When I was 17, me (40M) and my father (69M) were tied up and tortured because of his involvement in gambling and drugs, I ran away from home and haven't talked to him since. I want to regain contact with my family.

So that livestreamed video of the kid getting tortured basically brought me back to when I was 17, and a similar thing happened to me, and it REALLY got me thinking about the entire situation.

Grew up in bushwick brooklyn, parents are from puerto rico. Father was also an asshole, kind of a douchebag who spent all his time in clubs and bars and got into all kinds of trouble, he was a drinker and he did a lot of cocaine. He was never abusive towards me, he was actually kind of a good father despite his Vices, he always took me upstate to go camping and he was generally a really sweet guy. I always felt like the responsible adult in the household, my mother was an addict and my father was a dumbass, but neither of them were horrible to me.

At 17, I think in like 1992, men came to our apartment when it was just me and my father. It was 4 men i think, and they beat the living shit out of us. Like, really badly, for maybe 4 hours they tied us up and just slapped us and hit us and threatened us with guns. They broke shit all around our apartment, they broke my dads fingers and they tortured me in front of him by peeling my fingernail off. My father owed them 3,900 dollars, and apparently was ducking them for a really long time. So in response, they did that to him, they tortured me in front of him just to make a point not to fuck with them.

As horrible and crazy as this might sound, this was kind of typical shit in bushwick back in 1992. Obviously i was fucking traumatized, but when we talked to the cops about it, it was like they barely took attention to it. It was just another home break in in bushwick to them. When I got out of the hospital, my dad was in there longer than me, and I just fucking left. I was filled with SUCH rage at my father, I couldnt believe that his stupidity over that shit caused me such pain. I ended up hitching a ride with friends to Washington D.C., and I never stayed in contact with my father after that. I ended up on heroin unfortunately maybe 4 months later, I was filled with such horrible rage and depression at everything in my life, and washington D.C. was even WORSE than bushwick, people got murdered there for literally nothing, washington DC had a murder rate of nearly 100 per 100,000 people back then, it was the deadliest city in the entire country. I was just in general terrified and depressed and had nobody to turn to and everyone on the streets was like fucking target practice, and i ended up on heroin. I cant even describe how horrific my time in DC was, it was like a warzone. There were shoot outs outside my window nearly twice a week.

Anyways, fast forward maybe 3 years, and im still on heroin, zero contact with family. I was just another addict in the streets, really strung out and doing stupid shit for money. Fast forward another 3 years, and I was trying really hard to get clean, like REALLY hard. I think I finally got clean in 1999. By 2001, I was just fully clean, I didn't do anything and i finally was holding down a job. I applied to community college and graduated, and I just worked up my career and now am more successful than I ever really dreamed of being. I know it sounds corny but i really am happy with where i am now, I live a normal life which is more than i can ever wish for. Also DC today is like, 1/10th as scary as it was back then thank god.

But I feel bad for my father and mother for just running away like that. I think I had so much rage for them after the incident where the men came to our house, but that wasn't REALLY his fault, it was just his vices which got to him. Like technically it was his fault, but whatever, i still kind of want to see him. I want to make sure he is okay, i literally havent talked to him AT ALL nor my mother. I also had a baby sister whos gotta be in her 20s by now, i want to see her. I kind of just feel bad, because my girlfriend is with her family over the holidays and all these years ive had the kind of 'my family is dead to me' vibe, but looking back... they were never horrible to me. Not to mention my girlfriend is also pregnant, so we are most likely getting married very very soon, and i want my parents to be there.

They were bad parents, but... they were also never cruel or unnaturally mean to me. That one incident was so traumatizing and it soured my opinion on my father forever, but I feel increasingly like i should forgive him. Any advice? Anyone who has a similar situation?

tl;dr: When i was 17, me and my father were tied up and tortured because he owed money to bad people. I ran away from home and became a heroin addict, then years later i got clean and went to college and got a job. I'm getting married soon and am about to have a kid, and i want my parents to be there despite all the trauma they put me through.