'Cocaine's Son': New York Times' Dave Itzkoff's Memoir (PHOTOS)

In "Cocaine's Son," New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff chronicles his coming of age in the disjointed shadow of his father's double life--struggling to reconcile his love for the garrulous protector and provider, and his loathing for the pitiful addict. Through his adolescent and teen years Itzkoff is haunted by the spectacle of his father's drug-fueled depressions and disappearances. In college, Itzkoff plunges into his own seemingly fated bout with substance abuse. When his father finally gets clean, a long "morning after" begins for them both. And on a road trip across the country and back into memory, in search of clues and revelations, together they discover that there may be more binding them than ever separated them.

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I'm not yet one year old in this photograph, which would place it in 1976. My father is 36 and my mother is 31, and they both beam with pride as they present their first child to the camera. This picture was taken at Hillside, a residential center in Rochester, N.Y., where my father voluntarily committed himself to be treated for an addiction to cocaine.

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I'm not yet one year old in this photograph, which would place it in 1976. My father is 36 and my mother is 31, and they both beam with pride as they present their first child to the camera. This picture was taken at Hillside, a residential center in Rochester, N.Y., where my father voluntarily committed himself to be treated for an addiction to cocaine.

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Comments

[iuriggs6]

04:23 PM on 02/03/2011

Are we supposed to feel sorry for him??

[RedDogBear]

11:00 PM on 02/02/2011

I'm sorry but as Hunter Thompson would say I've "been around the track a few times" myself but I'm really tired of people selling endless stories about their addiction or the addiction of their relatives.

[RedNinjaGirl]

07:34 PM on 02/02/2011

My parents were alcoholics. Can I get a book contract?

[wasse]

03:58 PM on 02/02/2011

Growing up with an addict parent is he//. I'm glad he and his father were able to get clean and can have a relationship.

[Norma Cluster]

04:29 PM on 02/19/2011

There are worse hells than having an addicted parent. Try to stop whining and playing the victim. Everyone's got it tough.

[Ya Ya Godot]

03:46 PM on 02/02/2011

The world of coke. Horrible....simply horrible.

[billybobt]

02:58 PM on 02/02/2011

I think the child is sicker than the father in this case. Apparently so preoccupied with someone else problems that he cant let them go.

This is the kind of sick, narcisisstic thinking that the "addiction as an disease" crowd inspires and perpetuates. Note how that even after 8 or 9 years "clean" as he puts it, he still doubts his father is "really clean"...I hope it will continue...sob. He doesnt really hope it continues, he only wants to deny his father the ability to escape the stereotype that he has created for him.

Grow up, your no better than your father, and theres nothing wrong with him. But there maybe something wrong with you for taking on victimhood.

[sodium]

03:12 PM on 02/02/2011

Hey billybot, can I borrow one of your copies of Atlas Shrugged?

I seem to have lost mine.

TIA!

[jessicajuliette]

03:37 PM on 02/02/2011

The thing is...
Nevermind Your post is filled with so much vitriol not even gonna try...

[mmsuki]

02:36 PM on 02/02/2011

I wish he would give up killing animals for fur just as he did the drugs.

[Melissa Terzis]

03:13 PM on 02/02/2011

Yeah, I could have done without that fur skin photo.

[TruthfullyYours]

04:01 PM on 02/02/2011

there is a very thin line between killing animals for fun and for clothing, food and to earn a living. if his fur business is what saved him from total self-destruction, then i will not judge him. not that i'm saying you did.

[Seaborn75]

01:50 PM on 02/02/2011

There really ought to be a Dysfunctional Family Memoirs of the Month Club--- same story, different characters--
Addiction is a serious matter, but I feel like these memoirs are the publishing world's equivalent to reality tv. Narcissism run rampant. I wish my family had more addicts that I could profit from.

[RedDogBear]

11:02 PM on 02/02/2011

I hope you are kidding about wanting more addicts in your family, its no fun, but otherwise I agree with you, I'm really getting tired of this stuff.

[Seaborn75]

03:17 PM on 02/03/2011

Yeah, I was kidding. My grandfather was an alcoholic....and it's impacted me and my family. But I could never imagine writing a memoir or making money from it.

And like reality tv, so much of the writing is scripted nonsense. These authors can't get their fiction published, so they publish it as "memoir." It's lazy.

[vyskol]

01:43 PM on 02/02/2011

So here's a question for the prohibitionists: As tragic(?) and irresponsible as his father was, would he and his family have been better off had he been arrested and locked up for some ridiculous minimum sentence?

I tend to think that having your father around "sporadically", to finally get clean is better than having him locked away and forever being branded a criminal and being stuck in the life such a brand brings you.

[acmeaviator]

01:06 PM on 02/02/2011

My father had the same habit at about the same time...unfortunately it got the best of him and he died from cocaine induced arrhythmia in 1982. I was 8 years old, too young to really understand his violent tempers and moods, or my Mothers seeming coldness after his death. I have no doubt of his love, and also no doubt that addiction can be stronger than affection. I look forward to reading this memoir and to experience a "what might have been".

[mendoza915]

12:49 PM on 02/02/2011

Thank you for the photos. This shows the true face of addiction which people rarely see. Sure there are plenty of homeless, mentally ill addicts roaming the streets looking like zombies, but more often than not the face of addiction is one of a family member embattled with balancing a "normal" life while succumbing to the horrors of addiction. We forget that it is not only the addict that suffers, and these photos only show a small glimpse of what otherwise one would consider just another life like yours or mine.

[CHMB]

12:32 PM on 02/02/2011

I wish his father, and all recovering addicts, all the best in maintaining sobriety.