Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beautiful Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Addiction, Ruin, and Redemption
Responsibility and Blame
Parenthood and Control
Support vs. Enabling
The Disease Model, Stigma, and Treatment
Summary
Analysis
With Nic gone, David once again calls hospital rooms and jails. He is bombarded by more advice, including to kick Nic out. Nic is gone for six days, and David is frantic, spending hours on the internet reading about the effects of drugs on teenagers. He holds it together in front of Jasper and Daisy, but privately he breaks down, weeping uncontrollably in a way that he never has before. Davis is terrified at how lost, helpless, and out of control he feels.
David returns to the cycle of worry and despair that accompanies Nic’s relapses. His feelings reinforce the idea that Nic’s addiction is harming the family profoundly in addition to Nic himself, and that David’s lack of control over Nic’s situation is also starting to prove detrimental to David’s own health.
Themes
David calls Vicki, who shares David’s worry. Karen and David go back and forth, each trying to console the other, assuring the other that Nic will come back. A week later, Nic returns to the house—“frail, ill, and rambling—a barely recognizable phantom.” David once again implores Nic to go to rehab, but Nic simply collapses on his bed and falls asleep.
The fact that David, Vicki, and Karen all rely on and console one another is yet another indication of the support that people need in dealing with addiction, regardless of whether they are the addict themselves or whether they are trying to care for the addict. Nic’s return as a “phantom” also depicts his very real physical deterioration as a result of his drug use.
Themes
While Nic sleeps, David searches for a rehab facility. They variously claim 25 to 85 percent success rate for getting sober, but a nurse admits to David that the real number is in the single digits. The more David learns about the rehab industry, the more he recognizes its disorganization. Most are rooted in the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Other than that, they are inconsistent and often based solely on the philosophies of a program’s director, some of whom have few qualifications. Even rehab programs run by doctors and clinicians aren’t much more effective.
David begins his research into the rehab industry here, discovering how ineffective it often is. Later, he explains that this is due to many people’s misunderstanding of addiction as a disease. Because of that stigma, people are often jailed rather than treated for addiction. Instead, David proposes, a massive effort should be rallied to help find better treatments and improve rehab centers, thereby giving people a better chance of recovery.
Themes
David chooses a highly recommended place in Oakland named Thunder Road. On the day of Nic’s appointment, David tells Nic that they are going to rehab. Nic once again refuses, saying that David can’t make him go. David gives Nic an ultimatum: if he wants to live in David’s house and have David pay for college, and if Nic wants to see the family, he must go. David asks Nic if he wants to die. Nic pounds his fist against the table and kicks the wall, sobbing—but then he follows David to the car.
This is a difficult decision for any parent to make, and it illustrates how little control David feels like he has. The only way to support Nic and to help Nic help himself is to control his own support for Nic. Thus, David tries to ensure that he is not enabling Nic by simply allowing him to continue his drug abuse, but is instead supporting him and leading him to get the help that he needs.
Themes
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