I want to write an ode to my enabler.
That would be my dad.
Honestly, I believe that without his support, I could have ended up dead, trafficked, or in a prostitution ring. The possibilities are terrifying. Instead, I’m here. I get to look back on my life, tell you about it, and thank the person who helped keep me safe long enough to do that.
My addiction stretched from 15 to 37. There were years in there when my dad enrolled me in a wilderness program and then a school in Montana. When I was young enough for him to have control over those decisions, he did everything he could to make sure I got an education and that I was safe as a human.
Because my idea of life was very willy-nilly.
I did not take my body seriously. My life seriously. My existence seriously.
I really just wanted not to feel any feelings.
Being a human was hard for me. Being a member of society did not come naturally. So when I found marijuana, I thought that was a great high. Then there was alcohol. Then something a little stronger. It went on and on.
It escalated. It died down. It escalated again.
And through all of it, there was my dad.
He is the kindest man I know. He never said no. He never asked questions. And when I needed money, he helped me.
Some people call that enabling.
I want to talk about what that word means in my life.
Because yes, he enabled my lifestyle. But he also enabled me to live safely and freely. He kept helping me through a life I wasn’t taking very seriously.
And I am so grateful I get to say thank you.
I don’t think we talk enough about the strength it takes to be an enabler. It takes courage to keep helping someone you love. It also takes courage to stop.
When I think about my father—someone truly loving, truly caring—I don’t see a man who wanted me to do drugs or live a sick life. I see a man who wanted me to be happy. He was helping me live what I thought, at the time, was the life of my dreams.
His support is still here today. Only now, it’s different.
Now I move with intention. I do the next right thing. That is a space I had never really lived in before.
Now I’m giving, not taking.
I want to be here for people who feel like they can’t come back from where they are. People who feel like they can’t do it themselves. I know what it is to have someone handle your life for you, to have problems taken away, and still be left with the one problem nobody else can fix.
For me, that was sobriety.
My father could give me so much. God knows he would have given me sobriety if he could, because he gives me everything else.
But he couldn’t give me that.
The thing that could have killed me was the thing I had to get strong and face for myself. In that part of my life, I had to become my own enabler. I had to enable myself to get sober.
Sometimes the life I have now hardly feels real. I have to get very still and quiet to take myself back to that place of terror. Fear. Unhappiness. Feeling unmotivated, depressed, and uncomfortable in my body.
Even remembering it is painful.
And then I think about how many people are still in that place. People who have been helped, loved, and given everything someone else could possibly give them, while still needing the one thing that person cannot hand over.
My dad could not hand me sobriety.
But it turns out that the one thing he couldn’t give me was something I could give him.
My sobriety.
A sober daughter.
He has given me the most beautiful life. And I get to be here, fully here, to thank him for it.
