Drug Recovery in my Family

Believing in my dad has not always been at the top of my list, until his recovery from drugs. Growing up, my Dad was always so grumpy and sometimes extremely tired. When I was in high school I figured out, and was told that my Dad had a problem with drugs. Even though we have been taught so much about drugs and its abuse, I never could have imagined that drugs could be such a demanding, powerful and controlling substance over a person. The desire and need that a person develops from drugs continually grows and gets worse over time. As my dad used continuously I somewhat understood the dependency that he developed while on them. This was no life for a family and as my dad got deeper into drugs my family’s relationship was falling apart.

The summer after my freshman year in high school, I had one of the worst days of my life; I walked in on my dad getting ready to do drugs. I had never been so hurt and frightened in my life. The thought of drugs gave me a stomach ache and they still do to this very day. I asked my dad to stop more than once, but it never seemed to be enough. During my sophomore year in high school things began to get worse. It was not until my mom asked him for a divorce that my dad finally realized that he had hit rock bottom and decided to get help with his problem. It took some time, but my dad finally cleaned up his act and I finally started to believe in him as an actual human being. As time went on my dad started to become a better person. Believing in my Dad was not the strongest part of the whole recovery, it was the belief in the process of the 12 Step program through A.A (Alcoholics Anonymous) and Celebrate Recovery. A.A is a program designed to direct alcoholics and drug abusers in the right direction while abiding by a 12 step program. Celebrate Recovery is a program put together through our church for people to discuss any type of abuse they may be recovering from. My dad realized that he was not the only person that had an addiction, but that there were many others with a multitude of different types of addictions. Fortunately he realized that it was time to stop, not only for his family, but most of all for himself.

During the process of becoming drug free, my dad had to stop drinking alcohol completely. This was a hard thing for him to do because he never thought his drug abuse had anything to do with his social drinking, but it did. Drinking was actually a leader to the drugs because once he had a few drinks; the alcohol led him to believe that it was okay to go get the drugs. My dad has been sober from alcohol for about eight years now, which is much longer than his sobriety from his drugs. This month happens to be his fourth year of sobriety from drugs.

My dad is doing pretty well at this point and the experiences we have shared have led me to truly believe in my dad, the 12 Step program and Celebrate Recovery.