My First and Second Sip of Alcohol - Where It All Starts

Many a times, we have heard conversations at the bar counter with a sot saying he regrets the first day he sipped alcohol. All these regrets are absolutely nonsense. Not because drunks can never speak sense rather, it is because every man is a master of their own actions and when starting out beer drinking, very few people are forced to drink.

In my community, there is a song that says; "Njohi ndiri Mwalimu, wa kunyua nianyue na oria utakwenda niaikare" (beer has no teacher, he who wants to drink let him and he who doesn't want to drink should stay.) The song sums it all up.

Before I used to drink beer, I feared it because I had seen drama from my father and my uncles. There was a time he rolled his car right outside our gate coming from a drinking spree. Other times his friends were attacked by machetes while they were drinking late in the night. One of my uncles was retrenched from a good job at a parastatal due to excessive drinking while the other uncle was reduced to a hooligan by addiction to cheap liquor. The occurrences gave me a bad impression of beer. I remember telling a friend of mine who was saved a testimony that I had never smoked nor drunk beer as a testimony (not that I was saved. I was just trying to make him think we are on the same coach to heaven).

After all these happenings, no one would expect me to taste the fig. However, I did.
A decade or so ago, I remember my mother had traveled to Western Kenya for my aunt's wedding and we were left with my younger brother. The date was December 12 and I was in First Form in high school. Mum had left enough food and after making sure my brother and I had eaten enough, I left the house at around 4pm and joined my former primary school mates and friends at a snooker joint in the local town. All along I had lied to them how I was a good drinker and I even had a favorite brand (pilsner). On this day, we had all saved and we had planned to drink the night away. Each of my friends ordered a beer as they were playing pool and I also asked for a Pilsner. I paid a mere Ksh 70 for the bottle and took my first sip. It was the most disgusting taste I had ever mouthed. I just sipped thrice and I couldn't take it any longer. Those three sips were at intervals of more than 20 minutes each and I swallowed with my eyes closed and a very tightened ass. However, I did not want to show my friends that I was a newbie in the waters. Luckily, rescue came in form of another of my former school mates in primary school who came and asked me to buy him a beer. I gladly gave him my beer and I headed home with a bad headache triggered by the three sips I had taken. I went straight to sleep.

In the same month, I remember I went to visit my grandmother who lived 20 miles away and when I got to the area town center, I bought two sachets of Napoleon Brandy each at Ksh 10. I kept them in the pocket till I got home then after the pleasantries, I left at dusk and I opened the first sachet. It was bitter than cow urine. Somehow I managed to force myself to finish the dry poison from the first sachet to avoid wasting the money. I could feel it drop past the esophagus junction all the way to the Reticulum (Don't mind the biology, it's the genius that opens up when I get high).

I realized that the brandy gave my tongue a steaming effect. It is today that I realize that it was spirit and it was highly volatile leaving the tongue with a cooling effect. I happily gave my cousin the other sachet and he bought me a bottle of Pilsner. This time I downed the bottle easily but I was high like a skunk the moment I finished that beer. I staggered to my grandmother's home a happy drunkard. Life as a sot had just begun.

Yours Truly,
Rafiki Mlevi