FAREED KHIMANI OPENS UP ABOUT BEING RAISED IN ABUSIVE HOME AND STRUGGLING WITH ALCOHOLISM

Capital FM presenter Fareed Khimani talked about his battle with alcohol on Engage Talk.

Khimani opened up bout hitting rock bottom in 2018, “At 43 years old I had hit rock bottom, I had lost everything, business was bad, my family wanted me to get better, my close family didn’t speak to me because of my addictions and issues. I wasn’t accountable to anyone.”

After 28 days in rehab in South Africa, Fareed came back to Kenyan on March 1 2018, he stayed sober for a year but relapsed, “After a year of staying sober I relapsed, I found myself going back to the very dark place again. A place that I could remember where like the days leading up to me going to the rehab, self-loathing, anxiety, insecurity, unable to see or meet people, not being accountable I was back in that place again.”

Fareed says his alcohol and drug addiction started when he was in college, “I grew up in a very angry household, my father was an alcoholic although no one ever admitted. The emotional and physical abuse that I saw from my father towards my mother had affected me in such a way that I always look for escapes. Initially it was easy as a kid I found sports and I excelled in sports.

If I was in the basketball court, in the tennis court or swimming pool I could be somewhere else and do my own thing. That was my escape through junior high school and high school, I could pretend was someone else. But when I got to college the competition on places on sports teams was not possible. The level of competition was so high.

I found another escape that was through drugs and alcohol, mostly with weed and alcohol. I started bar tending to pay my way through college. But that’s also where I discovered cocaine, it helped me get through those long nights on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”