How addiction shaped my life
Getting to the nitty gritty of why my life looks the way it does — healthy, focused, determined — is more complicated than some might think. From the outside looking in, I have a job in the women’s health sphere that I love, I am in a healthy and committed relationship with my fiancé, I have wonderful extended family, Southern California is my home … the list goes on and on. And while all of those aspects of life today are true and accurate, it was not an easy path to get here.
You can’t keep dancing with the devil all while asking why you’re in hell — that’s the logic, or lack thereof, that you witness on a daily basis when you’re the child of an addict. I was only 14 when my parents started a very nasty divorce, and my mother’s already-problematic drinking habits were expanded upon tenfold. My priorities as a freshman in high school quickly turned away from my geometry homework to that of keeping an addict alive by any means necessary — skipping class, bailing out, rescuing from parking lots, making excuses at her workplace, with black-out levels of cruelty becoming common place. The first time I knew I was in deep trouble was when two male friends of hers carried her to the car for me to drive home and take care of after a party — I was 15 with a learner’s permit.
There are a lot of horrific experiences and details that I could spend a decade sharing — I have, to a therapist, which is why I can now speak of and communicate about this large portion of my life with a level of clarity and levelheadedness that can at times appear alarming. Why am I not more upset? Hasn’t addiction shaped my entire life? Aren’t I horrified that neither my parents are in my life? Why isn’t my extended family here? Addiction is a disease that has the deepest of roots, unlike anything an unaffected person can understand. Like an unmovable tree planted in the wrong part of town, addiction’s roots rip up the sidewalk of life, making it impossible to move forward without tripping, watching each and every place you put your foot and second guessing yourself along the way. In my experience, the gardeners who could’ve done something to help move the tree — and the city workers responsible for the sidewalk — planted more trees and took a jackhammer to the existing sidewalks for fun, isolating the pedestrian in their quest for freedom.
Addiction is a very degrading thing to experience. It killed my mother in every way that mattered — her humanity, her reality, her dignity — and it certainly ended our relationship in bitterness and resentment. Having to be on the receiving end of such vitriol, I’ve had to deal with significant fears connected to abandonment, change, feelings of chronic inadequacy, having remained terrified of letting someone down for fear of unfair retribution well into my 20s. Large portions of this life have been cruel to say the very least, and dealing with the hell I’ve been to and back is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I had to, one day, finally understand and let go of the illusion that my life with my parents, namely my mother, could have been any different. I tried desperately, for years, to tell her that she had it within herself to seek help — it’s a horrible thing, watching someone drown and not being able to convince them that they need only stand up to save themselves. But things got too self-sacrificial, too heartbreaking, too insulting, to continue.
To anyone dealing with a parent who’s an addict, I see you. It is not easy, and the hardest call to make is the one where you decide to walk away. But standing firmly on the other side of what felt like an impossible decision, I can safely say that it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, my family, my fiancé, my future children — by standing firm in the unwavering belief that I deserved better than what I got, I moved on. You can too.