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

by David Sheff

Addiction is an equal-opportunity affliction—affecting people without regard to their economic circumstance, their education, their race, their geography, their IQ, or any other factor.

I was really naïve. I really really really believed that drug “addicts” are the kinds of people we see huddled in the doorways of dark alleys – as I wrote, when we see them we cross the street. As I try to make clear in Beautiful Boy, I learned the hard way that anyone can become addicted. Now when I see strung-out kids on the street or women and men huddled in alleyways, obviously addicted and mentally ill, I see people, not “addicts.” It breaks my heart. I think of them and think of their parents. How have they’ve coped with the loss of their children? Have they given up hope? And what about these lost children? As I wrote, if these people had any other illness they’d be in the hospital, not on the streets. As a society we’re failing them.