“I told myself I would hate him for the rest of my life”: Disowned by his father at 14, he spiralled into a life of vice and addiction

Richard David was just 14 years old when his father verbally disowned him.

The words were spoken in the heat of the moment, after a minor disagreement unleashed years of pent-up tension between the two.

“It really pierced my heart,” said Richard, now 31.

The incident left a wound so painful that it hardened into deep-seated anger towards his father. In the years that followed, their relationship seemed beyond repair.

“I swore to myself that I would never call him ‘Dad’. I referred to him instead as ‘that man’. I told myself that I would hate him for the rest of my life,” Richard recalled.

“We couldn’t even be in the same room together. I was irritated and annoyed by every word he said. Even him simply walking past me would cause my blood to boil,” he said, adding that their arguments often turned physical.

“One time, my mum even had to call the police to break up one of our fights.”

On a downward spiral

The pain of their fractured relationship also took a toll on Richard’s mental health. He coped by turning to all kinds of vices – smoking, drinking, partying – and soon became caught in the grip of several addictions, including bulimia and self-harm.

Whenever Richard came home drunk, the night would end in a shouting match between him and his father. “I would become very emotional because I was so broken inside and blamed him for the pain that I felt,” he said.

Barely 20, he was, in his words, “imprisoned by a prison that no one could see”. But one night, God met him.

In an intoxicated haze at a friend’s house, he suddenly heard a voice in his right ear: “Richard, this is not the life that I’ve given to you. There is more to life than this.”

Richard, who was born into a Christian family and had grown up attending church regularly, recalled: “Just like how you know your name and I know my name, the moment I heard that voice, I knew it was God.”

Knowing how deeply he had sunk into a self-destructive lifestyle, he cried out in desperation: “God, if this is You, please help me.”

The moment the plea left his lips, he surprisingly felt himself sober up – a process that usually took a few hours.

“I wish I could say that God instantly, at the moment, delivered me of all vices. But it was a whole two-year journey of Him healing me and removing all my vices, bit by bit,” said Richard.

Went to church with six bottles of alcohol

In the weeks that followed, nothing in Richard’s life seemed to change. He still struggled with the same addictions and doubted if God had really spoken to him. “I just kept praying, ‘God, please help me, help me, help me, help me, help me.'”

For reasons he can only attribute to God’s mercy, he continued showing up at church every Sunday, a habit he had developed as a child.

“I would drink and still go to church the next day. I would be high and still go to church. I would smoke before going to service, and come out of service and smoke,” he said. “I came from a party one time with six different bottles of alcohol in my bag.”

Each week, he would end up falling asleep and wondering why he had even bothered to go.

Richard did not notice it then, but day by day, week by week, month by month, God began removing his desire for all his vices.

“It was a very slow and intentional cleansing, renewal, renewing, and redeeming. I would fall many times, but God would always pick me back up and give me the grace to keep going,” he said.

One Sunday during worship, Richard was struck by a song lyric: “My love for you is so much more, is so much more.”

“It felt as though Jesus was singing that song directly to me, telling me, ‘I don’t even care what you did two hours ago, that you’re still high, for my love for you is so much more.’

“That was the love of Jesus that pierced my heart,” he recalled.

It was an encounter that transformed him, enabling him to eventually be rid of all his destructive habits.

Standing before God one Sunday, in gratitude for how He had rescued him, Richard said in tears: “Who am I that You would come looking for me? I could be in prison, I could be in jail, I could be dead, but here I am, alive and free.

“Jesus, You saved my life. My life is Yours.”

An unthinkable apology

During this season of renewing also came a breakthrough Richard was not expecting.

One night, after returning home from a party, he had a thought: “Go and apologise to your dad.”

He initially brushed aside the prompting, as he long had no intention of reconciling with his father. But when he could not shake it, he began to turn the idea over in his mind.

That day so happened to be his father’s birthday. Thinking with some pride that his apology could be a sort of birthday gift, and not exactly thinking straight, Richard decided to do it.

He walked to the living room sofa where his father was sitting. The words that came out of his own mouth surprised him.

“Dad, I just want to say that I’m sorry for all the years that we fought. I hope you can forgive me.”

His father did not meet his eye, but Richard could tell he was listening. Richard then gave his father a hug and whispered: “I love you, Dad.”

Then he walked away as fast as he could back into his room and shut the door, in shock at what he had just done.

“The crazy thing was that during the nine years of hatred towards this man, every time he walked past me, rage and anger would fill my insides. But after that single moment where I apologised to my Dad, I could feel every bit of anger and hatred dissolve supernaturally,” said Richard.

Eight years since that day, his relationship with his father cannot be more different. “Where I once couldn’t even bear to see him, now I can sit with him, talk to him, hug him and tell him that I love him,” said Richard.

Now married and living apart from his parents, Richard still makes time to meet regularly with his father, often catching up over breakfast.

“I can’t say that our relationship is perfect or that we’re the best of friends, but we are able to communicate clearly and gracefully, and there has been such a divine restoration,” he said.

The ultimate Father

Now a father of a year-old daughter, Richard believes that the kind of father he is will influence how she perceives her heavenly Father.

“I am learning from both the painful lessons and the good ones how I want to love her and the children we may have in future,” he said.

“I want to love them in a way that captures the heart of the Father as best as I can, so that they would have a healthy reference point of what our Heavenly Father is like – or at least a small glimpse of who He is through the way I love and lead them.

“Perhaps the most beautiful thing I have learned is that our Heavenly Father is infinitely more patient, more kind, and slower to anger than any earthly father could ever be. He far exceeds every earthly example of fatherhood.”

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