My father became an addict more than 15 years ago, starting ..

My father became an addict more than 15 years ago, starting with prescription drugs, as he himself is a psychiatrist specializing in addiction treatment. Then he became an alcoholic and smoked inside the house, then hit my mom and me during an alcohol- and drug-induced psychosis, cheated on her, and left to live with a new woman—someone troubled, who’d also used drugs with her former partners—all while my mom’s father was dying. As my father puts it, he felt “empty,” so he started using. This makes me sick. It’s absurd to me because he had everything—a fantastic job with a high salary and flexible hours, a wife who also worked in psychiatry, constantly developed new hobbies, pursued interesting activities, and planned things for the family like trips, events, and special getaways for just the two of them. He had healthy kids—kind, talented, polite, helpful, and grateful children. A beautiful apartment, a private home, money for any hobby. It was idyllic. Literally a paradise on earth. I would look at my classmates’ families and think, “How lucky I am; I live in heaven.” And yet he felt “empty.”

And then he started using. Gradually, our family began to disintegrate from the inside. But, honestly, I hadn’t intended to write about this. Since I’m currently not studying or working, I manage all the housework. Although he no longer lives with us and the house is far cleaner now, my daily cleaning and laundry still take me almost two hours. When he lived here, I had to constantly clean up after him—he left a mess everywhere, dirtying every clean space: dishes everywhere, the sink overflowing, mud tracked on the floors, a filthy toilet. Whenever I complained to my mom (talking to him was pointless, as he didn’t accept criticism and did only what he wanted), she would say that he earned a lot of money and provided us financial security. And yet, he worked only until noon at best and would then go to cafes or come home to watch comedy shows, eat, and lounge until two in the morning. I can’t help but feel that if he washed his own dishes ten times a day, he might not have felt so “empty” in life—he simply wouldn’t have had the time. Financial security became the absolute value in our family, overtaking trust, safety, and respect, and in the end, creating a monstrous glutton who had lost all sense of boundaries.