Beautiful Boy: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

In late May, while Nic is still gone, Karen and David go to an Al-Anon meeting—their first group meeting without Nic with them. David kept his family’s problem a secret for a while to protect Nic, but he has learned how much it helps to talk about Nic’s addiction and to hear and read others’ stories.

The Three C’s are repeated throughout the meeting, and David still has a difficult time believing that he didn’t cause Nic’s addiction. He worries about the tacit permissions he gave Nic by talking about his own drug use and is horrified about the time they smoked together. David shares his story of Nic’s addiction. He is mortified to cry in public but also relieved. He continues to go back to the meetings, and he hears heartbreaking stories.

During one meeting, a mother shares that her daughter is in jail for up to two years. But the woman says that she is actually relieved, because she knows where her daughter is. Another woman chimes in to say that she knows how the first woman feels, because it is safer for her daughter to be in jail than to vanish into the streets. David wonders if this is where he will get to: the point where Nic being in jail is good news.

David continues to think that there must be something he can do. Each hour and day that Nic is gone is torturously, physically painful. David tries to “detach,” as they counsel in Al-Anon, but he doesn’t know how to let go of his son. He continues to wonder where he went wrong.

David thinks about how the divorce was the most difficult aspect of Nic’s childhood. He cites statistics showing that 85 percent of children of divorce were heavy drug users in high school, compared with 24 percent of those from intact families. Yet he knows that many children who go through much more contentious divorces don’t resort to drugs, and many drug addicts come from intact families.

David thinks about what else there is to blame, like the privileged upbringing Nic had or his private school. But research confirms that addiction affects people regardless of wealth, education, race, geography, or intelligence. Sometimes, David understands that nothing is to blame.

David also struggles with understanding that addiction is a disease, reasoning that people with cancer don’t lie and steal. But the issue of addiction is that people who are afflicted are unable to do the very thing that will cure them. Doctors argue that a symptom of the disease is being unable to stop using, not the cause.

David also notes that there are practical reasons to treating addiction as a disease: for instance, insurance companies provide coverage for diseases but rarely cover treatments for addictions. Instead, money ends up being lost replacing livers, hearts, and kidneys; there is a high cost on those who cannot work and an additional cost of addiction-related crime.

Some still believe that addiction is a moral failing. Others understand that no addict wants to be addicted to drugs; something has happened in their brains to cause the addiction. David reminds himself that if Nic did not have a disease, he would not lie, steal, or terrorize his family. While it is not his fault that he has a disease, it is his fault that he relapses, and he must be held accountable to do that work.

Some experts believe that designating addiction as a brain disease rather than a behavioral disorder gives addicts an excuse to relapse. Others disagree, arguing that diagnosing someone with heart disease does not eliminate their responsibility to eat healthier or stop smoking; likewise, having an addiction does not eliminate responsibility to try to relapse. But it acknowledges that there is a biological basis for the disease that makes it difficult to overcome purely through willpower.