BILL BEKUNDA KAHIRIMBANYI is the proprietor of Healthy Youth Lifestyles Options (HYLO), and organization inspired by his childhood alcohol addiction and subsequent rehabilitation.
He is currently running a campaign called Stop Underage Drinking Uganda (SUDU). He talked to Simon Kasyate, the host of Capital FM’s Desert Island Discs programme, about his life’s journey.
Good evening and welcome to the programme!
Hi, Simon. Thank you for inviting me.
Before we talk about your work of fighting underage drinking, we would like to know who you are: who is Bill Kahirimbanyi?
I am Bill Bekunda, Kahirimbanyi is my family name. My father was a pediatrician. He worked in Kabale in the 1980s until his death. Dr James Kahirimbanyi, he was well known in that part of the country.
He was the second Mukiga to become a doctor, after my mother’s first. I think that made the connection. I was born in 1974 in Mulago hospital…We went to Kabale and that is where I started my primary school. I finished P7 there, I think it was 1989.
Why are you not talking about your mother?
My mum is Janet Kahirimbanyi. She is born of a chief in Kabale. She was the rich side of my parents. My dad was a guy who would walk 13 miles every day to school while her father was, I think, the first guy to drive a car in Kabale.
My mother has worked in Bank of Uganda all her life. She has actually been the longest-serving person in the bank. She is from Kabale, Burambira, while my father is from Mparo. They met and made me and I used to be one of the favorite people in our home.
Are you the firstborn child?
No, I am the thirdborn out of seven. Of the four boys that were born, I was actually named Yakobo. My father was called Yakobo and his grandfather was Yakobo. That shows that there was an element of saying: “this is the guy.”
When did you drop the Yakobo name?
I was baptized William Yakobo Bekunda but now, for all my life, I have been Bill Kahirimbanyi but when I would be in my drunken stupors, I used to mention all my names, and other things!
Take us back to your childhood memories; and were your parents disciplinarians?
They were both disciplinarians. I remember that I was kind of an extreme; I was all over the place. And when I see my son, I am seeing exactly who I was.
So, my parents were both organized, but I must say that despite the efforts they made, the lack of research that we know right now is the reason I turned out to be who I became.
Right now you will see that parents are giving their children space, there is research and you will see that parents are trying to teach their children how to drink responsibly and all kinds of crazy things.
We have heard pastors talking about it even in news but, unfortunately, they don’t know that what they are doing is making things worse because research has actually come out to find that if a child is exposed, it influences the wiring of the brain which determines what they become.
Bill, tell us about the setting of your homestead then.
It wasn’t all a silver platter. My parents tried. It was a nice home. We were many. We had friends, relatives. We were in Kabale. I don’t remember very well when we were in Kampala, but I know we used to stay in one of the big houses along Acacia avenue.
Yes, my dad was a doctor and was one of the first; so, we had a fairly-comfortable life…we had everything we needed but were always constantly told that money doesn’t grow on trees whenever we asked for something.
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Which school did you go to Bill?
Kabale Preparatory School…
So, from there, where did life take you?
In P7 I finished as the best learner. I remember in the whole of Kabale, we were only two people who got aggregate 4… I went to Smack [St Mary’s College Kisubi]. We used to begin in second term. I remember that time I fell sick and I did not do the exams. In third term, in my class, I happened to be the third.
I was looking at my marks and I had beaten people who used to be in newspapers. In S2, we went to A. You know it was the cream, I think. I remember one thing particularly; I used to lecture my buddies, some of them, about drinking and smoking their parents’ money.
So, basically when I got into my second term, a friend of mine who used to go down to the village to drink; so, this guy tells me that you just come, and drink with us, I think it was beginning of term. It was lax; there were no teachers and all that.
So, I am like, let me just go with these people, sitting in a circle at Maama Teo’s hut; they bring a glass of kasese, it goes round, I am like I am not drinking. It starts going around the second time; everyone is now sitting up, they are comfortable. I am the only one who is just listening. It goes around the third time, this time people were laughing and shouting. I am like man, I have to be like these guys.
And believe it or not, I took a sip, it was a little bitter but I got euphoria immediately and all of a sudden I started feeling light, relaxed. It was so nice and I couldn’t wait for it to get back to me.
