When my friends did use them, they did so intermittently. For them, it was to enhance an experience or a period in their life of experimentation. Some of my friends used the same substances very differently. I could drink some alcohol or take some drugs and all of that internal psychological distress would disappear into the background. I didn’t have to suppress or confront the unbearable feelings of rejection, loss, and feelings of worthless or inadequacy that stem from having my feelings consistently dismissed by my parents. Now I had access to a substance that would do a far more effective job than I could. I had been suppressing all my negative feelings psychologically. I instantly found great relief and solace in taking alcohol or drugs. Soon after my dad died, I began experimenting with drugs and alcohol. I associated intimacy with pain and rejection.īecause pain and rejection characterised my relationship with my parents (my mum had depression and chronic fatigue), I assumed at an unconscious level that those feelings would be a feature of all intimate relationships. I sought to suppress all negative feelings, and whilst I had a close relationship with others, I was emotionally distant.
To cope with the rejection and loss of my dad, I closed down emotionally. Whenever I approached him or sought comfort or attention from ages 8 until 16, and he was unavailable or rejecting our relationship suffered a blow.
To me, psychologically at least, my dad died 1000 times before he physically died. The love, care, and attention he had showed me up until that point slowly and increasingly withered away as he was swallowed up by the addiction that had plagued him all his adult life, except for the several years he achieved abstinence when I was born.Īt 16 years old, my dad, aged 49, died. My life before his demise into self-sabotage, self-loathing, shame, and addiction was characterised by love, stability, and innocence.Įvents following my dad’s relapse would change that. My dad relapsed and began using drugs and drinking alcohol when I was 8 or 9 years old. However, that isn’t to say that his drug use didn’t affect me. It was simply what my dad did and I didn’t have a judgement about it.
Despite this, I didn’t explicitly understand the morality or legality of it. Growing up with my dad, I witnessed my dad purchase, prepare, and consume drugs. He spent the second half of my childhood misusing Alcohol, Cannabis, Heroin, Methadone, Valium, and Diazepam. This was an entry from my dad’s journal, written at some point during my childhood. ‘Woke up feeling very scared, was very emotional and anxious for over one hour, then I remembered I had a can of beer, drank that and it receded my fears long enough to get to the chemist to pick up Valium’. By Richard Devine, Social Worker and Bath and North East Somerset Council
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