According to the Report - circa March 2015 - Sales of Alcohol rose by 67% in Spirits. And the middle teenage (16) were becoming an age group that was rising comparably. Certainly in Schools across the Country Alcoholism is becoming an increasing threat to learning, with children as young as 12 being targeted even with hard spirits. This is usually imported from home or duka. Sometimes it is stolen from home, where the parents have the stuff on display for their own consumption, and at other times the money is stolen to buy it from an adjacent duka. There also those who might 'peddle' the stuff right up to the school gates! To combat this School Administrations have to become more and more vigilant, putting extra pressure and stress on teaching staff as well. We are not addressing other substances and drugs here, just Alcohol!! BEER or Pombe is also increasing in consumption both among adults and teenagers. The Government has consistently increased tax and sales price of Beer, and even Spirits, and although this HAS diminished Sales it has not reduced the incidence of drunkenness and Rape. Why can't we shut down the Breweries? Because the Government needs the taxation it gains from them!!
The photo at the top was taken in Nyeri Town and is obviously of a man drunk and mentally deranged by some alcoholic substance. He is probably also a victim of unemployment. The more scary problem threatens us from the Teenage society, which forms the basis for our future intelligentsia and who are already becoming addicted to one of the most popular destructive elements in our world. By the time our students leave University they are already drunkards, and continue to be so after Graduation, providing us with an unreliable and often 'unqualified' professional who is unable to give of his / her best in society.
The IPS Report also comments and says - 'The Alcoholic Drinks Control Act was substantially weakened in 2013 with the introduction of 'devolved government'. This system of 'home rule' means that each county government must ratify the Act - an uphill battle because some county leaders are also the owners of bars and breweries.' Not an encouraging picture for the future. And this is in fact a World Wide attack upon our society and especially upon our young people. The IPS Report also comments on availability of help to those Addicts who may wish to Reform. Stating that the the age-group currently the highest and most affected are 'between 15 and 29' years old, the Report continues, and adds - 'Alcoholics wanting to end their addictions have little recourse (according to Dr. William Sinkele, Executive Director of Support for Addictions Prevention and Treatment in Africa (SAPTA). While Kenya has over 70 in patient treatment centres only three are government run. The rest are privately owned. Whilst it is good we have these centres, most are concentrated around the Nairobi area. We do not have many centres outside Nairobi. The average Kenyan with an Alcohol or drug problem CANNOT afford the Treatment, he said.'
IF Jesus is with them they have HOPE!
'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging;
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise
Proverbs 20v1 - The Bible, Old Testament
We are being told here, that wine laughs at us. and strong drink turns us into raging, uncontrolled, animals. Look also at Proverbs 23v31-32 'Look not thou at the wine when it is red.
when it giveth his colour in the cup
when it moveth of itself aright.
AT THE LAST it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an adder"
Alcohol can be attractive, and liberating, but at the last it will turn upon you. 'Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has woulds without cause? Who has redness and dimness of eyes? THOSE who spend a lot of time with the wine; those who go to seek and try mixed drinks (Alcoholic).
Those who habitually take in alcohol become, to a lesser or greater degree, acquainted with the results listed above; and they become also to a lesser or greater degree, debauchees (habitually careless and loose in their moral life - having suppressed the LIKENESS of their original design and purpose; their likeness to God Who created them to be like Himself. Their Conscience, normally restraining them, having been paralysed and drugged into silence. (Ephesians 5v18 in the Bible - New Testament).
MANY will resist this reasoning, and may even accuse the BIBLE of recommending a little alcohol when one is sick - or to make one merry / happy. What harm in that? NONE, if that is where it might stop, but alas it can take a hold of us until not only our 'sickness' is assuaged, but also until all knowledge of it is abandoned to dreams in which we are no longer in charge of our self. ALCOHOL deceives us. It makes us believe a lie. It turns off our human perception and awareness of the truth relative to what we are doing, thinking and so on. Alcohol makes a joke of our humanity, and makes us LESS than the One Who made us. It also makes a joke of - it MOCKS, GOD ALMIGHTY as well, by rendering what He made to be admired, honoured and seen as a Child of His, as nothing more than junk.
