A FATHER’S STORY

My name is Peter, and I’m an addict. From an early age I was always led to believe that if I was less than perfect, I was absolutely useless.  The result was that I was always frightened to try because I knew I’d always fail.  I always had a feeling that my mother was a single parent because I was a burden and a problem, a difficult child to bring up.  I didn’t know at the time that my mum, like me in later life, had not got the parenting skills close at hand, therefore her parenting of me and my younger brother was one of frustration, anger, resentment, fear, and doing the best she could with the tools at hand.  I subsequently ended up in the hands of those who thought they knew best and ended up in care.

At the age of eighteen, I met someone who was just like me, and we had our first child at the age of nineteen.  With the parenting skills we’d inherited we set off, and within six weeks of the first birth, we were expecting another child, as no–one told us any different, and we knew no different.  At the birth of the next child, my addiction to drugs had escalated to the point where it was obvious to everyone except me that I was out of control and that I didn’t know how to parent one child, let alone two. My frustration came out via violence and huge binges, where upon I found myself in court being told that the state thought it was best that I was not part of the children’s environment any longer.  Since that day I have never seen the children and I went forward into life believing what was said in the court – that I was incapable and would be institutionalised most of my life.

As for my personal life, when my daughter was four, I was at college, and I met a woman. I was at last learning how to honour the other person, and not just base my life on my selfish needs. One Christmas, my daughter decided, of her own free will, to call my girlfriend “mummy”.  This turned out to be a greater word, as today we are married and also have a little boy.  I can remember the day with great glee when my daughter said “can I take you to school daddy” as I was at college at the time– this represents equality to me.  This last week, I spent with my daughter driving around Europe.  She was talking about maths and life in general, listening to the news, and based on that, she decided to discuss her relationship with her higher power who she calls god, and at just over seven years old, she was able to freely, and with great spirit, talk to me and ask me how I saw God.  Today I can look at those early days of the fear of entering a spiritual programme called Narcotics Anonymous with a head bent and twisted and see that the natural law of life has put me in the best place I could ever be.  Today I see relationships as a must, and, as with all things, I try to do it with great gusto (spirit). Perfectionism has no place in my life today.  I’m sat here at this moment with a T–shirt on saying “daddy”. When people ask me what I think about parenting, my first reflection is of my oldest children’s mum who, like me, suffered with addiction.  My greatest amends to them and all single parents is that we afford to have at least one crèche meeting in each area, as I’ve been given peace and unity from the benefits of one myself.

It was only when I became so fed up and begged for help that I found myself at the doors of the twelve–step programme.  I went to meetings for a long time still using, letting go of one drug, and using another, always with the thought in my head that I could not do this because I was worthless, useless, and incapable.  They all seemed so perfect.  So I asked on of those perfect people to sponsor me.  His first suggestion was that I clean up.  My sponsor (who was married, by the way) also told me it may be a good idea to stay away from the opposite sex for a while.  Oh boy!!  Later on, when listening to my step five, it became apparent how right he was. I hadn’t got a clue about how to have a relationship, and how painful I found the break–up between me and my eldest children even though for years I made so many excuses for the reasons why we were not together.  The simple reason was that I did not know how to have a relationship with another human being.  A few years passed by living alone, trying to learn how to have relationships when one faced me.  One day I was in the woods, and she said that she was eighteen weeks pregnant.  I really didn’t know what to do.  One huge thing I had noticed was that the nagging voice of my mother in my head had gone and I was no longer frightened to be who I was.  So, when my daughter was born I was there clean and happy to hold her in my arms with no fear of who might take her away, or that I could not do it.  At this point, my mother appeared in my life to see her new granddaughter, and I was able to see the power of what an amends can do.

None of this prepared me for what was about to happen.  My daughter’s mum started to have her own problems, and I was soon left on my own with my daughter, with her mum’s blessings.  This period was so painful, I took my daughter to meetings and struggled with the ooh’s and aah’s, as sympathy was not what I wanted – guidance was the one.  I sought it in the most peculiar places.  I remember the social services saying that they have no need to help me as I was doing very well on my own, my daughter’s mother compounding this statement, so too did my own mother the day she told me I was doing very well bringing up my daughter.  After a time of going to meetings and taking my daughter, I had a massive shock to hear the words of another person’s business come flying out of my daughter’s mouth.  I knew then that I would have to approach going to meetings in a different light.  So, we got ourselves a crèche worker with the blessings of our area, and they also funded it, and later, following the example of another area, we formed a Support for Parents and Carers Committee.

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