Addiction, Authority, and the Lie of Respectability

We are living in a world where respect is not often earned, but freely given to those who fit a certain mold. And compassion? It’s often withheld from the people who need it the most.

There were two men in my life who remind me just how backwards our society is when it comes to who we respect and what we demonize. I truly believe that if we were to shift our perspective—if we changed the way we decide who deserves power and who deserves compassion—we would see a more successful, flourishing, peaceful society. One of those people was my dad. He was an artist, a kind, kind soul—but he was also an addict who struggled with addiction for most of his life. The other was my grandfather. He was a respected man in his community, a sheriff’s deputy, someone people looked up to.

Looking back, my childhood memories of my grandfather were warm and fuzzy and happy. The same can not be said about my father. I carried a lot of pain about him for a long time. I thought he didn’t love me. I thought he chose drugs and alcohol over being my father. And that belief really stuck with me.

But as I got older, I started to question the way I viewed addiction and the people who struggle with it. And at the same time, I began to see my grandfather more clearly too. He also wasn’t the man I thought he was, but in a very different way. The more I looked into both of their lives, the more frustrated I became with how society uplifts people who know how to perform respectability, even when they cause harm. And how we discard people who are struggling, even when they are full of love and potential.

So this story is about them. But it’s also about us—the way we view the world, the way we decide who deserves respect and who deserves compassion, and how often we get that wrong.

“Meeting” My Dad for the First Time

My dad wasn’t in my life much when I was growing up. My parents divorced when I was three, and I had visitations with him for a little while after that. But over time, he just became someone who wasn’t around. By the time I was about eight years old, he signed away his parental rights. My stepfather adopted me, and that was kind of the end of it.

At the time, I didn’t understand any of it. I was just a kid. I assumed my dad didn’t love me enough to stay. That he wanted to sign his rights away. That he didn’t want to be my parent anymore. I thought he was choosing his lifestyle over me, and if I had mattered enough, he would have gotten clean. If he really cared, he would have tried harder.

For a long time, I carried that belief. That I wasn’t enough for him to stay. That he was selfish or weak or just didn’t care. It became easy to build up this version of him in my head where he was the villain. So I buried it deep and tried to move on. Years later, he did try to reconnect with me. But by then, I was hesitant and didn’t trust him. I didn’t want to open that door again because I had worked really hard to close it. So I brushed him off. I didn’t give him the chance to know me as an adult.

I had internalized so much of what society tells us about addicts: that they are failures. That they are dangerous. That they’re not trying hard enough, that they’re weak, that they’re not worthy of our time or energy. And I believed that for a while. I believed it about my dad. But something inside me always wondered if there was more to the story—if maybe I didn’t have the full picture. I remembered that he had a sense of humor. That he was an artist. That he had a kind voice.

So a few months ago, I got curious. I digitized an old VHS tape he had filmed when I was five, on one of my last visits with him. I started digging through ancestry records, trying to find anything I could about his past. I even found old yearbook photos and figured out what school he had gone to. I made a post in a couple of local Facebook groups from his hometown. I just asked if anyone had known him—if they had any stories to share, good or bad.

Comment after comment rolled in from people who had gone to school with my dad, who had known him when he was younger. And every single one of them had something kind to say.

People said he was funny. Gentle. Quiet but warm. They said he was insanely creative, always drawing or painting. One person said he was the reason they fell in love with art and music, and that their passion for both came from his influence. Another person said he never had a bad word to say about anyone, and that he was always smiling.

Several people even shared photos of a tree he had carved a face into years ago. It’s still standing, even though it’s grown and distorted with time. He won an art contest in high school with a drawing of the Liberty Bell to celebrate America’s 200th birthday. He used to make clocks and tables from cypress knots, paint them, and sell them at flea markets.

Reading those comments felt like meeting my dad for the first time. I was learning about a whole different side of him I never knew existed. And it made me think: if he had lived in a world that supported him—one that prioritized mental health and social safety, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe he would have become a different person. Maybe I could have had a different kind of relationship with him.

But instead, he was born into a world that doesn’t care if you’re in pain. A world that tells you that if you’ve struggled, if you’ve had a hard life or mental health issues, it’s all on you. Even if you didn’t cause any of it. You’re still expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, push through the pain, and keep contributing to society. And when you can’t, you’re discarded.

