I know it’s bad when I rattle off some shit, deadpan, to my therapist and she furrows her brow like a disappointed teacher before saying “that is a fascinating upbringing”

No. For the same reason that I wouldn’t avoid a relationship with a woman for having an appendectomy.

My mother and father were separated by the time I started asking questions about sex. My mother was super open and cool about it. I got boxes of condoms from “Santa” every year between 12 and 18. My father found out I was ready for “the talk” when an unused condom fell from my pocket during the laundry. I had already been active for six months. Thankfully, I grew up in a very progressive school district, so our sex ed course was comprehensive.

Drugs were a very Regean-era “just say no” from both of them. Interestingly, my best education about drugs came from listening to Blood, Sugar Sex, Magic with my father. He used to wax romantic about the tortured artists that languished under the weight of their addiction; robbing the world of more music while inspiring such remarkable lamentations.