Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through his Son's Addiction

BEAUTIFUL BOY: A FATHER'S JOURNEY THROUGH HIS SON'S ADDICTION; David Sheff; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008, 326 pgs. Non-Fiction

Nic Sheff is a bright, funny, precocious, caring child whose descent into the frenetic, vacant-eyed persona of meth addiction is a dagger to the reader's heart, not to mention what it does to his family and friends. David Sheff's harrowing memoir grew from an article written for the New York Times Magazine, and traces Nic's his happy childhood, the unhappy days of his parents' divorce; his first experiments (at age 12) with drinking and marijuana use, and then crystal meth. In telling Nic's story, his father tells us the stories of all the victims of the meth epidemic in our country, but especially of the desolate parents, brothers and sisters, friends who are helpless against the ravages of a disease that becomes essentially incurable after just the one bad choice. (One mother in a support group is glad to learn that her Harvard-educated daughter is in jail, because at least she knows where she is.) Anyone who has supposed that drug abuse can be readily overcome in rehab, or by the simple exercise of willpower, or that intractable addiction does not have a physical basis should read this book, along with anyone--which should be all of us!--who wants to help stem the wicked, filthy, deadly tide of substance abuse which robs us of our peace and of our children.

LW