- Mathu said she started doing drugs at 10 years.
- She said she was given her first alcoholic drink and cigarette by her father.
Image: TWITTER\ANN MATHU
National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse Vice Chair Ann Mathu has narrated how she fell victim to drug and substance abuse at a tender age.
Mathu said she started doing drugs at 10 years.
She said she was given her first alcoholic drink and cigarette by her father.
During an interview with Citizen TV, Mathu spoke of how the addiction was progressive as it caught up with her later when she tried to quit but could not.
"Addiction interfered with my education, I lost relationships with my children, my family members and I became an outcast. I became a very lonely person among people," she said on Wednesday.
"It got to a point where her only friends were her drinking buddies."
Mathu said that drugs and crime go together where one starts stealing from oneself before gradually stealing from family and later pick-pocketing as well.
"I sold nearly everything that I had just to finance the disease," she said.
Mathu said the pain of losing her younger brother and three family members to alcoholism, made her passionate about the campaign against drugs.
She also advised on how one could access properly structured treatment from Nacada.
"We have free support groups, the Nacada helpline-1192 and drop-in centres where people with substance abuse disorders can go for individual counselling, group therapy and psychosocial support," Mathis said.
Mathu briefly outlined the five stages of drug addiction.
These, she said, include experimentation, social stage, instrumental stage, habitual stage and compulsive stage respectively.
She said the experimentation stage is governed by curiosity, rebellion and the need to boost self-esteem. The social stage entails doing drugs with friends and peers.
Mathu said the habitual stage is where one cannot survive without the drug and the compulsive stage is the eventual stage where after losing everything including oneself, trauma and suicidal behaviour kick in.