Essay on the Drug Addiction of My Father

I thought he loved the family he created, but it didn’t stop him from succumbing to the darkness surrounding his beautiful mind. 

Everything happened so quickly. He strapped me and my brother into our booster seats and began driving. We were going to visit my grandma, someone who I adored and loved very much, but we never made it to her house. As I stared out the window and watched the landscapes pass by, a strong jerk pulsed through my small body, and I began to cry, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Through my blurred, teary eyes, I noticed that he had driven into a pole, and after receiving a call from my grandma, my mom picked us up and yelled at him. I was two years old at the time, and this is one of the two memories I have of him. 

A few months passed by, and it was now March. White fluffs of snow that looked like powdered sugar fell from the sky as my mom drove us home from the babysitter. When we arrived and walked inside the house, there he lay, passed out on the couch, and even though my innocent mind believed he was asleep, my mom’s cries said otherwise. A pill bottle lay next to him, and years later, I grew to understand how everything was connected. 

My father was a drug addict. 

He was high on drugs when we smashed into the pole, and the night we found him dead on the couch, he had overdosed. To this day, I don’t understand why he would risk his life, his future, his everything for drugs. I feel guilty for the way I view him - for putting my mom through hell and choosing drugs over seeing his once little girl grow up into a woman or his son into a man. 

He won’t be there to see me graduate high school. He won’t be there to comfort me through relationship problems. He won’t be there to watch me earn my college degree, and hopefully, make it to medical school. Don’t get me wrong, I have a phenomenal step-dad who I love and hold close to my heart, but it isn’t the same. 

As I grow older, my mom tells me stories about him. Some are bad, and some are good. Once, my aunt caught him dealing marijuana to my grandpa, his father. Another time, my mom kicked him out of the house because he had his pills spread all over the table, and my brother, being a curious, little boy, grabbed them. When I was two, my mom and I visited him in the hospital because he had overdosed, and I must have been inspired by the doctor’s empathy and care because when we visited him, I asked my father to draw me a picture of a doctor since I wanted to be one. 

How would I solve the ongoing issue of substance abuse in the world today? Compassion and patience are a necessity to releasing the stigma of this reality, and this powerful issue chains addicts to an electric chair, making them feel as if there’s no escape. We must listen and hear their stories so that they feel accepted and recognized for their humanity. If we embody those virtues, a sense of belonging will envelop the addict, removing the feelings of alienation and powerlessness, while providing families the opportunity of eliminating the risk of losing a loved one from the darkness of addiction.