Answer Addiction

Tag: father daughter

  • 3 Things My Father Taught Me About Addiction

    3 Things My Father Taught Me About Addiction

    Reframing the addiction as a disease helped me understand that my father didn’t want to hurt himself or my family.

    Every time I talk to my dad about his experience with addiction, I come away with beautiful—although sometimes painful—new insights. Listening to him talk about his longtime struggle with opioid addiction has taught me not only about the complex and labyrinthine nature of addiction itself, but also about love and forgiveness.

    The most important thing I’ve learned is that no matter the struggle, there is a person who deserves real compassion—before (or under) the addiction, before (or under) the trauma that may have caused them to use drugs, before (or under) the pain and suffering.

    I’ve seen prison time, loss of custody, and disease take hold as a result of addiction, and yet I can see the other side as well. While everyone’s experiences are different, here’s what I’ve learned from my father and his experience:

    1. People with addictions don’t want to be addicted

    Within the dark void of addiction—and its loneliness, shame, powerlessness, and disaster—it can be hard to really see the person who is suffering. This is true both from the outside and if it’s yourself you’re looking to find. It’s also hard to accept that someone isn’t making an active choice to suffer (and cause suffering around them). They may have made a choice to pick up a drug, but addiction is an actual disease, and its grip is real.

    According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Many people don’t understand why or how other people become addicted to drugs. They may mistakenly think that those who use drugs lack moral principles or willpower and that they could stop their drug use simply by choosing to. In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting usually takes more than good intentions or a strong will. Drugs change the brain in ways that make quitting hard, even for those who want to.”

    Reframing the addiction as a disease helped me understand that my father didn’t want to hurt himself or my family. And in talking frankly with him today, it’s very clear that he knew he was suffering, but he simply couldn’t figure out the steps to get out of it. It took so much loss before he got himself into recovery, and that’s something I stay compassionate about. I think this empathy can go a long way in both understanding your family’s narrative and forging a path toward potential forgiveness (and maybe even advocacy for others).

    1. Addiction doesn’t magically disappear

    On a trip to see my dad recently, I was taken aback when he said, “I still get cravings.” Although I know—I mean, rationally—that just because someone is in recovery doesn’t mean they won’t feel temptation or relapse, it’s harder to hear it from your parents. It’s scary, yes, but it’s also just sad. On my end, I wanted to say, “But you’re okay, right?!”

    I held my tongue. Instead of seeking comfort from him in his truth and struggle, I decided to simply listen—as an adult, as a human. As a child of two people who have struggled with addiction, I have learned to see my parents as humans, and part of that is constantly reminding myself to actively choose to listen and find compassion in their story. It’s not always easy—and some will argue that this isn’t fair to the child—but it’s what has worked for me.

    I asked my dad, “So when do these cravings happen? Is it often?” And I simply listened to what he had to say. I learned about the mechanics of his addiction, how he manages it, and what he feels in those moments.

    That illumination has given me insight and compassion, and even though it’s hard, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s enabled me to treat others as human beings and advocate when and how I can. It also helps me to see my dad fairly.

    1. Hardship often creates beauty and wisdom

    Although there’s no way this can be true for everyone, and although it’s almost a cliché, sometimes our suffering can yield something beautiful—even when it’s not our intention.

    Sitting in my dad’s house, I watched him pull out notebook after notebook filled with song lyrics and poetry. Most of these poems were about his addiction, and the sadness, loneliness, pain, and self-questioning it caused. Some of the poems were about finding a divine source, or fighting past the pain. Some weren’t so positive. Reading his words surprised me. I’ve been an active poet for years, and yet I had no idea how prolific a writer my dad is, and how he uses writing to cope with trauma as well.

    Reading his words connected me to him, but it did more than that: It proved that even in our darkest moments, humanity has an uncanny ability to try to cipher that pain into something bigger than ourselves. This is not just a mythology we tell ourselves, though. It’s real: Just look at the many writers, for example, who lived with addiction throughout their lives.

    I am grateful to see the so-called silver lining in these insights, but it only underscores the real tragedy of addiction: that far more people with substance use disorders are misunderstood and underrepresented, and that their stories, when told, are told poorly and without nuance. There is grief and hope in addiction. There is recovery and there is relapse, and there is everything in between.

    There is access to care for some and a desperate lack of access to care for others. There are abstinence-touting programs and there are clean needle centers. Addiction is a huge issue, with no one story or approach or outcome that represents everyone’s perspective. But as someone watching from the outside, as a family member, it’s my goal to listen, be compassionate, and share what I’ve learned in a way that makes space for some good.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • An End to the Parent-Child Role Reversal: Taking Care of Me

    An End to the Parent-Child Role Reversal: Taking Care of Me

    When my dad drank, he folded in on himself and quietly disappeared. When this happened, I’d wait patiently for his return while dreaming up myriad ways to make his life better.

    There was a little more than a week to go before my wedding day. Left on my to-do list was an array of tasks:

    • Pick up the marriage license.
    • Finalize the seating chart.
    • Tell my dad he wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle.

    I called him on a Sunday afternoon, and he responded the following Thursday. After awkwardly discussing the weather, I said, “Dad, I need to talk to you about the wedding.”

    As I waited for him to say something, I pictured him gently resting his cigarette in an ashtray on the kitchen table, leaning back in a chair and adjusting his thin-rimmed glasses away from the tip of his nose. Finally, he cleared his throat and let out a long and careful, “Okaay.”

    “Listen, I want you to know this isn’t because I’m angry.” I paused. “It’s just I’ve thought about it and…I’ve decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to walk me down the aisle.”

    “Mmm hmm,” he grunted.

