Daughter of an Addict

It happened yesterday. By my altar, during my hape practice.

My dad’s image resurfaced, and I knew I could no longer keep him out of my heart.

It’s been a year since we last spoke. I have him blocked on my phone.

I have no illusions that I will open another conversation soon.

What I do know is that I have opened an inner channel of connection inside my heart. And my love and forgiveness began to flow back to him. Unconditionally.

My relationship with my dad is a lifelong saga.

How do you have a relationship with an addict?

Have you ever tried? Seen other’s try?

Did they succeed? In having a healthy relationship?

Didn’t think so.

An addict is in a relationship with addiction, and there is no room for anyone else.

In an addict’s fog of delusion, others are mere means to his goal - to satisfy the addiction.

They will lie, pretend, manipulate, and coerce - anything to reach the goal.

This is my story.

A story of a little girl who had an addict for a dad.

That movie did not change the script when she grew up and left her hometown.

She crossed the oceans to start fresh, to follow her life’s vision.

And all that time, she never lost hope of one day having a sincere conversation with her dad. The one where she asks him about his life and tells him about hers.

What is more painful: not to have such a conversation or to have it, just to realize it was fake?

A year ago, I had my hopes up.

I thought that my dad and I turned the page - began anew.

He said all the right words.

He sounded sincere.

He seemed to be interested in me as a human being for once.

All of that was crushed when the true intentions were revealed.

I kept waking up to seeing my phone blow up with international calls from Russia.

He kept calling, and something in me did not want to answer.

I can read energy from a mile - and that was not a calm connection.

It was an agitated call, with an agenda.

When I picked up, he sounded rushed, telling me he’s been trying to reach me for a while. Not asking anything about me or my life, he went straight to it.

He asked me for money.

Everything inside me froze.

In one instant, I knew all the previous attempts to start fresh were not sincere.

An addict in one relationship - his addiction.

I told him I was not going to do it and hung up.

There was so much that I was feeling. Anger, shame, sadness, frustration.

My little girl inside is feeling not seen…again.

The pain of having an addict dad, will it ever leave?

The next day, I texted him.

Addressing him by his first and middle name.

Not calling him dad anymore.

Telling him the truth of how shocking it is that, after a lifetime of him being gone from my life, now he thinks he can ask me for money?

In my words, I tried to show him how it made me feel (used) and why I am not ok with those requests.

His response was three words:

“You are a pig.”

The same day, I asked my romantic partner not to tell me that it’s going to turn around between my dad and me. Rob is an idealist like me, but I have a realist inside me.

I asked him not to give me any hope that my dad can change.

I said, “I cannot carry that hope anymore. My healing now looks like boundaries with an addict. I need to give myself freedom from this burden.”

My partner held me with understanding and compassion. He never brought up my dad again.

This morning, I gathered flowers and said to him, “I am going to make offerings for my dad. I don’t think he will be around on the planet for too long. I want to send prayers for him.”

I haven’t told Rob about opening my heart to my dad again. I will.

I know he will be happy to hear that unfolding.

Why am I writing this?

For anyone who knows the devastating pain of having an addict as a parent.

The loss of childhood, the wounds of neglect, and the impact it creates on your self-worth.

These scars do not leave.

You learn to live with them.

You find what works for you to move forward.

I decided to talk to my dad’s soul (not his personality) and let the connection flow.

I also decided that I get to be a protector for my little girl inside, and I do that by creating boundaries, as this is healing for me now.

Boundaries are a sign of healing from co-dependency with an addict.

Daughter of an addict.

This is my story.

I understand addiction intimately. From inside out.

I genuinely wish my dad well-being.

For him to find whatever his restless soul is seeking in the bottle.

I am going to keep opening my heart to him on the invisible planes; no longer interested in rescuing him or even understanding him.

What I did last night was monumental:

I unblocked him from my heart.

I decided it was not worth having my heart burdened by that block.

So I set myself free.