- Alcohol
My dad was an alcohol addict for about 20 years. He was a heavy drinker and would drink about a bottle of scotch a day. He went through two stages of recovery. The first time he quit he detoxed by himself and was sober for 10 years. He relapsed due to different family events. He was always a good person. He always worked, did his job and took care of his family, but his addiction was his personal downfall. It went hand in hand with issues he was dealing with mentally.
When I was younger, I couldn’t understand his addiction, but I knew it wasn’t a good thing. I saw that it hurt my family, my mom and my dad’s relationship with her. He would not be the person he wanted to be around me. As I became an adult, dealing with the trauma of being worried about him and if he was okay, I wondered how to take care of him and myself while learning about the world. Fortunately we were able to work through it together, and I was able to be his support system. I helped him become sober, and he helped me learn about addiction. He wanted to get sober for me, see that I could do well in life and be there to support me.
I helped him through his second stage of recovery by saying, “As I progress in life and as I achieve things, I hope that you can achieve an element of sobriety.” As I grew older and got my bachelor’s degree and my law degree, he made a significant achievement in becoming more sober and dealing with his addiction. Now he is sober, and he has been sober for about seven years.