"I used to wake up before sunrise not to birdsong or an alarm, but to shouting, insults, and the sound of doors being kicked open in Katanga, the Kimwanyi Zone slum of Kampala. That chaos was my morning bell. It was the world I lived in, a place where survival meant staying numb, alert, and invisible all at once.

I was called “Professor” there, not because I was teaching anyone, but because I wore spectacles and spoke English well. Ironically, I held both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. I had once been a respected journalist and radio sports analyst, someone with promise, purpose, and a future. But addiction does not care about your résumé.

Alcohol slowly took everything.

It started as fun when I was 15, grew during university, and became part of my professional life as an entertainment journalist. The parties, the nightlife, the access, the expectations, it all blurred into one long drinking session that never really ended. I did not realize I was crossing a line until tragedy struck.

When my mother suffered a stroke and later died in 2011, something inside me broke. Alcohol became my anesthesia. It numbed grief, anger, and regret. But what began as relief became a prison. I drank for the past I could not change and the future I had stopped believing in.

Over the years, I lost jobs, relationships, stability, and eventually my home. Friends drifted away. My landlord evicted me. Shame and guilt became constant companions. I moved from couch to couch, then disappeared entirely from the lives of people who loved me. By the time my father died in 2021, I had convinced myself I had nothing left to live for.

Katanga became my refuge and my ruin.

I slept on filthy floors, shared bottles of cheap waragi at dawn, and lived day to day among crime, violence, and despair. I told myself I deserved the suffering. In truth, I was too sick to imagine another life.

Salvation came when I finally admitted I needed help.

On March 1, 2025, I walked into P.A.C.T.A Uganda in Gulu, a rehabilitation centre for alcohol and drug addiction. I was physically broken and spiritually empty. Withdrawal nearly killed me. I was hospitalized at St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor, slipped into a coma briefly, and endured pain I would not wish on anyone. Tremors, nosebleeds, fever, terror. My body was fighting for its life.

But slowly, day by day, I began to return.

After 93 days in rehabilitation, I walked out sober, clear-minded, and hopeful for the first time in years. The fog had lifted. In its place was something I had forgotten existed: peace.

Today, I celebrate months of sobriety. The journey is not easy. Recovery is not a straight road but a daily choice. Yet I am alive, present, and rebuilding what addiction destroyed.

I now attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with New Life Restoration at Christ the King Church in Kampala every Tuesday and Friday from 1pm to 2pm. The meetings are free. The only requirement is the desire to stop drinking.

If you are struggling, please know this: it is okay to not be okay. Addiction isolates you into believing you are alone, beyond help, beyond hope. You are not. Help exists. Recovery is possible. A new life can begin, even from the darkest places.

If my story proves anything, it is that no one is too far gone to come back.

Today, I am no longer the man waiting for dawn with a bottle in his hand. I am a man learning, one day at a time, how to live again."