Everyone has "heard" a sad story of addiction. With so many young, promising people in our popular culture struggling with addictions (Lindsey, Britney, Nicole), or losing said struggle (Whitney, Heath, Michael), a lot of opinions on the topic have been flung around. The problem with that? Most people doing the commenting have no actual experience with an addict.
Yesterday, Anderson Cooper had a segment on his show called "Pregnant and Addicted." The content of the show isn't really a bone of contention for me - they were arguing for/against prosecuting mothers who knowingly use while pregnant- which puts the baby's life at risk and opens the possibility of the child having lifelong issues (both physical or mental/emotional). Some argue instant jail time, others argue mandatory treatment, I think the answer is really somewhere in the middle. I don't believe jail alone is the answer, but I also know from personal experience that the adage is true, "You can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves." Therefor, forced treatment is really only a band aid covering cannon ball sized hole. While I believe there needs to be more awareness about addiction, I, in no way, condone bending laws for addicts (if you can't drink/drive, you certainly shouldn't be able to carry a child and use without consequence).
The infuriated people who don't understand will argue, "...they have a choice, they can just say no." I really, and truly, from the bottom of my heart wish that were true. I really do, to the point where even writing that sentence brings tears to my eyes. But it's not...it's just simply not. There is no black and white in this world, everything isn't as simple as "say yes or say no." Addiction is a maddening disease...maddening to the person who has it and maddening to the people around them who spend hours, days, years, whole lives trying to help them. I'm one of those people.
I've spoken out before on being the child of an addict. My father, John, was a heavy drinker from a young age (I believe my mom told me from his very early teens). By the time I was around (his mid-30's), he wasn't actively drinking, but abusing other things (pills mostly, but all different kinds...pain meds, sleep meds, uppers to wake up, laxatives to get thin, etc). Since he wasn't always taking the same pill, he wasn't always the same person. In fact, we almost never knew who we were coming home to...one day we'd have a sweet, doting dad, the next we'd have Horace the horrible- screaming, yelling, making crazy accusations. Sadly, we got Horace more often than not...insecurity, always needing more, paranoia- all part and parcel of addiction; it was a miserable way to exist.
When I was a teenager, he began drinking again (on top of the all of the pill abuse). That's when he was really "gone" forever. I think the only time I saw him sober after my senior year of high school was at my college graduation. I remember being so angry that he was even there. Instead of graduating with his help, I graduated in spite of him. He retired at 50 (we believe he was forced, but he never admitted to as much)- just as I was entering college. He would get a string of minimum wage security jobs, but work just long enough to qualify for unemployment, and then stop showing up to work so he could collect for a while. This didn't exactly help the family financially. My mother was determined to keep me in college (and far away from home), while facing foreclosure, having cars repossessed, and my father stealing jewelry from her to pawn so he could buy his pills and vodka. It was the darkest part of my life. While my college peers were enjoying their freedom and receiving money from parents at home to "play," I was falling apart emotionally. By my senior year I was working 25-30 hours a week to support myself at school (food/clothes/books), carrying a full course-load and doing miserably. I felt like I was very close to teetering over the edge.
After college wasn't much better, but being home I could at least help my mom out. I spent the next 2-3 years helping my mom get my dad into various rehab centers- I think one year we hit 5 different rehabs. The outcome was always the same...he'd stay for 2 weeks, get bored and swear he was good to come home (not that we could stop him anyway), and the cycle would repeat. He was literally never sober. Ever. Finally, after I moved out to be with my husband (then fiance), my mother realized she couldn't do it anymore. She'd spent her whole life trying to save someone who clearly didn't want saving; and when he went down (and we all know he would), he would likely take her with him. The divorce was relatively quick (as far as divorces go); he never showed up to court, never contested any of the points in the decree, and signed the deed of the house over to my mother (a bit of protection for herself, since if his name were on the deed and he continued racking up debt, it could be taken from her -amongst other scary scenarios).
After the divorce, we heard from him sporadically. Mostly we heard from angry apartment complex supers and motel managers demanding we come clean his mess (trust me when I say you don't want to know...it's probably worse than you would imagine). The last time I saw my Dad was in a hospital in southern NJ. He was yellow, and he was hallucinating. We convinced him to seek treatment out of state (knowing if he stayed in NJ he literally had no further chance of survival); it was our Hail Mary play. He moved down to Florida to a treatment center known for catering to people who are/were in law enforcement (my father had been a Sgt in a small town in Northern NJ). At first, we heard from him often enough- and it sounded like he was doing great. After a little while, the calls got less, and then he pretty much vanished. We had no clue why, but we had assumed (correctly) that he'd left treatment early (he was supposed to stay in treatment for a year). The next time we heard anything at all, it was the police in Boynton Beach, FL telling us that my father was dead.
