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

by David Sheff

I have a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function.

We say “everything” to each other. It is our way of saying I love you,

Close your eyes Have no fears The monster’s gone He’s on the run and your daddy’s here

In the morning, Nic goes off to school as usual. But when he comes home, from his face I can tell that he is distressed. He drops his backpack on the floor, looks up, and tells me that Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head. From Nic’s room I hear Cobain’s voice. I found it hard, it was hard to find. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

Drugs shield children from dealing with reality and mastering developmental tasks crucial to their future. The skills they lacked that left them vulnerable to drug abuse in the first place are the very ones that are stunted by drugs.

When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon.

No way

But addicts bring up these problems not to clear the air or with the hope of healing old wounds. They bring them up solely to induce guilt, a tool with which they manipulate others in pursuit of their continued addiction.”

How do you explain to an eight-year-old when his beloved big brother steals from him?

I try not to blame Nic. I don’t. Sometimes I do.

“Do you think that Nic looks like Bob Dylan?”

No way foreshadowing Timmy

don’t think he wants to do them, but he can’t help it. It’s like in cartoons when some character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The devil whispers into Nicky’s ear and sometimes it gets too loud so he has to listen to him. The angel is there, too,” Jasper continues, “but he talks softer and Nic can’t hear him.”

I guess what I can offer you is this: As you’re growing up, whenever you need me—to talk or just whatever—I’ll be able to be there for you now. That is something that I could never promise you before.

My son. Nothing short of my death can erase him. Maybe not even my death.

Ruby

Shout out my name

It is still so easy to forget that addiction is not curable. It is a lifelong disease that can go into remission, that is manageable if the one who is stricken does the hard, hard work, but it is incurable.

My own version plays in my head. Fortunately I have a son, my beautiful boy. Unfortunately he is a drug addict. Fortunately he is in recovery. Unfortunately he relapses. Fortunately he is in recovery again. Unfortunately he relapses. Fortunately he is in recovery again. Unfortunately he relapses. Fortunately he is not dead.

“Everything,” I say to him. “Everything.” Fortunately there is a beautiful boy. Unfortunately he has a terrible disease. Fortunately there is love and joy. Unfortunately there is pain and misery. Fortunately the story is not over. The jet pulls away from the gate. I hang up the phone.

‘What’s your problem?’ “I said, ‘I’m a drug addict and alcoholic.’ “He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s how you’ve been treating your problem. What is your problem? Why are you here?’ ”

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

Parents of addicts learn to temper our hope even as we never completely lose hope. However, we are terrified of optimism, fearful that it will be punished. It is safer to shut down. But I am open again, and as a consequence I feel the pain and joy of the past and worry about and hope for the future. I know what it is I feel. Everything.

My brain hemorrhage ultimately has made me appreciate, rather than fear, the profound truth of this cliché: our time here is finite.