Beautiful Boy: A Heartbreaking Memoir of a Father's Struggle with His Son's Addiction and the Journey to Recovery

by David Sheff

Even so, sometimes I have looked at his face and it was as if I were peering in a mirror. It was not only the physical similarities that I would see. I saw myself hidden in his eyes, in his expressions. It would startle me. Maybe all children as they grow up take on their parents’ traits and mannerisms and become more like them. I see my father in me now in ways that I never did when I was young. In the car, however, I see a stranger. And yet he is a stranger whose every part I know intimately. I recall his soft eyes when they were elated and when they were disappointed, his face when he was pallid from illness and when he was burned red by the sun, his mouth and even each tooth from visits to dentists and the orthodontist, his knees from when he skinned them and I put on Band-Aids, his shoulders from putting on sun block, his feet from taking out splinters—every part of him. I know every part from watching him and living with him and being close to him, and yet driving to Oakland I look at his sullenness and anger and vacancy, his retreat and his turmoil, and I think, Who are you?

Speechless. The realization that he can know every detail about Nic, yet is unable to recognize him. His own son has become a stranger.

“I want to come down,” Nic said suddenly. “It’s OK, Nic. You’re fine. Just take it slowly.” “I can’t,” he called. “I’m stuck.” “You can,” I said. “You can do it.” “I can’t get down.” He began crying. “Take your time,” I said. “Find one foothold at a time. Go slowly.” “I can’t.” “You can.” He wrapped his gangly legs and arms tighter around the branch. “I’ll fall.” “You won’t.” “I will.” I stood directly underneath and yelled up to him, “You’re fine. Take your time.” I said it, but I was thinking, I’ll catch you if you fall.

Sometimes it startles me that life goes on, but it does, inexorably.

God or no god, this barely ponderable and impossible-to-understand system of complexity and beauty is profound enough to feel like a miracle. Consciousness feels like a miracle. The constellation of these impulses that we call love feels like a miracle. The miracles do not cancel out evil, but I accept evil in order to participate in the miraculous.

But you know, I don’t think I will be so scared to die. I think it’s like today: the end of a vacation when you are ready to go home.”

would miss having Nic in my life. I would miss his funny phone messages and his humor, the stories, our talks, our walks, watching movies with him, dinners together, and the transcendent feeling between us that is love. I would miss all of it. I miss it now. And here it sinks in: I don’t have it now. I have not had it whenever Nic has been on drugs. Nic is absent, only his shell remains. I have been afraid—terrified—to lose Nic, but I have lost him.

have been terrorized by the fear that he would die. If he did, it would leave a permanent crack in my soul. I would never fully recover. But I also know that if he were to die, or for that matter, if he stays high, I would live on—with that crack. I would grieve. I would grieve forever. But I have been grieving for him since the drugs took over—grieving for the part of him that is missing. It must be grief.

Grief is interrupted by hope, hope by grief. Then our grieving is interrupted by a new crisis.

When we named him, we consulted my father. His full name is Nicolas Eliot Sheff. His initials spell the Hebrew word for “miracle.” I pray for a bigger miracle, but in the meantime I am grateful for the one we have. Nic is alive.

I think, How innocent we are of our mistakes and how responsible we are for them.

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

I want to open up and hear Nic and believe him, but I am unwilling to tear down the fragile dam that I have constructed to protect myself. I am afraid I’ll be drowned.

I can accept—in fact am relieved to accept—a world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white. There is much good, but to enjoy the beauty, the love, one must bear the painful.