“I didn’t want to be like my parents. But it was harder than I thought.”
Growing up in a small town with parents who both had their own battles with addiction felt like living in a pressure cooker. It wasn’t just one person in my family—it was everyone. My dad, my mom, my uncles and aunts, even some of my cousins. I always felt like I was walking on thin ice. The house was full of tension—fights, whispered conversations, sudden silence that would swallow up everything.
I didn’t really understand the extent of it until I hit my teenage years. I’d see my mom drinking wine, my dad sneaking pills. I remember how the house smelled—like smoke and something darker, something you couldn’t quite name. By the time I was 15, I was already experimenting with drugs. I didn’t think much of it at first; it was just a way to feel like I fit in with the crowd, a way to escape from the constant weight of my family’s addiction.
But by 18, I was deep in it myself. I didn’t want to be like my parents, but I couldn’t stop. It was a nightmare—I didn’t recognize myself anymore. The feeling of being stuck was suffocating. I had been taught, without words, that addiction was just part of life. It was normal. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t.
I hit rock bottom after I was arrested for possession. That was my wake-up call. The judge ordered me into rehab, and that’s when I started to understand just how deep my roots in addiction ran. It wasn’t just about using—it was about the emotional scars I’d inherited, the patterns of behavior I had learned from those who were supposed to guide me. The hardest thing I had to face was the truth: I had become my parents.
Recovery wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy. But I learned to break those cycles, to understand that addiction is a disease, and that healing starts with acknowledging the damage it causes. My family still struggles, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t change them. I can only change me.
If you’re reading this, and you’re caught in that same cycle, know that there’s hope. You don’t have to repeat the same mistakes, even if it feels like your path is already set. You can choose differently. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.