Guest Poster Lori

Lori blogs at Clarity in Muddy Waters. She had a heroin habit for well over a decade, now 3 years sober. She just lost her husband, also an addict in recovery, to cancer. This is her story.

"My dad was a wonderful man.

I was clean in '03 for a period, and he was so proud. He would bring his wife into the restaurant where I waitressed, and eat dinner, shake hands with the owner. He was proud of me being a good wife, mother and human being.

Well the demon came calling again. I borrowed $300 from my dad, was supposed to give it back to him the next day. I was so high the next day when he pulled up. When he saw me he screamed, pounded his fist on the steering wheel, and began sobbing and crying. Finally, he drove away. I would never get to speak to him again.

I was arrested on a warrant in '05. I was talking to my husband on the jail phone when he told me my dad wasn't going to make it.

I was in City Jail, waiting for the state to come get me. The smell, rats, and filth at Baltimore City Jail are indescribable. I was in a dorm with the other cesspool collected from our great city. I watched an old woman sitting on the steel sink urinating and vomiting at the same time, the poison coming out of her system.

I grabbed a pencil and paper. I wrote and wrote, four pages to the man who raised me. I wanted him to know what he meant to me. I knew I wasn't going to see him again. My tears fell over the paper. I knew he wanted the absolution that all parents of kids need who suffer from addiction. I wrote about the great vacations, all the shoes he had bought my kids. He wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer and he got me enrolled in college at 16. He had such high hopes for me.

My dad got my letter, and my husband was at the hospital holding his hand when they unplugged him. I got out of prison the day after he died.

I like to think my dad knew how much I loved him. He did his best. I was adopted at 4 months, he said I was special because I was handpicked. I never felt unloved. Middle class upbringing all the way, I got everything I needed. My father was there for every parent's day at school.

If you are a parent it's not your fault. I was not abused. I made choices. I used heroin for the first time at 22. I was an adult; I had kids, a job, a car. It was my choice. One day I woke up sick. It was no longer a choice; I was an addict.

The first three years I was able to hide my addiction from my family. One day I took my dad to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. I was 25 and had just gotten on my first methadone program. Over coffee I proceeded to tell him I was in treatment. He looked at me and said, "Isn't methadone for those heroin addicts?" We locked eyes, and the truth washed over him like rain.

As he looked into his coffee, tears rolling down his face, I watched a very proud man lose something. A part of his heart broke loose, never to find it's way back to wholeness .

But he never lost hope. He was always there for me. Still is. I'm just now learning and understanding all the life lessons he gave me ."