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

by David Sheff

Without coercion this time, Nic chooses to return to rehab. He begs. Is this what hitting bottom means? The experts all say that an addict hits bottom and then engages in recovery in a new way.

I fly to New York to help him check into Hazelden’s Manhattan center. I take a taxi in the rain under a dusky lavender sky, and on my way into town I try to anticipate what I will feel when I see him. Overjoyed to see him alive. F...

“Hey, Pop!” It is always a dramatic moment when Nic arrives. In spite of his attempt at putting on a brave facade, he looks like someone who survived a famine. His face is like crepe paper, ghost-white. He wears a torn sport coat over a T-shirt, torn jeans, and busted-up sneakers. We hug stiffly. My affection for him is tempered by my fear of him.

this trip is about the morning, when he will check into rehab. Again.

In the morning, we walk around until his admission appointment at Hazelden, in a stately brownstone overlooking Stuyvesant Square Park. While he is interviewed, I wait in the park, sitting on a bench. I watch a group of boys huddled in a corner of the park near a metal gate. A drug deal goes down.

Nic signals me from the building’s open door. It’s time. I come upstairs, and we sit in the large foyer lined in cherry bookshelves. There’s not much to say, but we sit there for a while on leather sofas. When an attendant calls Nic—says it’s time for him to check in and say goodbye—we stand and look at each other. We hug. His body feels brittle, as if it could break into pieces.

I WATCH THE WEEKS and then months of his recovery from afar. Biding my time, I continue my research into meth, this time canvassing the nation’s preeminent researchers and asking them what is to me the bottom-line question. What would you do if a family member were addicted to this drug?

“Understanding things will not change an addict’s life. Doing things differently will.”

came to understand the way a cue works when I thought about Nic’s and my different reactions to the movie Requiem for a Dream. Nic loved Darren Aronofsky’s relentlessly dismal story of a boy and his mother, a heroin addict and speed freak. I found it unbearable. Even the people I know who liked the movie were depressed by its bleakness and depravity, but Nic was thrilled by it. Nic later told me that the drug scenes, accompanied by throbbing music from the Kronos Quartet, which are cautionary, nearly unstomachable for most people, made him want to get high.

A cue can be anything from the smell of a chemical reminiscent of meth burning in a pipe to “the people, places, and things” associated with the drug to, for some addicts, payday, a street corner, a song, or a sound—subtle and hidden from everyone but the addict. Many meth addicts associate the drug with sex.

As the high school Casanova in the pilot of Six Feet Under put it, meth “just makes everything burn a little bit brighter, and it makes sex totally primal.”

“Methamphetamine is dirtier,” a researcher explained. Whatever the reason, because of the unique level of harm this drug causes, even compared to heroin and cocaine, plus the dismal record of current treatments, clinicians are desperate for medications that would help up the odds for addicts, whether they would replace dopamine, help heal the nerve damage, or treat or manage symptoms. However, the top researchers in the field admit that their efforts warrant little optimism.

At home, I read it. From “Letter from an Addict” in the pamphlet: “Don’t accept my promises. I’ll promise anything to get off the hook. But the nature of my illness prevents me from keeping my promises, even though I mean them at the time . . . Don’t believe everything I tell you; it may be a lie. Denial of reality is a symptom of my illness. Moreover, I’m likely to lose respect for those I can fool too easily. Don’t let me take advantage of you or exploit you in any way. Love cannot exist for long without the dimension of justice.”

With Nic in recovery again, Karen and I get books for children about addiction from the library and read them to Daisy and Jasper. We do our best to encourage the kids to talk about their feelings—to get them out.

Herbert House, a sober-living house in Culver City, is actually a cluster of bougainvillea- and rose-draped bungalows, whitewashed and cheerful, with small porches with loveseats and rocking chairs, all facing a central brick courtyard with palms, picnic tables, and garden furniture—sort of a Melrose Place for addicts.

On the phone he sounds like the old Nic, Nic in his right mind. It is almost impossible to reconcile this Nic with the person he was on drugs. I think, by trial and error and persistence, helped by the months at Hazelden, the support of those at Herbert House, the outpatient sessions, AA, Randy, and his friends in recovery, Nic has constructed a comprehensive program that, according to what I have learned from the researchers, reflects the one that should be available for all meth addicts.

In July, Nic turns twenty-one. To celebrate, I visit him in Los Angeles. It is a warm summer afternoon when I pick him up in front of Herbert House. Nic leaps into the car. We hug. He appears whole again. Twenty-one is a milestone in everyone’s life, and it is a milestone for parents when their children turn twenty-one. For me, it feels like another miracle.

