A letter to my addict father.

I could have had a normal childhood. That’s what hurts the most. If you hadn’t started using drugs, if you hadn’t chosen them over me time and time again, maybe I’d be different. My trust issues wouldn’t be so bad. My anxiety wouldn’t be so severe. I remember everything, in full detail of how you using drugs affected my childhood.

I remember being 5 years old, It was halloween and I was all dressed up in my piglet costume, I was sitting outside on the porch of my moms apartment waiting for you to pick me up to go trick or treating. I waited there for an hour before my mom called you asking where you were. You were so high you didn’t even know what day it was. Every minute that went by that you didn’t show, my heart broke a little bit more. I sat on the porch with my empty candy bucket and cried. You broke my heart at 5 years old. And that was only the beginning.

You broke my heart again at 6 when you overdosed and almost died, almost leaving me without a dad, but you didn’t care, as long as you got your next fix.

I remember you fighting with my mom endlessly. And one time when I was around 4 she wouldn’t let you take me because you were high and she didn’t want you to drive with me in the truck like that. My mom was holding me on the porch and you ripped me from her arms and put me in the truck and drove away anyways. I heard her screaming at you that she was calling the cops.

I remember being 8 and crying myself to sleep wondering if you’d ever get clean.

I remember being 12 and begging you to stop using drugs, to get clean, for me. And I really wish I was enough for you to want to get clean. You always told me I was your number one priority, but I knew I’d always be second to drugs.

The only good thing about all of this happening to me is that I will never ever do drugs. And I will never let another drug addict into my life. Because I deserve more than being second to a drug.