Experiences in life can be a painful and wisdom is to learn from our previous mistakes and to avoid them in future. Ken was a kind of guy you would love to hang out with, he was full of life. Suddenly Ken lost interest in life and alcoholism took centre stage, he started taking alcohol daily because of various reasons like he wanted to relieve stress of his marriage and abusing alcohol.
Ken was a favorite colleague at the place of work. Alcohol started affecting his health; he could not take food when sober. He missed coming to work affecting his day to day activities, and his behavior changed from being the gentleman he was to some ragged person.
Ken lost it, and everything fell apart, from his marriage; his wife Cindy filed for a divorce and sole custody of his two children, he was laid off and this predicament made him worse off than he was. It saddened my heart to see Ken get wasted, he become emaciated and lost hope in life.
I was the only family he had and he had to move in with me in my apartment. Ken would find it difficult to make eye contact and would withdraw in a room and be alone. He started behaving like a baby sulking if he doesn’t get his way, all this time I tried talking to him to register in a rehabilitation centre but to no avail. He started lying, stealing and this made me upset because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was beyond breaking point and I had to do something
One rainy evening I was watching a TV show and there was a lady narrating how drug abuse has caused her marriage, I was shedding tears not realizing my friend was also in the room. Ken got very emotional as he who at the very bottom. Ken had nothing and he was willing to try anything to put his life back together. For the first time after so many months Ken went to bed sober. We talked about the choices he had; either to choose to live, or choose to die. He chose to live.
Alcoholism is the most serious form of alcohol abuse. Once the drinker reaches Ken’s stage, serious treatment should be considered. We enrolled in a rehabilitation center for three months, the first step was for Ken to apologize to all his friends and family members for any harm he had done and it was very painful to watch him apologize to his family.
Am praying that his family will find it in their heart to forgive him. He was introduced to a sponsor, a person who was an alcoholic but has sobered up, it to mentor and walk with him .lastly he joined an Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) program that helped him in his recovery.
More people are dying of alcohol related deaths, families are disintegrating and the society is loosing morale standing because of alcoholism and it clearly shows the harmful effect of alcohol to an individual and a country as a whole.
Alcohol is a delicate subject, because you are affected emotionally, financially, seeing your loved one struggle with the ogre of alcoholism, or you are infected as an alcoholic. Alcohol is a disease that most people who have experienced alcoholism admit, it’s a disease that rarely goes away and needs ongoing treatment.