My father was my role model. My father was a great man. My father was a drug addict. Some would say my choice in heroes is poorly made, given the options available to me. But I have witnessed no better. He was not a saint, but I choose him for his flaws as well as his strengths. My father was an addict, recovering and relapsing, yet still an amazing person. He was one whose character I respected and admired, omitting only the parts I didn’t agree with. He was my tragic hero, my invincible warrior with a vulnerable heel.

My father was a polymath, a genius, a renaissance man, and the DaVinci of my life. In a world of drummers, he marched to his own jazz band. For him, the voyage of learning was far greater than the act of knowing. There was always something more to know, something he could learn, some chunk of genius he could sink into. He took a particular interest in how things worked, and nibbled on details of ancient civilizations and wonders of the world. He tinkered with puzzles, planted lush gardens, and refinished furniture. My father prepared meals fit for a king. Each sauce he made had a story to tell of how, who, where and when. Every meal came with its own history lesson. He was an artist with a side of perfectionist. Everything he touched had to be one hundred percent, nothing half-assed. His mind was a labyrinth, complete with mystery, dark corners, and dead ends.

From facial features to foods we like, my father and I are almost identical. The act of using drugs is the only trait he and I didn’t share. I never needed a doctor to tell me that drug addiction could be hereditary. My father had eight brothers and sisters, and each one hosted a severe drug addiction at one time or another. All were intelligent individuals, all struggled with addiction, and all suffered from depression. Half of them made suicide attempts, and one succeeded. I suppose it’s a little consolation to say it was in our blood, as if they had less responsibility for their actions.

In times of relapse, my father hazily glided through life gorging on a buffet of narcotics, his little roller coaster of substance abuse. Cocaine was his preference, or more accurately, his weakness. It was the monkey on his back, as he so eloquently put it, the one he struggled so hopelessly to shake off. Cocaine was my father’s Kryptonite, the soldier’s arrow embedded in his tender heel.

The addiction was always a secret; he never openly spoke of drugs to me. Everything was in code, and the nicknames were abundant: crack, coke, crystal, blow, booger sugar, freebase, nose candy, happy dust, white lady, white horse, snort, snow, speedball, stardust, yayo, and my particular favorite, the stuff. Stuff was what needed to be picked up from the store when my sister and I couldn’t tag along. Stuff was why my family moved five times before junior high school. Stuff kept my father from calling me for months at a time.

My father’s addiction was a mix between business and pleasure, although I question how much of it was actually enjoyed. Contrary to the luminescence Hollywood gives drug dealers, there was nothing glamorous about selling dope. My father wasn’t Scarface rolling around in money. The family barely made ends meet, if they could find the ends at all. New faces frequented my house daily, and I met a new “cousin” or “uncle” once a week. It was normal for me. Italians families are like that; everyone was family, no matter who the hell you were.

Often I awoke late at night at my parents’ fighting, mostly about money or missing stuff. He’d usually punch a hole in the wall, curse and yell at my mother while she sobbed in the kitchen. Occasionally my dad would disappear for a few days, breaking away for rehab or whatever. My mother’s shakes and sniffles would keep me awake at night. My sister and I would hug her, and she’d cry more, realizing we were listening the whole time.

In place of pearls of wisdom, my father taught me history. I learned about marijuana, the different types, how to grow it and use it. I knew that Coca-Cola (at one point in time) actually had cocaine in it, and the recipe was changed in the early 1900′s. Acid was a hallucinogen, and there were good trips and bad ones. He taught me the health benefits of using natural drugs instead of man made varieties. I knew about the Navajo tribe, and how their use of peyote was righteous and sacred (or how to cut the cactus and extract the mescaline). I knew heroin’s chemical compound broke down to morphine before I could multiply. His addiction for knowledge quickly became my own. I learned everything I could about drugs. Absorbing every detail meticulously like some twisted obsession, I studied the evil that was killing my father. These were my pearls of wisdom.

Role model or not, as a dad he was anything but perfect. I didn’t come with a manual, and the hospital was fresh out of father-son parenting books the day I was born. He and I talked a lot, but we never really bonded the way I would see in the movies. We never played catch. He didn’t help me with my homework. He didn’t rouse me at five o’clock in the morning to take me fishing. He never shared a beer with me while we talked about girls. I missed out on those experiences, and in their place I got my pearls of wisdom, a Broadway play of trial and error.

Although addictive personalities swarmed through my family tree, alcohol never posed a problem with my father. He could drink a fish under the table and solve a Rubik’s cube simultaneously. A few glasses of Christian Brother’s Brandy and my dad became the most lovable sonofabitch on the planet. He’d sit at the kitchen table sipping generously, gabbing on about politics and how we kids took everything for granted. “You shouldn’t take everything for face value, ya know. You’re smarter than that.” His slushy words and lubricated chuckles seemed to lighten the gloom of our lives. It quickly became a very welcome substitute for his substance abuse. Anything that left him coherent and conscious of my existence was accepted in my eyes, if not openly encouraged.

Marijuana fell into a slightly similar category of substitutes. With weed he was harmless, tranquilized and lethargic, sitting there glassy-eyed in his tattered recliner watching civil war movies, completely robbed of urgency or anger. He was peaceful then, serene, and everybody smiled on days like that.

When sobriety occasionally stopped by, my father and I would sit and talk for hours as if he had been saving his words for weeks. He’d tell me I was the reason he would stay clean this time, or that his children were his anti-drug. That concept always stayed with me. I made initiative to call him often, constantly reminding him of his family. I had a responsibility to keep him focused, to keep him from lingering too far with temptations and chemical happiness. If I talked to him every week, if my life was good and he was a part of that, then he’d have no reason to go back. We were Daedalus and Icarus, but with opposite roles. I, the son, reminded my father of the dangers in flying so high with fake wings. My advice was sporadically successful.

My father taught me how to win in life, and showed me how to lose. He was a man of character, pride, and uncompromising spirit. He was a man of faults, flaws and imperfections. He was my tragic hero, the fallen angel climbing out of the mud, painfully realizing the price of free will. He taught me how to survive by exploiting his weakness. He reminded me of my “potential,” and how I was going to make a difference in the world. Like my father, I too have been dipped in the river Styx, and must always keep watch for falling arrows.