Ann Mathu on the mushroom farm
Murang'a (Kenya), 8 January 2024 - Women and youth often suffer from substance use disorder - according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) 2023 World Drug Report, youth populations are the most vulnerable to using drugs. In Africa, for instance, 70 per cent of people in treatment are under the age of 35. Nevertheless, women and youth receive unequal access to treatment.
UNODC works to support states to strengthen prevention and treatment for substance use disorders. On the sidelines of a UNODC-African Union session on Addressing Substance Use among youth, women, and children, UNODC spoke to Ann Mathu, Vice Chairperson of the National Authority for the Campaign against Drug Abuse in Kenya, on how she overcame her substance use disorder, and her passion for helping other women do the same.
Ann Mathu gestures around her mushroom farm in Murang’a, Kenya, where piles of mushrooms are gathered, waiting to be shipped. It is a very different life, she says, from the one she led when sleeping on the floor of a shack in the Nairobi slums.
“It’s not something I thought I would do,” she laughs, referring to the mushroom farm. “But I am not very good.”
Skilled mushroom farmer or not, Ann has overcome a lot to be where she is today – physical abuse, a substance use disorder, a suicide attempt, and more. But her experiences have made her uniquely suited to be the Vice Chairperson of NACADA (National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse) in Kenya – although Ann considers herself a recovering alcoholic and recovery coach first.
Ann says her father introduced her to alcohol at age 13. “My dad was a member of several clubs and would give me alcohol – everybody thought it was fun. Other children were getting a sip from their parents, too.”
Her father, the person to whom Ann felt closest, died in a car accident that same year. Ann says that she felt “empty and worthless” without him. “I started sneaking alcohol and cigarettes into school. I felt close to him that way.”
After failing out of high school, she managed to get enrolled in a diploma programme. She then finished second in the Miss Kenya beauty contest, which led to a modeling scholarship in France.
A surprise pregnancy, however, made it impossible to benefit from the scholarship, and the baby’s father soon left her thereafter.
“I was alone with a child and then started drinking more,” she remembers.
Ann managed to find a government job, but her drinking led to her being reassigned. She had a second child, and the stress caused her drinking problem to get worse.
“It was too much for me. I started drinking again when my baby was only four months old, going to work drunk and falling out with management again.”
Ann was beginning to feel desperate. Whatever little money she had, once spent on her children, now went into alcohol.
She met a doctor, a fellow alcoholic, who invited her and her children to move in. During the five years they stayed together, “we would drink all the time.”
“Things started getting bad,” she recounts. “We fought more. He said he was going to kill me, took a knife and stabbed me four times, on my left shoulder and knee. He tried to stab me in the neck. Once, he threw me down the stairs.
“But he was a pediatrician, kind and quiet, so nobody wanted to believe he could do this.”
He eventually collapsed of alcohol poisoning, but not after Ann became pregnant a third time.
Eventually, Ann wound up living in a shack in the Thika slums outside of Nairobi, her three children with her mother. She began drinking Chang’aa - a word that means literally ‘kill me quick’ - a very potent bootleg spirit adulterated with jet fuel, embalming fluid, or battery acid.
“From a beauty queen to living in the slums where I had sold even my bed,” Ann shakes her head. “I even traded the lock on my door for a glass of Chang’aa.”
After being thrown out of church one day, Ann went to her room, took prescription medication, and drowned it with Chang’aa. It was the first of her three suicide attempts.
“My mother spoke to a friend whose son had been through rehab. He came to find me in my slum,” Ann says. “He bought alcohol for me and all my friends, listened and didn’t judge us because he had been exactly where we were now. He said: Cherie, you are still very beautiful. You’re still eloquent and a great storyteller. You could make a great public speaker. He bought me new clothes, underwear, everything.”
Ann’s friend took her to a 90-day treatment program. Afterwards, she worked as a volunteer at the center for six months, which then hired her to work in Nairobi, helping others suffering from substance use disorder. Eventually, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of Kenya’s National Authority for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA).
“NACADA is a big part of my work, and an excellent platform for me to focus on helping people live through substance use. Especially other women. I help them like I was helped,” she says. “As women, we carry a lot of burdens, and we are not expected to struggle with alcohol and substances. It is important for me to empower women to find their path like I did, even when it is hard.”
Ann Mathu was a panelist in the UNODC-African Union High Level Session on Addressing Substance Use and Related Mental Health Disorders Among Youth, Women and Children in Lusaka, Zambia from 8-10 November 2023.
According to UNODC’s World Drug Report 2023, Africa has seen an increase in the use of cocaine and heroin over the past few years. The continent is no longer simply a region of destination for illicit substances produced in other regions, but increasingly a region of drug production, especially in relation to methamphetamines in East and Southern Africa.
The session agreed on a roadmap for strategic interventions, including the development of an African model drug law; prevention curriculum for schools; youth and gender-specialized treatment facilities; and the scaling-up of harm reduction programs, among others.
