Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction | 
| Author: David Sheff
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 120
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 326
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0618683356
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.299
EAN: 9780618683352
ASIN: 0618683356
Publication Date: February 26, 2008
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Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, February 2008: From as early as grade school, the world seemed to be on Nic Sheff's string. Bright and athletic, he excelled in any setting and appeared destined for greatness. Yet as childhood exuberance faded into teenage angst, the precocious boy found himself going down a much different path. Seduced by the illicit world of drugs and alcohol, he quickly found himself caught in the clutches of addiction. Beautiful Boy is Nic's story, but from the perspective of his father, David. Achingly honest, it chronicles the betrayal, pain, and terrifying question marks that haunt the loved ones of an addict. Many respond to addiction with a painful oath of silence, but David Sheff opens up personal wounds to reinforce that it is a disease, and must be treated as such. Most importantly, his journey provides those in similar situations with a commodity that they can never lose: hope --Dave Callanan
Product Description
Sheff s story is a first: a teenager s addiction from the parent s point of view a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope. Before meth, Sheff s son Nic was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs, the denial (by both child and parents), the three A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab, and, at last, the way past addiction. He shows us that, whatever an addict s fate, the rest of the family must care for each other too, lest they become addicted to addiction. Meth is the fastest-growing drug in the United States, as well as the most addictive and the most dangerous wreaking permanent brain damage faster than any other readily available drug. It has invaded every region and demographic in America. This book is the first that treats meth and its impact in depth. But it is not just about meth. Nic s addiction has wrought the same damage that any addiction will wreak. His story, and his father s, are those of any family that contains an addict and one in three American families does.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
 close to home May 2, 2008
As the parent of a child with a drug addiction, this was a very emotional book. There were times I had to set the book aside. It was an emotional journey and the author took you along for that journey. It should be in every parent's library.
The Answers April 30, 2008
This book is really half of a whole. I read this one, and then Tweak. You could read them the other way 'round, but this way worked for me. This one gave a larger overview of the landscape both books cover. This one is a broader view, more like a birds eye view with a global sense of the action. Tweak is more like a creeping, crawling journey though one set of alleys, hills and valleys.
As I worked my way through the books, I felt extreme spiritual pain. This was the most Terrible and Awesome (in the archaic sense of the words) experience, and yet at the end it gave me profound insight. Nic was seeking a sense of wholeness and a sense of peace. He wanted to be a person who exemplified something he could not quite figure out, and he wanted to stop feeling pain. He used drugs as a short cut to get to this place. And as a result he lost everything. Yet when he did the hard work to find out that he was in fact a whole person all with in himself, and he could reach with in and experience his own peace, the need for drugs slept.
In Beautiful Boy, David discovers the same thing. As long as he waits on Nic - something outside of himself - to give him peace, he never has it. But once he can let go, make the sacrifice of his belief that he must, or can control Nic, he begins to find his own peace.
When you stumble across the answer to a question you never asked, the knowledge may pass you by, or at worst strike you as odd. But when you gain the answer you seek (here finding a sense of a whole person or a sense of bliss and peace) by cheating, or a short cut (in this case drugs), the result can destroy you. You always sacrifice something for knowledge (time, opportunity to do or know something else, etc). But when you choose the sacrifice and go through the struggle for understanding, in the end you gain, learn and grow. If you jump ahead to the end, you no longer get to choose what you are going to give up, the price is higher, and you gain nothing from the glimpse you gain of the answer.
I am living your life. April 28, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This could have been written by me. I have lived though the same lies and deceit as David. Many years of pain and anguish. Tens of thousands of dollars in cash and property stolen for Heroin. I'm Trying everything to get and keep my son sober. In and out of rehab centers, In and out of jail. As with David, I keep trying and trying, hoping that someday it will sink in. In the mean-time I'm watching my son kill himself with Heroin.
This is a must read for anyone who's family member is an addict. David Sheff tells it like it is. And those of us who have or are living it, appreciate David Sheff for having the courage to put it in print.
It helps to know that I'm not alone in my frustration, my fears, my guilt, my depression. It's encouraging to know that there is hope, however remote, of recovery. Thank you, David,
 Hope, camaraderie and comfort." April 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"David Sheff takes us on a "ride" that no parent wants to endure. For those of us who have "been there", this book offers hope, camaraderie and comfort."
Judy Herzanek/Why Don't They Just Quit?
 Why Traditional Addiction Treatment Doesn't Work April 25, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book does an excellent job in describing the ultimate state of disrepair in which we find the traditional treatment industry; ineffective therapists, 15 minute med management meetings in which psychotropic medications are dispensed without thorough workups, inpatient treatment programs that create an artificial environment and support system that can't be replicated in the real world, separate support groups for the addict (AA) and the family (ALANON)......a treatment scheme that hasn't changed much, at least for the better, since 1938. Close to 90 percent failure rates yet little changes. Unnecessary despair, learned hopelessness, all while ignoring the basic physiology of addiction.
All because addiction is perceived to be a matter of choice. Lung cancer is predominantly a matter of choice. Heart disease; a matter of choice. Type II diabetes, obesity....all can be argued as a matter of choice. Yet only addicts and their families are asked to serve their life sentences, anonymously, in church basements, whispering their first names only until they draw their last breath.
It's time for a new approach. The approach can start with ALANON using their platform to cause people like Mr. Sheff to understand that adult decisions made during the early formative years of child rearing can have a lasting effect of the behavior of those children. In fact acrimonious divorce is a common theme in the treatment of many DSM categories. His inability to take responsibility for his actions is one of the things that keep many people addicted, The notion that all that is wrong in every life is caused by the addicted individual; that they are the epicenter for all that is wrong simply because they are willing to take on that unfair burden, is quite unhelpful.
In many ways, Mr. Sheff needs to be accountable for his mistakes that led to his son self medicating past experiences. And he must also take responsibility for not finding him appropriate medical treatment during his adolescent years. The decisions for treatment were not your son's, sir. They were yours. You have some responsibility in the failure of treatment too.
Imagine if Mr. Sheff, after diagnosis with an aneurism, was treated in a group environement without specialized medication or nutritional support that was essential for recovery. Imagine if an aneurism was treated as a matter of choice; a moral or character defect. imagine being powerless over your aneurism. Imagine art therapy instead of a drill to the skull to alleviate pressure. Apply the same standards and expect the same results: avoidable, premature death.
In all, if this book was intended to be entertaining or cathartic, then it hits its mark. If it was meant to be instructive or helpful to the millions suffering from or related to addiction, it does a disservice.
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