    “I mean…I wanna hear whatever you have to say,” I told him. “Do you want to ask me anything? Do you want to talk about it?” I waited. I wanted to know what he was thinking, and I thought he’d do so with words, but instead, he chose silence.

    “Do you have anything at all to say about this?” I asked.

    “Nope,” he snapped. “I got nuthin to say.”

    *

    If you ask my mother, my father didn’t come to the hospital the day I was born. It’s not that he didn’t know my mom was in labor, or that I arrived earlier than expected, it was because he didn’t believe I was his. And, knowing my father, he probably assured my mother he’d be there, in the delivery room, and then decided not to come and didn’t think to tell her.

    But despite his absence, which I was dull to as a newborn, as a kid I possessed an untempered affinity for my father. When my parents divorced when I was four years old, they agreed he would keep the house and my mother and I would move a 30-minute drive away, back to her hometown of East Falls, Philadelphia. On the day we left, I sat on my parents’ bed with my Raggedy Ann doll and watched my mother dump her side of their dresser into a suitcase, whining to the back of her head, “I don wanna leave daddy. I wanna stay wit daddy.”

    As I was growing up, my dad was drunk more often than I realized. I watched him stumble and bump into walls, and walked in on him passed out, chin on chest at the kitchen table. I sat and listened to his drunken, swear-laced ramblings about his bastard father, the assholes at work and the overall unfairness of life, but I never considered my dad an alcoholic because he didn’t behave like the ones I knew. Unlike my mom and stepdad whose drinking guaranteed violence, when my dad drank, he folded in on himself and quietly disappeared. When this happened, I’d wait patiently for his return while dreaming up myriad ways to make his life better.

    At some point, this dysfunctional pattern led to a complete role reversal: my father regressed into the helpless child, and I became the dutiful parent.

    When he was drunk and while I still believed in Santa Claus, we slipped effortlessly into our roles, but when I became a teenager who needed more than my father could give, the cracks in our relationship began to show.

    During my junior year of high school, I got a job as a telemarketer selling frozen beef. One night after a shift, I headed outside to the parking lot, expecting my dad’s truck to be idling by the curb, but he wasn’t there.

    I waited about 10 minutes before I left the parking lot to use the payphone across the street. I called home collect at least a dozen times and each time the operator came back with the same disappointing response, “No one’s home,” she said. “Do you want me to try again?”

    After an hour of pacing in the dark, I embraced my only option and started walking. By car, the drive home would’ve taken 20 minutes, but on foot, it took me over two hours. At 11 pm, I arrived home to find I couldn’t open the front door because my father had jammed a kitchen chair under the handle. When he finally let me in, he refused to believe that I’d walked for two hours.

    “Where the fuck were you?” He screamed.

    “Where was I?” I punched back. “Where the hell were you?”

    “I was in the parking lot, and you weren’t there,” he lied.

    “What are you talking about? I waited an hour, and I called a million times,” I yelled.

    “Who were you with?” He took a long drag from his cigarette.

    “What do you mean who was I with?” I roared. “I walked home alone, two hours down Germantown Pike like a freakin’ prostitute.”

    “No, you didn’t.”

    “I didn’t?” I asked in disbelief. “Look at me: I’m soaked with sweat. Look at my feet!” I pointed at the dirt filled cuts and raw blisters my sandals left behind. Halfway through my journey, when the pain became unbearable, I ripped them off and walked the rest of the way barefoot. The black layer of grime and dried blood coating my feet was all the proof I thought my father needed. But he was drunk, and he’d already made up his mind.

    “You’re a fuckin liar.” He slurred as he looked at my feet.

    *

    My father’s greatest disappearing act occurred when I was in my freshman year of college. After months of chat room flirting, my stepmother packed up her car and drove to Florida to be with her Internet lover. On the day she left, my father called and left a message on my dorm room answering machine.

    “She left me for a guy living in a trailer park! She’s telling everyone I beat her,” he wailed. “You’re all that matters to me now; it’s just you and me, kiddo.”

    That weekend I drove home to be with my father. When I walked through the front door I found him drunk at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and staring blankly at the white wall in front of him. I sat and watched him cry, promising him that the pain he felt was temporary and that my stepmother was a complete fool for leaving him. Driving to a Friendly’s restaurant for dinner one night, I sat in the passenger seat and watched my father get lost on a route that he’d driven a thousand times before. Seeing him hurting so profoundly cut me wide open. And although I didn’t have the tools to fix it, I knew he needed me, and I was going to be there for him even if it meant losing myself along the way.

    Back at school, worrying about my father edged out my sanity. I worried about him driving drunk, I worried about him feeling alone, and I lost sleep over the fear of him taking his own life. I became so consumed with him that I barely noticed the cloud of depression that stopped me from brushing my teeth or the bursts of anxiety that stole my sleep. But still, I answered my father’s every phone call, I walked with him through the grief, and I did my best to coach him back to life.

    And then one day, he stopped calling and just disappeared.

    Fearing the worst, I stalked his phone. I called and left messages on his voice mail until the mailbox was full. After a week of torture, I reached his co-worker.

    “Oh yeah, your dad’s fine,” he told me calmly. “He’s on vacation with your stepmom in Florida.”

    *

    To my shock and surprise, my father showed up on my wedding day, and from the sidelines he watched me walk down the aisle. Since then, almost seven years have passed, and I can honestly say I don’t regret my decision because it reflected the truth about my relationship with my father: he’s always been the petulant child while I’ve played the role of the ill-prepared adult. For years, I took care of him, catering to his every emotional need while he couldn’t bother to be concerned with mine.

    On my wedding day, I retired from that role and did what was right for me.

    View the original article at thefix.com