I took the second sip and I was like yeah. I remember I was giving people kaboozi…going back to school, these guys who would come back hiding, I was leading them now like a master who had been in that arrangement for a long time.
A friend told me afterwards that you know, we let you go so that in case they catch you, we know and hide… But from then on, I started looking forward to when can I go back to get that feeling because when I woke up in the morning, it was gone. I was back to my scared self. From that day, I was like when will I go back; this is my priority.
And how often did you [go]?
Any chance I got. Usually I noticed that the times the bigger guys would take you to the village is the time when they know you had money. So, I made sure I had money. I would get a lot of grub, sugar. When we get to school, the first thing we do is go to shops and exchange them for either alcohol or money to buy kasese [waragi].
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Bill, with this new-found love for alcohol, how was your performance in class?
It dropped immediately to a position of 25th, from third. From there, it went completely down. Because all I would think of holiday time, school time, was when I am going to get a drink. I remember doing so many things.
My mother travelled abroad and I got her traveler’s cheques with the help of some of our neighbors in Kamwokya where we were staying. We went to Sheraton hotel, you know there were few forex bureaus. We made an arrangement with the guy and he told me that as long as you can sign your mother’s signature, you will get this money and it was about 400 pounds.
And then you know I got the money, I went and bought clothes and the rest, there was a gig in Makerere University guild canteen and I was the star of the night. So, it was the beginning of such a life and I would use every excuse to get money to buy waragi, and when it gets finished, I would start going for crude. And when the money for catching gets finished, you start saying they told us to buy this book and when they say where is the book, you start saying it is with my neighbour.
At this point, neither your parent nor school had suspected that something is wrong with you?
No, they had not suspected. By S3, actually I had these innocent looks. If anything was reported about me, I would say that they were just looking for someone to blame. So, because of such things, I got away with things until my S4, second term, when I was actually suspended.
How did you perform at S4?
It wasn’t good; seeing people looking at their results reading from the top while me I am reading from the bottom. I started from the middle but still I had to go all the way down. I remember the regret; I even told my dad that I think I need to do my S4 again…because I knew I had to be at the top.
Did the habit stop during vacation?
No, it did not. I was like since I am bored, let me just go and sneak [in] one. Then I would steal the music system from home to do those discos in the village.
We had some big system. I would pass through my dad’s window, pull it out, then take it out but it was always kept in a big box. So, they wouldn’t usually check the box. So, I would remove it from the box and leave the empty box. But by that time now I would get drunk, come back home drunk, my dad didn’t know what to do with me. I remember he said no, I can’t handle this guy. He handed me over to my mom.
Did he ever sit you down for a father-son conversation?
Every other day. Sometimes it was a conversation, sometimes it was a beating. But still I did not change…I was defiant.
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So, what happens after S4?
I remember the options I was given and I rejected. I decided I wanted to go to Namasagali College.
Did they allow you?
There is something about the addict, that people around you try to do things thinking they will help you…
You knew you were a mess, yet you couldn’t redeem yourself?
Yes. You know there is a correspondence between the body and the pleasure reward centre of the brain. You look at a person who eats a meal and gets satisfied [but] doesn’t enjoy it. Then someone else eats half that same meal, doesn’t get satisfied but enjoys every bit of it.
One goes away satisfied and another goes away contented. So, that is the pleasure reward of the brain. So, this alcohol that we drink, it triggers it. It gives you immediate satisfaction… Look at it, when you drink you can’t see very well, you can’t hear well thus you want loud music, you can’t walk very well. So, it starts killing every sense. When you become dependent, that is when the problems begin.
You had reached a point of dependence. How would you get the money to drink?
When I learnt how to sign my mother’s signature, I would go to a bar, sit down, first drink, because one of the tricks was that I would think that once you start drinking, you can’t fail to pay. Sometimes this wouldn’t work and I would tell people in the bar, bring a [piece of] paper and I sign on it and it becomes money.
Why? My mother used to sign on the Ugandan currency, as the board secretary, Bank of Uganda. I knew her signature and she used to sign on paper. So, basically if I asked for a paper and I signed like her, it should be money. But that was a drunken thought.
And the bartenders never lynched you?
