Cocaine Addiction

My seven-year-old son came up the stairs around 8am, he saw my door was closed, but slowly opened it.  The light broke the darkness of the room and shined in my worn out face, just giving enough light to realize the morning had come.  Before I had a chance to say anything the door was pushed all the way open and a tiny figure entered.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” said my son softly. I could only imagine the smells my son was getting from the room, drugs, sex, and alcohol.  All night partying and snorting coke, drinking until my body said stop.  I can only hope the woman I brought home saw herself out that night, as I never noticed nor cared.  I managed to pull myself out of bed, but the aftermath of the party soon kicked in and I immediately felt sick and crawled to the bathroom.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see my son looking at me with such an innocent look, not really knowing what his daddy was doing.  It sometimes surprised me though that he never asked what was wrong, or maybe I was just ignorant enough to not pay any attention to it.  After throwing up the entire nights stomach contents, I pulled myself to look in the mirror.  An absolute monster is all I saw, my eyes were blood shot and face was swollen.  Around my nose was red and dry, with some crusty blood still hanging on.  I had not shaved in a few days, and really looked as if I had spent a month in a refugee camp.  Is this what my son saw; was this the image I was projecting to him?  I tried my best to clean myself up, but it seemed to be no use, this would have to do.

Walking down the stairs was a challenge, my son had went ahead of me; yet, my depth perception was completely off, what was actually one step seemed to be three.  When I came into the kitchen he was already sitting at the table.  I couldn’t quite make out what he was playing with, but when I got in for a closer look I knew exactly what it was.  When I had come in that night, I left my wallet, keys, and few grams of cocaine on the kitchen table.  I tried to focus and actually believe what I was seeing; my son had opened the cocaine and had spread it all over the table.  He was looking at me with a playful face, pure innocence, and had the empty bag in one hand and a straw in the other.  He looked right at me and said,

“Look, I’m just like daddy,” If I had a gun, I would have put it to my head and pulled the trigger to wake from this nightmare, but it wasn’t a nightmare.  Two nights before, I was having a poker night, and we were all doing lines while playing poker and my son had walked in as I was snorting a line.  I never saw him staring at me until I looked up and screamed at him to leave the room.

I now realized my son had seen a true cocaine monster and was no longer afraid.  He stared at me from that table with no fear, and without any words clearly told me I was a worthless cocaine addict and this was the son I was raising into a man.