Kenya s social drinkers may actually be alcoholics
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Catherine Boyane Oloo Aringo opened her eyes one morning in 2013 to her daughter shaking her awake in a ditch in the sprawling Manyani slum in Nakuru.
Jaw bleeding from a previous night’s fight, it was in this wretched and unlikeliest of places that she set forth on a new journey. She knew she had to turn her back on the alcoholism that had plagued her life for 28 years.
Born in a dysfunctional family, and egged on by peer pressure, Catherine, who is now 52, started abusing drugs when she was only 13.
“Fighting between my mother and father sent me to seek love among my peers who introduced me to drinking,” she says.
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These days a hit costs as little as 120 shillings (USD$1.10/0.90 euros), creating a devastating path to dependence for poor, troubled Kenyans
Esther Wanjiru started using heroin at 16 to dull the pain after her baby died, first smoking, and now injecting the opioid which has become increasingly cheap and abundant in Kenya. I am a heavy junkie, I usually need two doses, said Wanjiru, 22, as she puts the needle to a damaged vein, surrounded by about 60 other addicts in a clearing behind a church in a Nairobi slum.
Once just a passing stop on the trafficking route to Europe, Kenya is becoming a major destination in itself for heroin, with addiction rising as tonnes of powder pass through East Africa.