My husband and I had to fly down there to take care of the last of his things; and for me, to piece together the final year of my father's life. It turns out my father had a serious girlfriend down there; I believe she was a recovering addict herself, and when he began using again it spelled the demise of their relationship. While I was sad to find out that he'd been dishonest with her about his family (I think he told her my mother had died tragically and that when he drank to cope, my brother and I abandoned him- something to that effect), I was happy that at least he hadn't been alone. As for my personal feelings, I'd lost my father long before he died. I was sad he wasn't able to work the program, and I mourned the life that should have been, but when my Dad was gone, I felt relief. I felt relieved that he wouldn't need to hide behind his bottle anymore, I felt relief that I would no longer have to wait for that phone call that I knew would come eventually, and I felt relief that we no longer would have to defend ourselves from the ignorance of people who haven't been there. If you think that makes me horrible, I apologize, but it's the truth.
Except I was wrong about one thing...my Dad may be gone, but I've come to realize (3 years later), that I will never be done facing the ignorance that is out there about addicts and their disease (and their families). Every time the dust settles on another celebrity overdose, something else brings attention to addiction that brings out the ugly words and the harsh assumptions. If you think that my defense of my father means that I was never angry about it, that I am still not angry about it, you'd be wrong. Of course I've been angry, I'm only human; but I also know that his addiction wasn't his choice. No one in this world could possibly CHOOSE to live the existence that he did. I think sometimes people see young stars/starlets and think they use because it's so much fun, because it's the glamorous thing to do- and hey, maybe some DO, but a real addict is far from glamorous. If you'd seen my Dad, yellow, sickly thin with a protruding stomach, yellow, bloodshot eyes, you'd never in a million years assume he thought that was "super fun."
Yesterday's segment on pregnant women using drugs once again brought out the ugly. I read everything from "those people should be shot," "stupid druggies should just say no" and "the government should force addicts to get sterilized." People make judgements on the families of those addicts- saying they don't love them enough to fix them (actually, Kathy Lee Gifford said this about the family of Whitney Houston- thanks for that!), that their families are trashy users themselves, that kids of addicts are all doomed to fail at life. They say how sad it is that addicts are able to reproduce when other perfectly wonderful people in this world can't conceive. It makes me sad that people think that I don't deserve to be here, to thrive at life, because my father was an addict. On the flip side, when people aren't insinuating that my life isn't worthy because I was born of an addict, people assume that A). its my job to make my addict father not an addict (because loving someone enough means it'll cure them, for sure!), or that B). it was my lifelong responsibility to clean up after him. So not only should I not be allowed to be here, but if I am, my sole purpose should be to cure or clean up after my father. Does this sound asinine to anyone else?
I'm not trash. I don't use drugs (never did, even when it was the cool thing to do in high school and college). I went through my phase of binge drinking in college like most college aged kids, but today I drink in moderation (when not pregnant). I'm a stay at home mom. I pay my taxes. I have a college degree. I'm smart. I'm nice. I'm worthy of a nice life. I'm worthy of good fortune. My history is a part of me, but my father's addiction does not label me. My existence does not rob perfectly nice people of having children (as if there were a finite number of children allowed to be born).
If the comments were in the minority, I'd shrug it off as simple ignorance. However, the lack of knowledge on addiction is rampant. I do my best not to preach- I kept my mouth shut when Whitney died and people feigned disgust that she was being honored. People mocked those who were genuinely saddened by the loss of her life, claiming she had it coming and deserved what she got. It's hard not to equate that with people assuming no addict should be mourned. They only saw her addiction, and not any of the beautiful, wonderful things she did with her life that had nothing to do with drugs. She was a sick person, and I find it hard to believe any one of those people would have been so angry had she died of Cancer or heart disease. If only she'd died of a "respectable" disease, then we might be allowed to mourn her loss publicly without fear of people's heinous words.
My Dad wasn't a wonderful guy when he was using, but when he wasn't, he tried best he knew how to be a good person. He tried to be involved in my brother's sports endeavors, tried to spoil us when he could, and could be wonderfully affectionate. While it's easy to look at all the horrible things we went through and think he was a piece of junk, I like to think that my brother and I are pretty good people. If you ever met us, you might think to yourself that you just can't believe the life we lived with our father. While it's easy to say that we're good people in spite of my father, the truth is that my mother didn't make us on her own; half of us is our father. I don't know that we got to see too much of who our father really was, or who he would have been had it not been for his addictions; but to assume we are who we are in spite of him, and not because of him, would be overlooking the fact that there was a person somewhere in him. Maybe people need other people to judge. Maybe people make harsh judgements or assumptions because it's easier for them to judge me and my father than it is to face their own demons. Maybe they just judge because they're scared of it ever happening to them. For their sake, I hope it doesn't- it's a heartbreaking disease...
But don't judge me because of your fear or lack of knowledge. Don't assume I'm a piece of trash because my father battled addiction. Don't decide that he was a piece of junk or sociopath because he couldn't overcome it. Don't raise your eyebrows at us because we had to walk away. Don't assume we are heartless because he died alone, and don't assume that I didn't care because I didn't cry at his wake. And just remember, when you're in public, and you're saying any number of the terrible things I've heard, don't be surprised if maybe you come across my path, and I introduce myself by saying "By the way my name is Megan...and I'm the child of an addict."
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