During the few weeks my brother, sister, and I spent with my dad every summer, he took us to reggae festivals. Pot circles sprung up as the sun went down. One year, feeling bold, we children pooled our money together and bought a “ganja brownie” from the walking vendor.

That was the same year my dad forgot us. He always had a spotty memory, a well-documented side-effect of marijuana. Pick-up times were regularly missed by several hours. Dinners—half-cooked, half eaten—were left in the microwave or on the stovetop. Birthdays brushed by unnoticed. Once he remembered my birthday two years in a row and sent the same CD both times.

At the reggae festival that summer, he disappeared for several days. It wasn't malicious. It was just absent-minded and relaxed. My little sister cried one morning with hunger. “Can we eat with you?” I asked a nearby camping family.

“Where are your parents? Don’t you want to eat with them?”

“I don't know.” The strangers took us in and gave us plain yogurt and fresh fruit.

Growing up, I hated that my dad smoked. Studies have indicated that parents with substance abuse problems can cause economic hardship, legal troubles, emotional distress, and impaired attachment within their families. Children tend to respond with anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, loneliness, confusion, anger, and fear.

That fear came most palpably for us while my dad was driving. He was likely to get distracted by other cars, by songs on the radio, or, in later years, by photos on his phone, sometimes turning his attention completely away from the wheel. The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that marijuana more than doubles a driver’s risk of being in an accident. Many of our road trips ended early with broken-down cars left on the side of the road. On good days, my dad would forget to fill them with gas or change the oil. On bad days, he would nudge into something and a tire would go.

The anxiety hit us when we considered all the implications. What if our dad got caught? What if he went to jail again? This happened sporadically throughout my childhood—there were unmarked weeks or months where my dad would disappear. Even today, I don’t know the exact charges. We don’t talk of these things.

We were ashamed of his habit. It was the elephant in the room, the omnipresent thing we could never discuss. We were confused when he forgot us and hurt that he didn’t love us enough to quit smoking once and for all.

Then there was the anger. We grew up poor, raised by a former pregnant teenager who fought hard to raise us. We followed our mother’s example, trying to claw our way into something better. For my dad, such an exceptionally talented artist, that something better never materialized over time. Complacency did.

When my father started growing pot, he couldn't keep it a secret from us anymore. He’d always had obsessions with certain topics. First it was netting. Then orchids. And then came the marijuana plants. “Did you see all of them in the yard? Everywhere. They're just everywhere,” my sister whispered to me one summer when I was 16. She hated his smoking more than I did.