I was about 6 or 7 years old when I started to figure out why my Dad would act funny sometimes. I didn’t know what it was at first. I just knew he would take something, and then act like a different person. After my mother and father divorced and he moved out, I started putting the pieces together, and figured out that he was an alcoholic.

I watched him drink heavily for years. I felt helpless. I didn't know what to do. I was watching him slowly kill himself.

There were times I thought it had finally clicked. The time when we sat in my backyard and it was one of the two times I saw him cry. The time we kicked him out of the house. His father dying. His old friend dying. The one of many times he ended up in the hospital. The multiple trips to rehab. As a kid, I didn’t understand why it was so difficult for him to stop drinking, and it got frustrating trying to make him “better”.

And then my mom got the phone call. It wasn’t good. I could tell by her answers. He lived with my Aunt and Uncle at the time. My uncle told us to come over right away. He couldn’t tell us over the phone. Now I understand why.

I felt sick. I push my food away and we leave. I knew something was wrong. We pull up to the house and see men in trench coats with pens and paper. I feel the gravel under my feet. My aunt mutters the words I never thought I would hear. She hugs me close and says “I’m sorry”. It takes a minute for the feelings to hit me. I overhear my aunt screaming at the news of her brother dying. None of this feels real.

My uncle says I can take anything of his things that I want. I take some things with me and go upstairs. This house will always remind me of him in his final days.

I call my best friend. The words I spill out feel like a lie. How could this be real? This is the first instance of hearing the words “I’m sorry” outside of the family. I hear this nonstop for the next few weeks.

The wake feels like a blur. It smells like flowers and tissues and sadness. Everything feels so surreal. He doesn’t look like him. There’s so many people in this room. Do the number of people who attend your wake define you? How did we let this happen? What is it going to be like without him around? My mind is all over the place.

The people from the place he used to drink at are here. And I’m mad. I want to blame them for his problems. I want to tell them that he can’t drink. I want to scream at them for killing him.

But I don’t say any of this. I keep quiet and thank them for coming.

When someone close to you dies, the worst part is the days after the wake and funeral are over. Everything is immensely hectic for about a week, and then all of the sudden it feels like the world stops. Now what? I felt a pressure to not be sad anymore, as if the pain of losing someone goes away after a certain period of time.

I can tell you this: it doesn’t. But it does get easier. You learn to accept and to cope, after being sad and angry for a while. And although I swear he was here just yesterday, with each day it’s easier to accept what happened. Now, I mainly think about the good memories I have of him.

Over the last three years without my Dad here, I’ve learned a lot. And changed a lot. Sometimes I get upset that life is going on without him. But something always keeps me going. I want to make him proud, and somehow I know that he is. I often think about growing up with an alcoholic father, and how I used to be so ashamed of his behavior. Now, I feel like it’s a blessing. I got to grow up knowing what alcohol really does to you, without it being glamorized. Most kids I know drink large amounts without ever knowing the consequences. I got to see the hospital visits, the seclusion, the sober houses, the harm of mixing substances; the ugliness of it all. Heavy drinking is not as glamorous as outside sources make it seem.

My Dad was an amazing person, father, brother, son, and friend. Addiction is something that should never be taken likely, and should be treated as what it really is: a disease. I believe that if my Dad’s story can inspire one person to get help, to not mix substances, to reduce their drinking, to go to AA, to hold their loved ones closer; then his story is worth sharing.

If you or someone you know are having problems with drinking, please visit AA or Al-Anon for help.