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
Four days after Nic has disappeared, someone finally answers his phone—but it’s not Nic. The man explains that he doesn’t know Nic; Nic gave the man his phone at a bus station in LA, and the man hasn’t seen him since. David calls the cell phone operator and asks her to disconnect the phone, explaining that it has been stolen. David and Vicki are frantic, calling anyone they can to see if he has heard from Nic. When Vicki tries Z., Z. says that she just heard from Nic. He called her, high, from San Francisco.
The fact that Nic gives away or possibly sells his phone to a stranger illustrates how his addiction makes him want to out of reach for his parents and anyone he knows and loves. Still, David and Vicki cannot help but try to find him. As his parents, they are compelled to try and hold onto him in any way they possibly can, unwilling to give up on him.
Themes
David wishes that he could completely remove Nic from his mind—he doesn’t know how much more he can take. Karen counsels him not to look for Nic, but David doesn’t know what else to do. Karen is increasingly frustrated, knowing that David has completely given over to his anxiety. David drives around San Francisco, looking everywhere for Nic, but he doesn’t find him.
Karen’s mounting frustration with David again reinforces the idea that he is trying to control Nic and keep him bound to the family at the cost of healthy and normal relationships with his wife and other children. So many people have counselled him to take care of himself at this time rather than worry exclusively about Nic, yet David has not yet fully come to that turning point.
Themes
Nic is gone for weeks. David tries to keep busy. One weekend, David, Karen, Jasper and Daisy visit Bear Valley, biking along a trail through the forest, then hiking. When David and Jasper reach a clearing first, David experiences déjà vu: Nic had once climbed the exact tree at which they’ve stopped. Nic was young and had been afraid to come down. David stood underneath and told Nic to take it slow, one leg at a time. Nic was terrified, but David knew he would catch Nic if he fell. Jasper notices David crying and says that he thinks about Nic a lot too.
This story from Nic’s childhood encapsulates the dynamic between him and David. In the tree, Nic was afraid and unable to help himself, while David knew that even if Nic couldn’t get down himself, David would be there to catch him if he fell. Yet David does not realize that their current situation does not carry the same dynamics: David may not be able to be there if Nic falls, and has no way of helping Nic do what is best for himself. This lack of control over the situation is what spurs his panic.
Themes
One morning the following week, Karen notices a few things out of place in the house. David and Karen then find a broken deadbolt on the door to their bedroom; David’s desk drawers have been ransacked. They know that Nic broke in. David, feeling sad and furious, calls a locksmith and a burglar alarm company. David also calls the sheriff about the break-in. He would never have contemplated calling the police, but now, like the parents in Al-Anon, he knows that Nic would probably be safer in jail.
Nic’s has committed crimes against his family before, but a break-in is a new degree of ruin for Nic. This is reinforced by David’s sentiment: the fact that he calls the police on his own son and that Nic might actually be safer in jail shows a new level of hurt and broken trust between Nic and his family.
Themes
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The next day, David hears from family friends. They relay that Nic and his friends broke in and spent the night in their living room; in their wake, they left evidence of smoking and shooting meth. David starts to become afraid of Nic, wondering where else he might break into.
The amount of people that Nic is harming is also a slowly widening circle, as he breaks into a family friends’ house. Thus, David emphasizes how addiction can have a deeply negative impact not only on addicts or loved ones, but on society as a whole.
Themes
The next morning, Karen is outside when she sees Nic drive by in his car. She calls to David, who jumps in the car to chase him—but he can’t find Nic. When he returns home, Jasper and Daisy say that Karen saw Nic driving down the hill in the opposite direction, and she jumped in their other car to follow him. She doesn’t come home for almost an hour. When she does, she explains that she followed him down Highway 1 until she realized she didn’t know what she would have done if she caught him. Later, she confesses to David that she was simply trying to chase him away from the house. David realizes how chaotic their lives have become.
This incident involving David and Karen trying to chase Nic in their cars is a reinforcement, as David says, of the lack of control that they have in their lives. As in past encounters with Nic, even when they see him, they have no way of stopping him from walking out of the house or out of a rehab center—there is no way to make his choices for him. And yet, even with this knowledge, they are still desperately trying to maintain some control over him.
Themes
Three days later, Nic calls, telling David everything: he has relapsed on meth and heroin. David tells him that the police are searching for him as a missing person in Santa Monica, and that sheriffs are patrolling his home and the home he broke into. David says that he can only tell Nic what he already knows she should do: call Randy. Nic is crying. David wants to drive and get him, but he knows he can’t.
David again recognizes that he cannot enable Nic’s addiction by being lenient on him. The only thing that he can do is get Nic back into recovery and to guide him back to people like Randy who can support Nic’s recovery more than David can.
