People often consume alcohol to experience feelings of happiness or to calm their nerves, and they usually do that at social events and in the company of others.

But it becomes a problem when alcohol absorbed in uncontrollable portions because it will definently bring out undesired results.

*Mandla Nyalunga (not real name) regrets not getting help sooner. At the time, he thought he would control his drinking and the ramifications that came from his inebriated decisions.

Nyalunga, who is now homeless and unemployed, worked as a teacher for over 20 years at a primary school in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria.

Looking back at the choices that killed his career and left him destitute, the 52-year-old said if he could start all over again, he would leave alcohol out of the equation.

“You know, when I started drinking I was just experimenting, I was curious. I also surrounded myself with the wrong crowd which made things worse,” he said.

Nyalunga, who is originally from Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, said his parents were extremely religious and tried to steer him into that direction but he always found a way to go against their teachings.

Two years after finishing high school, he decided to further his education because he was hungry for financial independence and wanted to leave his strict home.

He studied at Technikon Northern Gauteng (TNG), which has now been renamed to Tshwane University of Technology.

“When I was at TNG, my father didn’t send me money, he would send it to my aunt who lived here in Soshanguve and my aunt would buy me groceries and bring them to school,” he said.

“If I needed books or anything for school, my father would always call the faculty’s office and verify whether I needed something, it wasn’t easy to lie to him. And every school holiday, I had to come home, no stories.”

Nyalunga said he felt like his father was micromanaging him and was tired of it. He then promised himself that when he was done with his course, he would find a job in Gauteng and live life according to his own rules.

“And God listened to my prayers, I finished in record time and within six months, I was already employed,” Nyalunga recalled.

“I was happy, I knew that I will never have to be under my father’s rule again. I always had this rebellious streak, I wanted to do things my own way.”

After finding a job, he permanently moved to Gauteng and lived with his aunt until he bought a house.

“I think that’s when I slowly started spiralling out of control because no one was there to rebuke me. I was happy to live by my own rules,” he said bopping his head.

With a grimace on his face, Nyalunga said when he moved into his house, he was still single and had no children. Without pursuing it, he eventually found love from his now estranged wife, who is also the mother of his two children.

Nyalunga said he does not want put all the blame on his estranged wife, but according to him, she also contributed to his demise.

“She was also an alcoholic, we were a very bad combination. We never held each other accountable, instead, we enabled each other’s bad habits,” he said.

He explained that in the beginning, he enjoyed being with her because she never judged or reprimanded him.

“My other girlfriends used to complain about my drinking but she never complained and we would get drunk together, for me that was a win,” he said with a shrug.

Nyalunga said his now late parents were against their relationship after witnessing how they would get drunk during family gatherings.

His father begged him to leave the relationship and marry a girl from church but he refused.

“The old man really tried, he even suggested that I get a job closer to home and [said] he will help me with the binge drinking. But like I said, I like doing things my own way, I went and married someone that I wanted and didn’t listen to my father,” Nyalunga said.

“My parents didn’t even come to our wedding. My uncles refused to go to my wife’s family and pay lobola but I got people to do it for me. Most of my family members didn’t attend our wedding, it was mostly her family.”

Nyalunga was the breadwinner and had to support his wife, their two children as well his wife’s other two children from her previous relationship.

“Her children lived with their grandmother and I had to send them money every month. The budget was tight, I owed [money to] every bank and loan shark in the township, it was bad,” he said.

“My wife would also take alcohol on credit from taverns which created more financial issues. But I never stopped her because she always kept some for me.”

He said as the financial crisis worsened, his alcohol intake increased.

“I drank to escape my financial problems, I got addicted to the feeling of being oblivious towards my problems,” said Nyalunga.

“And because of drinking too much, I would miss work, especially after getting paid. I sometimes would leave work during break just to go and drink. I drank every weekend until I blackout.”

As the debts piled up, he decided to resign from work so that he could access his pension fund and then re-apply for his job after a year.

Without revealing how much money he got from his pension fund, Nyalunga said the majority of that money went to alcohol.

“I paid off my bond, paid off my debts, did small renovations in the house and the rest went to alcohol, we didn’t even save some for the kids’ education, I’m saying we, because I made all these decisions with my wife, we didn’t think of saving because we thought I will still get another job.”

He said within a year, their finances were depleting and he decided to go to the department of education so that they could place him when there was an opening.

It has been over 10 years, and he has not secured a job because of his checkered past.

After realising that he might not get hired again, Nyalunga and his wife decided to sell their house and buy an RDP and use some of the money to start a business.

“We sold the house for R550,000 and then went to rent an RDP, the intention was to buy the RDP but we kept delaying until the money was finished, like the last time, we drank away the money and threw parties almost everyday, again, no money was saved,” he said.

They were eventually kicked out of the RDP because they couldn’t pay rent and went to live with his mother-in-law in Limpopo.

Realising that he couldn’t live in Limpopo, he went back to Soshanguve and went to the school where he was teaching and begged the principal to help him.

“The principal told me that there’s nothing he could do. He told me that my record was rotten and I had a bad reputation. The only thing that I got was a teacher’s assistant job during the height of Covid-19 and that was it,” he said.

“To make a living, I’m part of the community policing forum and we patrol morning and night, I get between R500 and R800 every month. I live with different friends in their shacks, I don’t pay rent.”

When asked when he last saw his wife and children, Nyalunga said he last saw them when he left Limpopo in 2014.

“Our relationship has been severed, I can’t provide for my family. My wife has never looked down on me but I feel like I made a mistake by marrying her.”

sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za

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