Just a LITTLE alcohol can take us on to drunkenness; a state in which we no longer have control over our mind or body. We become out of control, and our life can then be quite messed up with 'Trouble, Strife, Wounds, Eye Problems and Hallucinations, Immoral Behaviour, Mental Confusion, Physical Unsteadiness. It is a picture of RUINATION; of a spoiled, degraded and unrecognisable human being.
If YOU are a regular partaker of alcohol, you probably will feel I am very ill informed. BUT honestly, as one who once was such a partaker, I feel able to testify of the TRUTH of what I have written, and to uphold the TRUTH of the Bible as the Word of God.
Look at The Bible again in Isaiah 5v11 and see a picture of those whose addiction to alcohol has taken complete hold of them so that they pursue it day and night. And also in the Bible in Habakkuk 2v15 we find those who encourage others to drink until all moral reservation is removed and the nakedness of each other is revealed so that sexual intercourse and other misbehaviour can be achieved.
It is a work, pursuit and enterprise of DARKNESS and ignorance.
St. PAUL said that HE would rather NEVER drink wine or strong drink if that would help him not to hurt or destroy, or lead another human being astray - Romans 14v21 and 1.Corinthians 8v13.
ABSTINENCE in not a bad way to keep oneself CLEAN and HEALTHY. Some can boast of being able to 'Take their drink' and all that - yet they give a ruinous example to their family, their friends and colleagues - and all the time what they put into themselves wreaks havoc with their vital organs, to the eventual hurt and even destruction of their body.
If you have been deceived to see no danger in being a user of alcohol then you are not WISE. You lack WISDOM. You will suffer for it.
When I was a young man my Pastor, then quite elderly, attended a Reception to which a certain young man had been also invited. Drinks were being handed round (Champagne) and the young man wondered what he should do; should he also have some, or abstain. He thought, I will watch what Pastor will do - he will know best. He looked and found the Pastor, and already in his hand was a glass of champagne.. The young man took, one. He liked it and took another, and another.........
Twenty years later the Pastor was called to a famous Prison just for murderers in London. When he arrived the Prison Governor said a man who was sentenced to Death, and waiting to be hung for murder later in the week, had asked to see him. The Pastor did not know the name, but agreed to see the prisoner. He was shown, by a guard, to the cell.
He found a man of about 40. standing inside. He was let in, and the two, Pastor and prisoner shook hands. "Do you remember me?" asked the prisoner. The pastor shook his head, wondering what would be said next. " I called you here, said the prisoner. because you are the cause of me being here. When I needed direction I looked to you for help, and you led me to accept alcohol into my life. I became hooked on it. And it eventually led me to kill my wife and son in a drunken rage. I wanted you to know!" He shouted then for the guard and told the Pastor to get out of his cell. The Pastor was crushed. He was elderly then, and he told me how truly terrible it was to be faced with such a fact. He remembered the Reception. He was a Methodist preacher, and had made up his mind NEVER to drink alcohol, but at that Wedding Reception - his first, he hesitated from causing offence by NOT accepting the champagne as it was offered. He took just the one glass - but never drank it. He had just carried it around with him, and later on managed to put it, un-drunk, back on to a passing tray. The Prisoner was duly hung by the neck until he was dead. HOW CAREFUL all of us have to in HOW we live.
My Faith in God SAVED me from drink. I have a son of my own now, in his thirties who drinks. He is so far not interested in God, and is struggling to put his life together. It is HARD. Pray for me, and for him. I am hurting because of his hurt. and he is hurting because he is hurting others. The Answer of course for him and for me is JESUS. One cry to HIM from my son, and we shall both rejoice in the Love of God that is able to RESCUE us out of all and ANY of our troubles.
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