My father has been an addict and alcoholic since i was walking in diapers. He's the reason my mother and his marriage failed. He's the reason my brother and i are seperated now. I could hate him, even have every right to for all he's taken from my family. However, I will never be able to hate a soul. I got the lucky end of the crappy parenting. I saw the struggles my family has had with drugs and alcohol, my father not being the only one who struggles. My grandfather (his dad), his mom, his brother, my mom, have all showed me a side of addiction I never want to touch nor feel.
My father has been arrested every single year at least twice since 1993. This non-sense of him being in jail began when I was 3 years old, my little brother not yet born. For years I've watched my father throw his life away snorting, shooting up, binge drinking, pill popping, stealing from his family, shop lifting from stores, and beating women. My whole life I and my brother have only dreamed of a happy, clean family. When I realized that was going to happen I stood up and voweled to stand above all that and be there 100% for my baby brother.
For years I have fought for my father, I have cried for my father, and even screamed for my father. Not because I have to but because I love him and beyond those drugs and alcohol there is a good man. My final straw with him is when he decided it was no big deal to send my little brother up to gas station and leave him to find his own ride. 2 hours after he was picked up by us my father call over and over obsessively........not to check on his son but to see if he was going to get his cell phone back and when my brother was going to get his clothes.
The nerve....... the demons that live in him are killing his soul. I ask God everyday how is worth it for a man to stick a needle in his arm and experience that "high" that leads you to nowhere but hell. To drink 48 beers and not know your name? I've asked myself for years will he ever change? Will he ever see the hell and embarrassment he has put his family through? Will he die because of addiction?
Once my brother was kicked to the curb, my heart broke for my father, but, I no longer sympathized for him. When he is clean he can come back into our lives. When he wakes up and looks in the mirror and sees what he's done, that's the day he'll care and that's the day we will meet again.
until then there are bigger and better things out there for my brother and I to accomplish. There is hope for us and for everyone else. you can't change or even help someone who is not willing to committ. You can't change what is out of your control. All you can do is be you, the best you can be, live free, and be happy. In the end it's about the legacy you've left behind, not the material things that will not follow you as you leave this earth. You can leave behind a legacy of an addict or one of a being that loved and lived life freely and worth living.