DP Gachagua: I used to drink 36 beers alone

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has opened up on his previous addiction to alcohol, revealing he would drink up to 36 beers alone.

Favourite drinking spot

During Wednesday’s public lecture at Murang'a University, the DP said his favourite drinking spot during his youthful days was at Ngara estate in Nairobi.

"The name of the bar was Citrus just near the Jamuhuri High School. There would be a one man guitar crooner...I was pathetic," he said.

He said he owes it to his consciousness to realise he was on a self-destruction mode, and his wife Pastor Dorcas Rigathi who pestered and prayed for him to reform.

Hushed audience

“In a weekend, I’d take a crate, or a crate and a half... lots of beer, it’s the truth,” explained the DP to a hushed audience.

A crate of beer holds 24 bottles.

The DP further observed that the alcohol he consumed back then was “clean” and thus it took time to properly get drunk "not like nowadays where a quarter litre of some concoction is sipped by three people in turns and by the time it is in the hands of the third consumer, the first is already down and out while the second is on his knees passing out".

Sordid state

Mr Gachagua told the students that his drinking mates at the time who did not meet their Damascus to quit imbibing are in a sordid state.

 
"My many drinking mates are dead. Those lucky to be alive are zombies while others are totally wasted and they keep on coming to me to support them," he said.

Lost three brothers to alcoholism

The DP’s revelation comes a few days after narrated how he lost three brothers to alcoholism.
 
“When you see me committed to battle this culture of death that is substance abuse, it is because it has made my own family weep. All homesteads have scars of alcoholism and mine is no exceptional,” he said on in an interview with Inooro TV.

Pancreatic cancer 

 “My brother Dr Wachira Gachagua died of alcohol. He was practising medicine in South Africa. He took too much of spirits as his wife warned him to no avail. I went for his body in 2012 and buried him. In 2014 my brother Nderitu Gachagua died of resultant pancreatic cancer...” he reminisced. 

The second in command’s other brother—Mr Reriani Gachagua—he said, “was an alcoholic who never listened to me…I tried taking him even to rehabilitation. I tried to live with him in my house.   When I became Deputy President in 2022…  I was so happy that I gave him money to go and celebrate. He went into alcohol. He died”.

Surrounded by graves 

Mr Gachagua said alcohol has made him a very lonely man in his father’s compound “surrounded by graves”.

 He said he also had ventured into alcoholism until his wife—Pastor Dorcas Rigathi—managed to counsel him out of it “and had I not heeded, chances are that I would also be dead and not the current Deputy President”.

The DP told the University students to avoid the bottle “like the plague”, telling them their future would be brighter and more rewarding if and when sober.
 
"Do not waste yourselves in alcoholism. You owe it to yourselves, your parents and your lecturers that you only pursue those aspects of life that are fulfilling," he said.

He added that President William Ruto’s government has dedicated itself to ensuring education is rewarding.

Ease fees burden

"We have reformed our University finding model to ease your fees burden. We want education to be the getaway to personal fulfillment. We are just started, we will ensure that those of you who take life seriously and are focused will not fail to make it," he said.

The Deputy President also urged the students to embrace the culture of speaking the truth even to power.

 "To succeed as a leader, you must be brutally honest. Tell it as it is. Be truthful and you shall be respected. Even when truth appears to be unpopular, with time you shall be vindicated," he said.