To society, my dad was just a loser addict who had nothing to offer. But to the people who really knew him, he was a kind heart with endless talent, creativity, and potential—potential that sadly went unseen by the world, by the systems, by the people who had the power to help.

The flip side

Then there’s my grandfather. Well, my step-grandfather. He married my maternal grandmother years before I was born, and I called him Papa.

He was a constant in my life growing up. I have so many warm, happy memories of him. He took me to the zoo. He let me paint his nails. We’d sit around and watch Cops and court shows together. I felt loved by him. He made me feel special. And for a long time, that’s all I saw: this warm, kind grandfather who made me feel safe and cared for. But it wasn’t until I got older that I began to see the rest of the picture.

My grandfather was a sheriff’s deputy. He wore a badge, a uniform, and held a position of authority. He owned land. He had the respect of the community. On the surface, he looked like the definition of a good man.

But behind closed doors, things were very different.

My Papa was abusive—emotionally, physically—to his wives and to his children. He was deeply racist. And I don’t mean in subtle, offhanded ways—I mean openly racist.

At his funeral, the preacher didn’t sugarcoat his shortcomings. He did, however, celebrate the fact that my Papa had accepted Jesus and was a “changed man” at the end of his life. The church was packed. He was given a respectful sendoff with flowers and tearful eyes. He was buried behind that same church in the cemetery, as if all had been forgiven.

Right before I made the difficult decision to cut off several toxic family members, one of them tried to guilt me by saying that my Papa would be deeply disappointed in the person I had become.

Despite all of Papa’s flaws, despite the pain he caused, he was still painted as someone who deserved respect. Meanwhile, my dad—who had unintentional flaws, who simply struggled, who was kind and talented and loving—was discarded. Left to drown in his pain. Treated as someone who didn’t deserve our time, our love, or our compassion.

The only acknowledgement my dad got in death was a brief line in the obituary section of the local paper. There was no funeral that I know of. No flowers. No goodbye. I don’t even think he got a grave.

And that contrast has never stopped haunting me.

This sharp divide between two men and how society treated them. How society still treats people like them. If they stood side by side today, one would be immediately respected. The other would be pitied, ignored, or looked down on.

My dad was an addict. An artist. A person no one made room for.

My grandfather was an officer. An abuser. And somehow, a man people respected without question.

Who We Choose to Respect

It’s so clear to me now how backwards our society is when it comes to what we value. We don’t prioritize kindness or compassion, especially for those who are struggling. We don’t value creativity or vulnerability. Instead, we worship power, control, image, money, borders, and laws.

We demonize those who need help like immigrants, the poor, the disabled, while glorifying people who harm others simply because they wear a badge or hold a title. We strip healthcare and food from those in need and give tax breaks to billionaires. We criminalize people who are just trying to survive, while celebrating those who’ve done nothing to earn our respect—just inherited power or privilege.

My dad didn’t need judgment. He needed support. From his family, his community, his country. And yes, he made painful choices that affected me. But as the person who carried the most pain from those choices, if I can see the person he was beneath the addiction, then surely society could have, too.

And he’s not alone. There are millions of people like my dad. People born into poverty, trauma, abusive homes, or dangerous countries. People with mental health struggles. People full of potential who were never given a real chance. Meanwhile, we protect and uplift people who’ve never done the hard work to be better. We give out unearned respect. But we rarely offer compassion to those who truly need it.

If we want a better world, we have to change what and who we value. We need to invest in mental health, family support, community care, recovery, education, food, healthcare, art, and healing. We need to stop measuring people by how well they perform under pressure and start seeing them as human beings first. If we did this, I believe we’d see fewer addicts and fewer abusers. We’d see more artists. More joy. More connection. Less generational trauma.

When we share our stories, when we let people see our hearts, it can shift something. It can challenge assumptions. It can change minds. I can’t rewrite the past. I can’t tell my dad I see him now, that I understand. But I can share his story in the hopes that he won’t be forgotten, and that maybe it helps someone else feel seen, too.

I hope we start building a world where we stop praising people just because they hold authority, and start uplifting those who’ve been quietly carrying so much love and goodness inside them, just waiting for someone to see it.

Because the truth is, some of the most judged and discarded people in our society are also some of the kindest, brightest souls—souls that simply weren’t given a chance.

Let’s give them one.