It takes a while before Karen says she is ready to see him. In addition, we haven’t allowed him to see Daisy and Jasper yet. We don’t want them to get hurt again. We all are still torn apart by the warring between our fear and our love. We want to protect Daisy and Jasper, and yet they love him and he loves them. Once again we wonder: how do we know when we can trust him?

The family is reunited on the beach, where Nic, Jasper, and Daisy make sand castles and play in the surf.

Nic has seen The Triplets of Belleville, but he goes again because he wants Jasper and Daisy to see it. After the film, together Jasper and Nic sing, with an Indian accent, exactly as in the pre-movie commercial. Nic begins, “Is the movie sold out, my husband?” Jasper: “Chitra, my queen, I’ve used Fandango.” Nic: “My happiness is a golden poem.” Jasper: “I’ll get the popcorn.”

Nic calls frequently. We have a close telephone relationship. Sometimes we just yak about nothing, sometimes about his recovery. We always talk about movies and books. Especially movies. We cannot wait to talk after one of us sees a new release by one of our favorite directors,

Sometimes he reports successes that for other people are no big deal but to him are Herculean. Little things: he has a bank account and secured a credit card. He is saving some money. He buys a fifth-hand four-hundred-dollar Mazda and, later, a new bike. He moves into an apartment, renting a room from Randy’s sponsor, an extremely kind, silver-haired and bearded man who walks with a cane. Ted has been in recovery for thirty years and has helped many young addicts.

Yet some days are excruciating for Nic. I hear it in his voice. He is lonely. He has Randy and good friends, but he would like someone special in his life. He becomes overwhelmed with worry about the future. His moods swing, and he craves drugs. He describes these ups and downs to me sometimes with stoic determination, other times holding back tears. “Sometimes all I can think of is using,” he says. “Sometimes it’s too difficult. I feel as if I just can’t do it. But I call Randy. It really does help if you do what they tell you.”

In September, Nic celebrates his year of sobriety. As much as a child’s birthday is important to a parent, as much as twenty-one meant...

In fits and starts, Nic tells us about a new romance with a girl, Z., but then one day he calls and is near tears. She has broken off the relationship. Earlier, Nic would have called a dealer or one of his druggie...

They ride for three hours—up Temescal Canyon. Twice. Afterward, Nic calls and sounds elated. “I’m going to be all right.” It is a month later. Nic stops returning my calls. Something is wrong.

The kids race through the house, collecting homework and cleats, stuffing them into their backpacks. Karen takes on Daisy’s tangled braids, and then heads out to drive them to school. When they’re gone, I am left to fall apart. Again. How do I know that something is wrong? It’s not only that he hasn’t called me back. Is it a parent’s intuition? Were there warning signs that slowly seeped up into my consciousness? Were there clues in what he said that I detected on a subliminal level? Or was it the laconic pauses between his words? Where is he? I will not accept the most likely answer: that he has relapsed. He has been doing well. It’s not perfect, but he has a coterie of supportive friends and a good job. He is biking and writing. He attends AA meetings, including some at Herbert House, where he sees Jace and his friends.

I know that sometimes he is lonely, but who isn’t? Sometimes he is down, but who isn’t? Sometimes he feels overwhelmed, but who doesn’t? And yet he must have relapsed. What else could explain his disappearance? Am I being paranoid? I have reason to be hypervigilant, alert for any sign that something could be wrong, but I must allow him to move on and have a life.

I call the police to see if there has been an accident. Once again. I call hospital emergency rooms. His mother drives to the Santa Monica police station and files a missing person report. He is: Male. Caucasian. Twenty-one. His baby-blond hair settled into a coppery brown. He has teardrop-shaped green-brown eyes and sun-bronzed olive skin. He has an easy smile. He is just over six feet tall, thin with the muscular upper arms and chest of a swimmer and the strong thighs and calves of a cyclist. When not in bike shorts and shirt, these days he normally wears an outfit of T-shirt, jeans, Converse. He has a strawberry birthmark on his right shoulder.

I try to keep it together—to appear all right—in front of Jasper and Daisy. Karen and I don’t want to tell them about Nic until we know more. We don’t want to worry them more. They are only seven and nine years old. What will we say? “Your brother has vanished. Again. He may have relapsed. Again. We don’t know.”

It takes a prodigious effort to go through the motions of ordinary days with my constricting stomach, racing heart, and the inescapable, high-definition CSI video clips playing inside my skull: the grimmest, most sordid scenes of the worst things that happen to children on the streets at night.

A police detective tells me that Reno is a meth capital, which could explain it, though it seems farfetched because he wouldn’t have to go to Reno to score the drug. No, he cannot have relapsed. He just celebrated his seventeenth month off meth. Not only that. He works at a rehab center, helping addicts.

IT IS RAINING OUTSIDE. The children are still at school. Karen and I sit on the concrete kitchen floor with Moondog. The vet is here, also sitting on the floor. The dog’s head rests on Karen’s lap. She strokes his velvety ears.

