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

by David Sheff

Meth ended the summer of love.”

Things happened in life that mothers could not prevent or fix.

Jasper and Daisy silently watch as their brother’s listless body drifts through the living room.

Scott Peck said that the sickest and healthiest people are in therapy. Which are we?

Elsewhere, everyone asks how I’m doing. Here, they know.

I don’t hear from Nic, and each hour and each day and each week is quiet torture like a physical pain. Much of the time I feel as if I am on fire. It may be true that suffering builds character, but it also damages people.

Do we say a disease is not biological because it’s influenced by behavior? No one starts out hoping to become an addict; they just like drugs. No one starts out hoping for a heart attack; they just like fried chicken. How much energy and anger do we want to waste on the fact that people gave it to themselves?

I am present, but I am absent. Parents can only be as happy as their unhappiest child, according to an old saw. I’m afraid it’s true.

We are driving home. We do not talk about Nic. It’s not that we’re not thinking about him. His addiction and its twin, the specter of his death, permeate the air we breathe.

I have always assumed that vigilance and love would guarantee a decent life for my children, but I have learned that they aren’t enough.