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

New York Times' Dave Itzkoff Copes With Coke Addict Dad (PHOTOS)
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Senior Editorial Product Manager, HuffPost

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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.

(01 of08)
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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.
(02 of08)
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This photo comes from an earlier stage in my parents' marriage, before I was born, when they had first moved out of my father's parents' apartment and had started living on their own in Yonkers, N.Y. I like to refer to this era as their "Martin Scorsese years," when their money was plentiful, their obligations were minimal and they were free to live as fast and irresponsibly as they pleased.
(03 of08)
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One of a few modeling campaigns that my mother posed for, this one for Johnson & Johnson shampoo. When I would see this picture displayed in the apartments of my grandparents, it already seemed like a relic of the distant past. I knew her best as my caretaker and attendant, a role she would later serve for my father and then for both of us.
(04 of08)
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My father's father (and my grandfather), Bob, who sold raw fur skins with my father but eventually dissolved the partnership in the 1980s, hoping that by forcing my father to run his the fur business alone, he would be too focused on keeping himself afloat to concentrate on his drug habit. My grandfather was an affectionate man who loved cigars and horse races, but he could also be a strict taskmaster: when they worked together, he would sometimes send my dad exacting letters detailing how he expected the business to be run, which he would sign "YOUR F---ING FATHER."
(05 of08)
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A police mug shot of my father, taken after he and a friend were arrested for smoking pot on a rooftop in the Bronx. As my father had often told me the story, he was 16 or 17 when it happened and the arrest prevented him from serving in the military. But as we learned from this photo (and the accompanying arrest record) he was actually 22 when it occurred, and likely too old to have to worry about interviews with the draft board. Either way, that's the face of a man who knows he's going to catch a beating from his mother.
(06 of08)
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A beloved family photo taken by my mother when I was about seven or eight, on a lake in the Catskills where my parents used to spend their summers and now live year-round. Innocent of the truth about why he was an unreliable and erratic presence in my life at the time, I regarded him as a superhero, colossal and unyielding to outside forces. Strangely, my learning about his drug addiction did not change this impression all that much.
(07 of08)
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An example of the notes my father would find from me, crumpled up and stuffed in his pockets, after shanghaiing me to his fur business for the day. Whether he was sober or high, he loved knowing that I was in the office while he worked, but when he was under the influence, he became insatiably desperate for my companionship and would make all kinds of outrageous promises to secure it. The smell of the animal pelts he worked with was often overpowering, but as a child who enjoyed skipping school and playing video games, I could often be convinced.
(08 of08)
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This is my father recently, just shy of his 71st birthday, still fishing, still running his fur business up in the Catskills and, as he is fond of answering when I ask him how he's doing, "still livin'." As best as I can gauge, he has been clean for some eight or nine years, and having spent much of that time contemplating why he turned to a life of drugs and what finally convinced him to give it up, I keep hoping for that streak to continue.

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