Drug Addiction

While networking on Twitter recently, I read a “tweet” by Scott Stratten where he posted a book title that in his opinion was the best book of 2008; “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction” by David Sheff.  I picked up the book and found it hard to put down. 

Sheff chronicles the many years he struggled trying to rescue his son Nic from the clutches of hard drugs, specifically crystal meth.  As a parent you can’t help but feel the pain and anguish he goes through watching his precious son’s life deteriorate.  His first trip to rehab was one of many and we learn throughout the book that the pattern of rehab and relapse is all too common with addicts.  Many don’t survive but we’re left with hope that with persistence, a small percentage do.  Sheff never gives up and his love for his son remains as strong as it always was.   He infact says:  “Nic’s addiction became my addiction.”  He became obsessed with getting his son out this insidious trap.

The book gives the reader a look at addiction from many angles.  Sheff struggles with what caused his son to enter into this dark world in the first  place.  He and his wife divorced when Nic was 4 years old which he said was very hard on him.  Was that the reason?  Maybe it was but he mentions how so many children are of divorced parents and manage to go on to live healthy, productive lives.  Was he too lenient?  Was he too strict?  Should he have not shared his own experience with drugs with him?  There’s addiction in the family.  Is it all because of genetics?  Sheff repeatedly asks himself all these questions. 

Nic was deeply loved by both his parents and both were dedicated to his well being.  He was sent to an expensive private school so he could receive the enrichment they felt he deserved considering his bright, creative mind.  Still, at a very young age he was lured into a world of illegal drug use and alcohol.  Luckily for Nic though, his parents’ unrelenting devotion and persistence saved his life.  At the same time his father was writing this book, Nic was writing his own book Tweak.  In it, he shares his personal journey through the world of drug and alcohol addiction. Both were published last year. 

Life offers no guarantees.  As parents we all do the best we can but we can’t live our children’s lives.  We can guide them, support them, and love them but in the end they make their own choices.  We can’t let their choices destroy our own lives.  We learn this too while reading “Beautiful Boy”.