Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
Encyclopedia
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction is a best-selling memoir by David Sheff
that describes how his family dealt with his son Nic's methamphetamine
addiction. It was published by Houghton Mifflin
on April 26 2008. The book grew out of the article "My Addicted Son" that Sheff had written for The New York Times Magazine
in 2005. Son Nic Sheff's perspective was told in his own memoir Tweak, published concurrently by an imprint of Simon and Schuster.
Beautiful Boy covers a substantial portion of Nic's life and deals with the elder Sheff's struggles of how to respond to a son who he loves but who is also a danger to his family. Nic steals money from his younger siblings and gets arrested for possession in front of them, and Sheff is forced to install a security system to prevent Nic from breaking in. Nic attends many rehabs throughout the memoir, and even with those he relapses many times. The longest stretch of sobriety Nic had, prior to his last relapse in the memoir, was almost two years. He then relapsed once again and went into treatment. By the end of the memoir Sheff tells us that Nic has been sober one year. He hopes with all his heart that this will be the last time, and believes in him once again. But in his mind he knows that a relapse can easily happen again and that it will be very difficult for Nic, his family, and himself. Another theme throughout the memoir is Sheff wondering about how much he is to blame and what he could have done to prevent his son's addiction.
Throughout the memoir Sheff attends numerous Al-Anon Meetings and therapy sessions. In these different sessions he is continually told of the three Cs, you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. Sheff has a difficult time accepting these statements throughout the memoir. At the end however, he says that he has come to accept two of the Cs, that he can't control it, and he can't cure it. He realizes that he has done everying he can do to try and help Nic, and knows that it's up to Nic to figure things out. He realizes that the only way Nic will fully recover is if he figures things out himself.
Beautiful Boy became a critical and commercial success. It hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List
on April 6 2008 and again on May 4 2008. Entertainment Weekly named it the #1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2008 and it won the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for nonfiction in 2008. Amazon.com
selected it as one of the "Best Books of 2008" and Starbucks
picked it as one of the few books it would sell in its coffee shops.
David Sheff
David Sheff is an American author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction. In 2009, Sheff was included in the Time Magazine Time 100, The World's Most Influential People, and Beautiful Boy was named the best nonfiction book of the year...
that describes how his family dealt with his son Nic's methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
addiction. It was published by Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
on April 26 2008. The book grew out of the article "My Addicted Son" that Sheff had written for The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
in 2005. Son Nic Sheff's perspective was told in his own memoir Tweak, published concurrently by an imprint of Simon and Schuster.
Beautiful Boy covers a substantial portion of Nic's life and deals with the elder Sheff's struggles of how to respond to a son who he loves but who is also a danger to his family. Nic steals money from his younger siblings and gets arrested for possession in front of them, and Sheff is forced to install a security system to prevent Nic from breaking in. Nic attends many rehabs throughout the memoir, and even with those he relapses many times. The longest stretch of sobriety Nic had, prior to his last relapse in the memoir, was almost two years. He then relapsed once again and went into treatment. By the end of the memoir Sheff tells us that Nic has been sober one year. He hopes with all his heart that this will be the last time, and believes in him once again. But in his mind he knows that a relapse can easily happen again and that it will be very difficult for Nic, his family, and himself. Another theme throughout the memoir is Sheff wondering about how much he is to blame and what he could have done to prevent his son's addiction.
Throughout the memoir Sheff attends numerous Al-Anon Meetings and therapy sessions. In these different sessions he is continually told of the three Cs, you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. Sheff has a difficult time accepting these statements throughout the memoir. At the end however, he says that he has come to accept two of the Cs, that he can't control it, and he can't cure it. He realizes that he has done everying he can do to try and help Nic, and knows that it's up to Nic to figure things out. He realizes that the only way Nic will fully recover is if he figures things out himself.
Beautiful Boy became a critical and commercial success. It hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
on April 6 2008 and again on May 4 2008. Entertainment Weekly named it the #1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2008 and it won the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for nonfiction in 2008. Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
selected it as one of the "Best Books of 2008" and Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
picked it as one of the few books it would sell in its coffee shops.
External links
- My Addicted Son. Original New York Times Magazine article by David Sheff, February 6, 2005.