Moondog’s cancer has taken over—he can barely stand. He trembles and cries out from pain. It’s time to put him out of his misery, but we are devastated. Karen shakes and weeps. The doctor has come here to do it at home. As the vet injects Moondog with something that puts him into a deep sleep, tears come from me, too. His breathing is labored. A second injection, and there are no more breaths. The vet sits with us awhile and then she leaves. Karen and I struggle to carry a blanket with Moondog’s heavy body on it to a hole we dug under a redwood tree in the garden, where we bury him.

When Daisy and Jasper come home from school, they work with Karen in the rain making a shrine for Moondog. We cry for Moondog and for all of the sadness in our home. At their bedtime, we read to them from a picture book called Dog Heaven: “So sometimes an angel will walk a dog back to earth for a little visit and quietly, invisibly, the dog will sniff abou...

Where is Nic? It is late morning on the fourth day sin...

I want this to stop. I cannot bear it. I wish that I could expunge Nic from my brain. I yearn for a procedure like the one Charlie Kaufman invents in a movie he wrote, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A doctor provides a service for people who suffer from the pain caused by a traumatic relationship. He literally erases every trace of the person. I fantasize that I could have the procedure, have Nic wiped from my brain. Sometimes it feels as if nothing short of a lobotomy could help. Where is Nic? I cannot take this any longer. And yet every time I think I can’t take any more, I do.

I say, “I know,” and I don’t say anything more, even as my brain calculates: it won’t help to find him if he doesn’t want to be found, but he could die and then it will be too late. Waiting is ghastly.

And so I am in the city again, driving along Mission Street, peering into the open doorways of shops and taquerias and bars. I examine every face, continually seeing Nic. Every other person looks like him.

I return to Golden Gate Park, making my way to the clearing where I met the meth-addicted girl from Ohio. Except for two women, whose toddlers play on a blanket, it is deserted.

Nic is gone a week. Then another. Interminable days and nights. I try to keep busy. I try to work. We make plans with friends—the same ones who were going to the beach with Karen and the kids when Nic was arrested.

We sit there quietly, listening to birdsong and wind in the leaves. Suddenly I am flooded with déjà vu. I have been here before. Sitting on this same log. But with Nic. More than a decade ago. My heart pumps and my eyes water. Nic climbed this tree. Climbing, he called to me: “Dad, look at me! I’m way up here!” He absentmindedly sang: “All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.” He climbed higher up and then began to shimmy out onto a thick branch that reached over the meadow. “Look at me, Dad! Look at me!” “I see you.” “I’m up in the sky.” “Fantastic.” “I’m higher than the clouds.” He slid farther out along the gnarled limb. “Pulling weeds,” he sang. “Picking stones. We are made of dreams and bones.”

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. Sitting here with Jasper, remembering, a few tears slide from my eyes. Jasper immediately notices. “You’re thinking about Nic,” he says. I nod. “I’m sorry. I was just reminded of him. I remember when he was your age we were here.” Jasper nods. “I think about him a lot, too.” We sit together under the ancient tree saying nothing until Karen, Daisy, and our friends call out to us.

Each time Karen or I discover another violation, we are hit anew by a combination of sadness and fury. How could he do this? We closed our bank accounts when he forged our names on our checks, canceled credit cards when he stole them. We’ll have to do it again. Now I call a locksmith and a burglar-alarm company.

I also call the sheriff, reporting the break-in. If anyone had told me before I encountered addiction that I would be calling the sheriff on my son, I would have thought that that person was the one on drugs. I don’t want Nic arrested. Imagining him in jail sickens me. Could anything good come of it? Suddenly I share the feelings of the parents I met in some of the Al-Anon meetings whose children were in jail and who said, “At least I know where she is.” And: “It’s safer.” The sad irony is that as violent as jail can be, as bleak and hopeless, it is probably safer for Nic than the streets.

Nothing much is disturbed, but there are cotton balls, silver foil packets, and other accoutrements of smoking and shooting meth.

Whatever the reason, when he inflicts his craziness upon us, it becomes even more difficult to feel compassion. We become afraid of him.

The kids look worried, so I reassure them. By now they know that Nic has relapsed, but how can they understand what it means that their mother has jumped into the car, left them home alone, and driven off in pursuit of their brother?

She doesn’t come home for almost an hour, by which time I am crazy with worry, but for the kids’ sake pretending that this is normal, again reassuring them.

“What would you have done if you caught him?” Jasper asks. “I’m not sure,” she says. She looks beleaguered; she has been crying. Later, when we’re alone, she confides to me, “I wanted to tell him to get help, but mostly I was chasing him—chasing him away from our house—from Jasper and Daisy.”