Drug Addiction Stories & Info

When you are sixteen, you think fairy tales come true. You fall in love and you think he is the one meant for you. It is hard to comprehend that he would lie to you. When he gets drunk and asks you to drive his corvette, you get excited. He is 27 and he thinks you are the greatest thing in the world or so he says. 

Your family feels differently. Your mother is doing everything she can to raise you and your brother singlehandedly and tells him to stay \away from you. But you sneak out at night to see him. When he is drunk, he calls you up and you are right there. You bail on your own prom because he wants to see you. He insists that you drink with him when the two of you are alone even though you do not like it very well.

It is not until you are stopped one night because you forgot to turn on your signal light that you realize he is just using you as his chauffeur while he is drinking. It is not until you end up pregnant and he seems shocked that you realize he was never into you for who you really were. It was always just about the drinking.

Years later, as you raise that child by yourself and see to it that he has everything possible so that he does not feel like he is missing out by having an absent father, you run into the guy you were so into at sixteen and seventeen. You are 35 and you are at a restaurant with your fiance, your son and his friends for his high school graduation. He has aged and is with a woman as wide as she is tall. He is still drinking and although the math tells you he is only 46, he could so easily pass for close to 60.

He recognizes you. He sees in the gorgeous young man on one side of you the man he used to be. He stares at you all through the meal. He gets almost belligerently drunk while you and your loved ones are enjoying a special occasion. Then the entire restaurant goes quiet as your fiance stands. He has a set of keys that he hands to your son and tells him that they belong to a very nice mustang out in the parking lot. Your son stands up and hugs him and says “I know your wedding is not until next week but can I go ahead and call you Dad now?” Your fiance is pleased as he has been in both of your lives for over three years.

As you do a family hug with your son and your fiance, you look over at the man who used you when you were a teenager. He is beet red and demanding another drink as his wife looks on mortified. He stares at you and has a question in his eyes. You shake your head no. There is no reason to talk to him. You already have everything in life you could possibly desire and a drunk from the past is not on the list.

It’s your graduation day, too, as you shut the door on the past. As he sees the gift he missed out on in the young man that looks like what he used to be, you know that the future looks bright for you, your fiance and especially your child.

I had been divorced about eight years when Sally came along.  She was beautiful.  I was feeling my age and trying to date younger women, when came this woman, closer to my own age who could outdo any of the younger ones, in just about anything.

I could not believe this woman cared about me.  We would hang out with friends and she would be the life of the party.  She had more energy than girls half her age.  You would never have known that Sally had a stroke three years earlier.  Still, I had to open my mouth one night when I was drinking and ask her if she monitored her blood pressure.  “Why?” she asked.  “I’m healthy.”  I told her I did not want to hook up with someone, fall in love and lose her.  Sally looked at me and told me that was a little mean and slightly took on the pot calling the kettle black.

I was an alcoholic and I also took pain relievers because of a back problem. Sally hated that I did that.  She tried to help me.  She took me places when my back bothered me; she drove us to my house and stayed over when I partied too much and she tried to tell me she would not disappear, that she really intended to help me.  Instead of seeing her for who she was, though, I acted like she was responsible for me.

I yelled at her one night, that I wanted some more alcohol but she hid the keys and told me she was not going after it and neither was I because she knew I was also taking pills for my back.  Then I took a sedative so I could sleep which really ticked her off because I was still drunk from the alcohol I had finished off.

I stumbled and fell and it hurt.  I told her if I died it was on her.  The next morning she took me to the clinic and the doctor got on to me.  Then she took me home, fixed me lunch, and helped me into bed before leaving the room.  I hollered for her to get her butt in there and rub my shoulders.  She quietly did so.  Sally stayed with me for those four days while I got over the bruising from where I had fallen.  The day I finally was able to go back to work, Sally sweetly kissed me and told me to have a good day.  When I came home, she and her things were gone.

Camping trips are mostly remembered for being fun.  Yes, my parent’s drank, but we were camping, there was no driving involved.  Most of the trips were very enjoyable although they do come along with the memory of my mother and father getting drunk.  The worse times were when they were both drunk and they argued.  Oh, we hated that.

They were really cruel to each other when they argued.

They were really cruel to each other when they argued.  Of course, they had sharp tongues anyway, but for two people who were supposed to love each other, they were cruel.  My sisters and I hated it when they argued.  For small children, their parents are their foundation.  When they fight, the foundation cracks just a little.  I can remember many times getting tense just sensing they were going to argue.

Camping trips were always with a bunch of other people.  All of who drank.  We would go to lakes and familiar camping grounds quite often in the warmer weather.  The kids played, the women gossiped, and the men played cards and drank in the camper or bus – we had an old bus converted into a camper.  Although there were many good times, I still remember being anxious when my mother or father said something with a tone.  I didn’t want them to argue, and even then I tried to be the peacemaker.  I tried to smooth things over before it escalated into an argument.  So, intertwined with the wonderful and happy memories of camping is the memory of feeling responsible to keep my folks from arguing.  That’s a big responsibility for a small child.  That is what all alcoholics do to their children; however, they just may not realize it.

Adults who drink and get drunk in the presence of their children are speaking volumes without ever saying a word.  They are putting their children into the role of being an adult because the adult is incapacitated.  They are making their children referees because alcoholism spurs anger.  Alcoholics are forcing their children to grow up way before they are ready.  They don’t mean to, I know my parent’s didn’t intend for that to happen, but it did.  My sisters and I were scared a lot.  Scared they would argue or fight, scared Dad would drive when he’d been drinking – generally scared.  Alcoholics taint the memories for their children.  Otherwise happy memories become happy memories tainted with anxiety.  Children shouldn’t have to live like that.

Read the first part: Daddy, I’m scared – Part 1