A father’s journey through his son’s addiction
By David Sheff
Houghton Mifflin Company $24
I’ve got a grandson who, at age 22, is drawing social security benefits in the aftermath of two catastrophic drug related accidents that badly damaged him physically and emotionally. And he still smokes pot.
I’ve got another grandson, 26, who finally asked to go into treatment following six years of abusing prescription drugs and marijuana and then ran away within a week leaving his father with a $30,000 bill to settle. Last year, he resurfaced, enrolled in a community college and is doing better but still drinks beer.
The fathers (my sons) of these two boys have tried many strategies to help them recover, from being supportive to drawing the line, to becoming detached. Nothing seems to work in the usual sense of the word.
And this heartbreak, of course, is not unique. I also have friends who’s children have left home and disappeared into the drug culture except for periodic failed attempts to get well. Half of them have been in jail. They desperately seek solutions, which mostly turn out to be expensive and at best temporary.
Before Nic Sheff, son of the author of Beautiful Boy, David Sheff, became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honors student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a “trembling wraith” who lied repeatedly, stole money from his eight-year old brother and lived on the streets.
In “Beautiful Boy” David Sheff provides us with, in author Ann Lamott’s words, “a brilliant, harrowing, heartbreaking, fascinating story, full of beautiful moments and hard-won wisdom.”
Whether alcoholism and other drug addictions can be called “diseases” or not may be open to debate, but the fact is they are just as potentially deadly as cancer and diabetes. And a cure—abstinence—is already available! This fact is both a blessing and a frustration, the frustration being that the afflicted person often would rather die than abstain.
And this is the frustration David Sheff felt. He himself had had a brush with drugs in his youth, got over them and can’t understand why his son won’t just quit like he did. Another obstacle was Sheff’s lack of faith in a higher power and his desire, certainly at the outset, to fix everything himself.
The spiritually based 12 Step program developed by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous almost 75 years ago is the gold standard of recovery, and it says, “Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power—that One is God. May you find Him now!”
In time Scheff did turn to the 12 Steps for help through the Al-Anon program, but the results were mixed.
This book is about a journey, and it is on that basis I recommend it. Susan Cheever, author, recovering alcoholic and daughter of writer and alcoholic John Cheever, said it best in her own recommendation.
“This story of parental love,” Ms. Cheever said, “is a masterpiece of description and feeling. Sheff portrays addiction and its confusion in a way that is immediate, informative, and heartbreaking. His quest for healing is a riveting suspense story that will enlighten and compel anyone who has ever dealt with addiction, and anyone who has ever raised a child.”
