take alcohol. The drunkards in the neighborhood gave me every reason to hate alcohol. At last, he had me drink the mixture, truly or untruly, it tasted new and better when it rushed down my throat. The subsequent days that I visited my friend at the bar changed my life completely.

                                                 

Now I cannot stay a day without taking at least two bottles of alcohol. I take it before eating, as early as 6am before going to the farm and every evening. Before, I would go to the farm every day because produce from the farm was, although is still my major source of income for the family. Today, the most I can do is go farming twice a week.  On other days, drinking keeps me busy and too weak to work. Most a times, I spend my entire day drinking at the bar without thinking about food or any necessity for my children. Drinking makes me lose my senses, but each time I recover, I go back for it. Many times, my children have denied that I am their mother in the presence of their friends. I do not blame them because it hurts to see your mother lying on the ground, drunk, half-naked and helpless. At the same time, it hurts me that I cannot go back to the person I used to be: the mother I was to my children. Maybe I could, but each time I try, there is something, this thing that pushes me to drink, again and again till I lose control into a completely different person.

What it’s like to lose yourself

                                                               

My first time was really great. Truly, it was amazing. A few glasses of beer and I was relaxed, refreshed and happy. Alcohol made me have fun and took away my every anxiety. It made me really confident that I enjoyed every moment that I drank. At that time, I underestimated the ability of what I drank because the highest it made me was sober and I liked it. I wasn’t walking tipsy dizzy, shouting in the streets, getting raped at parties, and walking home in a shirt and pants like my other friends did. I didn’t have the time or the urge to sympathize with their “stupidity”. I wondered why they couldn’t control alcohol but allowed it control them. After senior high school, my family moved to Accra to seek greener pastures. I found it a great opportunity since I could attend one the best training colleges in the city. In Accra, I got involved with some “cool” friends. I like them because they liked to drink. Each night, we will visit drinking spots and drink till daybreak. That was how intensive it became. As for the money to buy the drinks, we rotated. Days I had no money, they paid. Other times too, I stole enough money from my mother to spread the moment with as many drinks as possible to make us “high”.

The feeling of getting drank was great. I could dance without worrying about shyness, talk to a bunch of strangers. Life in Accra became extremely difficult when my father passed away. My mother moved to Berekuso where she had a cocoa farm from an old relative. She said it was a better support than her trade in second-hand clothes. It was in Berekuso that I realized alcohol had taken over my life. My dream to attend a training college died with time. My mother advised that I learnt hair dressing or sewing but I didn’t heed to her advice. I found myself busy with alcohol, very busy. I met more friends who drank like I did. At age 20, I had a boyfriend. I knew I had met the right person because he did what I did. We both drank. I had sex at parties, in uncompleted structures, and in his rented single room. I had my first pregnancy, the second and third but I was smart enough to abort all three. Things moved faster than I anticipated. I moved to live with him. There, I had the freedom to what I loved, drinking. Alcohol took away my life now. I had a few friends who drank as hard as I did. We prided ourselves with it thinking the rest of the world was boring. I did and continue to do things that I am ashamed of: having sex with strangers, stealing money. I now hate myself for the things I do. I keep blaming my father’s death, my mom and everyone else. But the more I do, the harder I drink to get rid of the realization.