At some point many people knew me and if things got tight, they would go to my mother and she would come. She tells me stories where they would find me sometimes sleeping on the grass, on the bar floor. She would come, pays the bill, puts me in the car and take me home…
Tell us about Namasagali.
I arrived there with my strickitish, innocent look. I was made a [leader] in less than two weeks of my arrival. Then I started working with the rogue crowd. I remember we used to go to the village to drink. They start begging me, please Bill don’t expose us when we go back to school, yet I am drinking with them…
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When did you become sober, Bill?
I was in Ukraine; I was beaten and left on the street sometimes. They would say don’t move alone after 11pm and Bill at 2am is walking looking for booze. I survived that. I was at my uncle’s place. He was an ambassador.
I used to drink his whisky and then I would top up with water. I remember with the whisky, I would top up with tea…Then one day, he comes with his visitors and pours a drink for them! I locked myself in the basement and pretended to be asleep. And in that basement there was a wine cellar. So, I kicked off with those wines of 1920 because I felt I was in trouble and I said let me get high…
Then they say okay, I organize and I go to the UK since the diplomatic status there might cause kavuyo. The money I was given to prepare, I drunk it all. So, I came back to Uganda, I was then sent back to Ukraine. I found a bottle of vodka standing with a bottle of Pepsi and the vodka was cheaper. I say thank you God for bringing me to the right place.
But at what point do you say enough is enough?
At the point when I came from Ukraine, I came with a Russian investor to Uganda but I was offered a good job because I knew some Russian investors, I knew some people, I knew some relatives in the family, I speak Russian, I drank to celebrate. With the investor who was in Uganda plus this big man who I had approached, an uncle of mine as well, that was it.
But I lost it there and then through drinking. On the spot! By now you would be reading about me in the newspapers. All these things showed me that no matter who you are, where you are from, the opportunities you have, as long as you cannot handle this problem of the drug of alcohol, you are not going anywhere.
If you see the people that I was actually dealing with, you will not believe it. Because the effect that it has on a general’s daughter is the same effect it is having on a pauper’s son. At the end of the day, they all end up drinking in the same [place].
The Bakiga actually say equality is found in the bar…
True. So, basically I went for rehabilitation, at a place called Serene centre at the time, with the help of my mother. It was the only one.
Your mom has tried her best!
Of course, the first time she tried to get me there, I escaped, I got into a taxi and found her at a lumbe… I went back, I spent three months and that is when I got the first light of recovery.
Rehab started the process. Before then, I didn’t know about it being a disease; the disease I knew was just hearsay. I got to understand the depth of this problem. I turned my will from self to God because I realized I cannot do it as me.
At this time of the rehab, had you met your dear wife?
No. I lost everyone who was interested in me. The girls actually used to be interested in me… A few weeks after the rehab, I relapsed. I allowed it to happen.
How?
We were told not to go back to the company we used to hang out with, but the container was just next there. I was like ‘noo I can’t just be here bored alone, let me go be with these guys’. I would tell them me I don’t drink and they would call me pastor. The next thing they were doing in a couple of days was kicking me, beating me up while I am abusing them.
Bill, as we conclude, how sure can we be that we won’t see you back to drinking?
Well, like they say in recovery, it is one day at a time. Nobody is sure that they are going to cross this road, even you as you drive out of this gate, you can’t know what is coming.
You only hope for the best…There are many things along the way; so, someone has to work on themselves now, build what you can build now. I follow a 12-step programme which reassures me that if I continue following it, believing in God, I will be able to conquer this, and not be seen back on the streets.
Do you have children?
Yes, I have three.
How are you raising them?
First, I have a campaign called Stop Underage Drinking Uganda and you know how things are interrelated. I am giving them the doctrine: number one, talk early, talk often. A child as young as six years is able to listen and understand. I teach people age-appropriate ways in which to talk to children.
All this is self-taught?
Yes, I did my research and found out I had something called chronic relapsing alcoholism which is development form many things we can’t discuss here: but is all a result of underage drinking and I decided to talk to young people in schools and communities and I see myself in their shoes exactly and I know where they are headed….if I can get the young people and parents who are interested in getting this message, knowing what to do, if you can identify that your child is getting a problem, it will help you and start with that.
What is your favourite drink now?
Pineapple juice.
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TRANSCRIPT: JOSEPH KIMBOWA
