Thanks to TDA researcher Norm for sending me a link to this very strange piece, My dad saved me, and I killed him, by Richard Farrell that ran in the Los Angeles Times last week. To be honest, I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to a father’s day tribute, cathartic sharing, or just a parody gone astray. Richard can’t seem to decide whether or not his father was a sick freak or a storied saint. Personally, I think drama queen Richard has pulled a Jessica Rabbit and is passing off a caricature of his dad instead of the real thing in order to cope with the more mundane reality that he willfully became an addict.
He slowly reached for my hand just as he had done years ago on that ride home from Little League tryouts. And at that instant, we both experienced the pain and madness of love. Then he was gone.
That night, I shot my first bag of heroin.
I know I still have a hard time separating the lies I used to justify my alcoholism from the disappointing reality of my past. Just as I wanted a reason to continue using I struggled in early recovery to find some sort of excuse for the time lost. There are many things that no doubt attributed to my alcoholism, but no single event played as great a role as the thousand times I willfully ignored the chance to quit before that choice was no longer an option.
I mean no disrespect to his dad- not that I could outdo the shock fest of dirty laundry publishing he’s already accomplished, but this story is full of holes and might as well serve a higher purpose. No one wants to be just an addict or alcoholic, but regardless of the path traveled we all end up in the same shape. Ignoring that reality just makes it that much harder to find a sound recovery and a lasting happiness.