Themes
Randy calls in a half hour, saying that he heard from Nic and he encouraged him to return to LA. He reports that Nic sounded ready to come back, and David thanks Randy. In the evening, Vicki calls. Nic had enough money for a ticket back to LA; she picked him up from the airport and dropped him back at his apartment. Nic calls David the next day, saying that he feels terrible and that all he can do is pray.
While it is important for David and Vicki to hold onto hope that Nic can recover, it is even more important that Nic does so. The fact that he is praying, after all of the times he fought against the idea of a higher power, shows his understanding of the lack of control he has in his own life and the faith he maintains that he might be able to break the cycle of relapse.
Themes
David continues to go to Al-Anon meetings, crying as he retells the story of the previous weeks. David is unsure how life can go on, but it does. Jasper and Daisy play games and sports together. One night, they watch a video of a Bob Dylan performance when he was 20. When Daisy asks why Bob Dylan does drugs, Jasper explains that he doesn’t think he wants to do them, but he can’t help it. It’s as though he has an angel and a devil on his shoulder, and sometimes the devil whispers too loud.
Jasper’s explanation of why Bob Dylan does drugs (which is really an explanation of why Nic, or anyone, does drugs) captures the complexity of a person’s own responsibility. Jasper understands that addiction (personified by the devil) is a part of a person, but it also acts outside a person and not in their best interests. Nic might be responsible for his relapses, but the part of him that spurs those relapses is out of his control.
Themes
Nic reports to David that Randy is helping him get his life back; they take bicycle rides together. Randy helps find Nic a job. Nic says he’s shocked that he relapsed after being sober for 18 months; he says that he got cocky, and that he is going to two meetings a day now and is starting the steps all over. David is relieved and cautiously hopeful.
The fact that Nic has stayed hopeful for his recovery shows that he understands his mistakes, and that he hopes to be responsible for preventing those mistakes in the future. It is even more crucial for Nic to have hope for his own recovery than it is for David.
Themes
David and Karen continue to see a therapist on occasion, and David admits that their lives have gotten out of control. The therapist says that parents of kids on drugs become debilitated, depending on their children’s moods, decisions, and actions. David wonders how not to be codependent on Nic’s wellbeing, because any parent would be—but he also admits that there must be an alternative to his constant worry.
David finally seems to recognize how his desire for control has become truly harmful to both him and to his family, yet he seems unable to take the steps to find a better path. David’s obsession with Nic’s addiction appears to be a kind of addiction in itself, as he recognizes that it would be better to let go but is unable to help himself do so.
Themes
Two months pass, and David visits LA. He and Nic get dinner. Nic apologizes, unable to fully express how much he is sorry for. David reminds himself how difficult staying sober is for Nic. As much as other people have suffered at Nic’s hands, Nic himself has suffered the most. Since Nic’s relapse, Karen, Jasper and Daisy have not seen him. Karen is wary of letting Nic visit Inverness. But at the end of the summer, when Karen, David, and the kids are going to stay in cabins on a beach in Hawaii, Karen suggests that Nic come with them.
Despite the fact that Nic has caused the family a great deal of trauma, Karen also recognizes that they are family and that rebuilding their relationships is important to Nic’s recovery and to renewing trust between them. Yet at the same time, David and Karen know they have to be cautious with Nic—while they always maintain hope that he can recovery, they also always understand that he could always relapse.
Themes
The reunion in Hawaii comes with excitement but also trepidation. The family drives to the camp, and Nic narrates a tale of PJ Fumblebumble, a detective of Nic’s own invention. Jasper and Daisy fill Nic in about school and their friends. Jasper asks if Nic is going to use drugs anymore, and Nic promises not to. They spend a beautiful week together, enjoying the natural beauty of Hawaii and feeling a little more optimistic about the future.
Jasper’s question to Nic of whether he will continue to use drugs shows the danger in reuniting him with the family. As much as Nic might try to promise Jasper that he will not, his addiction is uncontrollable, and any subsequent relapses will continue to feel like emotional blows to his family.
Themes
When they return from vacation, Nic goes back to LA. A week later, Jasper receives a letter from Nic, writing that he wishes he could express how sorry he is. He explains that he loves Jasper and that he wants to be there for Jasper whenever he needs him. He concludes that he hopes being there for him will mean more than a note and the $8 enclosed.
In returning the $8 to Jasper, Nic makes a symbolic commitment to do better for his brother. Where stealing the money demonstrated Nic’s self-destruction, giving the money back and apologizing demonstrates Nic’s commitment to bettering himself and caring for his family.
Themes
