Sacrifices by Rebecca Allen

Sacrifices
By Rebecca Allen

I believe that everything happens for a reason. And because of this belief I can honestly say that I
appreciate and understand that for me to be who I am now, my dad had to be a drug dealer. Before and after I was born my dad was an Angel Dust (PCP) dealer. He left my mother and I when I was ten days old. But growing up I was as naive to the situation as one could possibly be. I thought that my dad was the captain of the world and I was his first mate. I claimed ignorance until a childhood friend in the fifth grade revealed to me what my dad kept from me for years.

At this point in my life, I was just starting to become aware of what drugs were and wasn’t sure what the appropriate course of action was. So I kept quiet, like my dad had been doing for all of those years. I waited. After having my eyes forced wide open, I started to pay closer attention. Closer attention to why people did what they did and how outside forces affected them. I realized that instead of my dad continuing to sell drugs, he had become an alcoholic.

Being a drug addict and being an alcoholic are two completely different states of addiction in our
society’s mind. But my mind couldn’t accept that just because my dad could legally be addicted to alcohol that it was right by me. I know that I made harsh judgments at an early age and as a result of that I asked my dad to put down the beer can, but he wouldn’t. There is very little that I ever asked from my dad and because he refused me I haven’t talked to him in over two years.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, but above that I believe in the power of addiction. This experience was only the beginning of an entire world filled with addiction for me to find. Addiction has continued to pry open my eyes to the bare essentials of human desire. I didn’t understand that addiction is a poison that reaches all around the world and because I didn’t understand that then I sacrificed a relationship that can never be completely filled. We give addiction the opportunity to bring us up to the highest when nothing else can stifle that desire, but there is a long downward spiral waiting to blind us of everything else. I believe in the power of addiction because if we want something enough there is little that can keep us from it.