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
David drives to the airport to pick up his son Nic, who is coming home from college for summer vacation. Also in the car are Nic’s half-siblings: eight-year-old Jasper and five-year-old Daisy, who are thrilled to see him and catch up on their lives for the past six months. Nic jokes with them as well as promising that he will come to their “step up” ceremony, in which they graduate from one year of elementary school to the next. When they arrive home, Nic gives his siblings gifts he’s brought back: American Girl dolls for Daisy and Super Soakers for Jasper.
It’s significant that the memoir—which is largely riddled with pain and anxiety—opens with an episode of deep familial love. Nic’s battle with addiction (which will become apparent shortly) still leaves room for hope, as sometimes he is able to find these moments of clarity and joy with his family. This passage also foreshadows the idea that addiction can be deeply harmful to families, not just to the addicts themselves.
Themes
After dinner, Jasper and Nic play with the water guns while David and his wife Karen watch from the living room. Daisy even joins in, wielding the garden hose. After everyone is properly soaked, David sends Jasper and Daisy to take a bath, and afterward Nic reads a Roald Dahl story for the kids. They are riveted by his voices. When everyone else is asleep, David hears Nic restlessly making tea and playing guitar. David is amazed at how far Nic has come: the previous year he dropped out of Berkeley, but he has just completed his freshman year at another school in the east. It is almost his 150th day without methamphetamine.
These moments also illustrate the joyful aspects of parenthood for David. Thinking that his children are under control and that he is helping to guide Nic to good choices, he feels some of his anxiety ebb away. Despite Nic’s addiction, he believes that Nic has been able to get his life together. Even though this will quickly prove untrue, it shows the importance that David places on maintaining hope and keeping up the battle against Nic’s addiction.
Themes
The next day, Jasper and Daisy goes off to school, while Nic prepares for a job interview at an Italian restaurant. After dinner, he asks to borrow the car for an AA meeting. He had lost his driving privileges the previous summer after driving one of the family cars into the other, but David grants this reasonable request. Nic returns after the meeting, announcing that he asked someone he met to be his sponsor while he is in town. The next day, Nic asks for the car again to meet the sponsor, and David agrees once more.
Again, David relinquishes some of his worry because Nic seems to be improving, and David feels that he can control where Nic goes and who he sees. David’s mention of Nic’s accident with both cars, however, starts to hint at how much destruction and ruin Nic has caused in their family over his teenage years and early twenties.
Themes
The next day, Nic once again leaves for an AA meeting in the evening. This time, however, he has not returned home by 11 p.m. David starts to worry: when Nic ignores his curfew, it usually spells disaster. David’s anxiety mounts as the hours tick by, until the car pulls in at 2:30 a.m. David confronts Nic in the kitchen, demanding to know if he’s high. Nic denies this irritably, explaining that after the meeting, people went back to a girl’s house and watched a movie. He apologizes angrily for not calling and goes to sleep.
This moment illustrates how David’s worries come to the fore whenever he feels that he is not in control of his son. When David doesn’t know where Nic is, his anxieties spike. Even though this may be for good reason, David still has to struggle to find the balance between caring for Nic and not allowing his son’s poor choices get in the way of his ability to live his own life.
Themes
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The next morning, David confronts Nic once more about using: the giveaway is Nic’s body quivering uncontrollably. David says that he can tell Nic is using again. Nic initially denies it, but when David presses him to take a drug test, he admits that he’s been using the whole spring semester. He pushes past David, takes the car, and leaves. That afternoon, Jasper and Daisy ask where Nic has gone.
This is another introduction of the insidiousness of addiction: Nic has betrayed David yet again in using—and in hiding the fact that he’d been using the whole semester. This is despite the fact that Nic has already undergone several rehabilitation programs, illustrating how addiction is a lifelong struggle that cannot simply be “cured.”
Themes
David writes that he tried everything to prevent Nic’s fall into meth addiction, which has a “unique, horrific quality.” In the United States, at least 12 million people have tried the drug and 1.5 million are addicted. Worldwide, there are more than 35 million users, more than heroin and cocaine combined.
Throughout the book, David provides educational information on meth and on addiction generally, illustrating why it is such a harmful disease. Here, the statistics he cites demonstrate how meth is a particularly harmful drug that ruins millions of lives.
Themes
David explains that his family’s story is unique, but it is universal to every other tale of addiction. He writes that hearing others’ stories helped him feel less isolated and crazy. He decided to write about the subject himself, culminating in an article published in The New York Times Magazine with his family’s permission. From there, a book editor contacted Nic to write a book about his own experience in hopes of inspiring others who were similarly struggling.
David reveals the impetus for writing the book itself, explaining how others’ stories gave him a sense of support. Through Beautiful Boy, and through Nic’s companion book, Tweak, he hopes that others will find similar comfort and support in knowing that they are not alone in experiencing the horrors of addiction.
Themes
David also heard from other people after the article was published: outpourings of “compassion, consolation, counsel, and shared grief.” Readers were grateful to hear that they were not alone in their struggle and felt emboldened to tell their own stories as well. Many had more tragic conclusions, ending with the death of their children or loved ones. David explains that this response led him to continue writing, culminating in this book.
David’s article and Beautiful Boy become an avenues for mutual support: David’s writing prompts others to tell their own stories, which in turn make David feel less alone. This network of support, as David illustrates, is crucial for anyone who is affected by addiction.
Themes
David explains that Nic has used drugs on and off for more than a decade, and David admits the difficulty of not knowing exactly the best way to guide Nic as he fell into addiction. He explains that he feels equally distraught over what he did do and what he didn’t do. He writes that he often blames himself.
Here, David introduces the theme of responsibility and blame, explaining that he often struggles with the choices he made as Nic was falling into addiction. This also ties into the theme of parenthood, as one of the most difficult things about the situation is how little control he had at the time and the fact that there is no clear path in figuring out how to guide an individual away from drugs.
Themes
David also writes that many people are surprised to learn of Nic’s addiction, explaining that their family seems perfectly functional. He explains that addicts can come from all different kinds of backgrounds. He also writes that he was in denial for a long time about Nic’s addiction. David wishes that someone had told him to intervene before it was too late—though he’s not sure whether he would have taken the advice.
The fact that many people are surprised to learn of Nic’s addiction due to the fact that they are a relatively normal family again contributes to the stigma of addiction. Addiction, as David goes on to explain, can befall anyone, regardless of their race, age, socioeconomic background, family structure, or intelligence. It is important for David to include this information in order to dispel some of the stereotypes associated with addiction.
Themes
David describes how he effectively became addicted to Nic’s addiction. Eventually, however, he learned that his obsession did not help Nic and instead harmed the rest of his family and David himself. He also learned that he cannot control everything that happens; he cannot make Nic’s choices for him.
David recognizes his own struggle with his son’s addiction, proving once again how addiction can have a terrible effect on the lives of a person’s family. Yet it also prompts David’s ultimate revelation that his anxiety over his lack of control of Nic’s actions only hurts him, and helps no one.
Themes
David also struggles with how much to absolve Nic of his addiction. He notes that Nic becomes another person while on drugs, and David doesn’t know how to reconcile the two people Nic has become. David also explains that whatever the cause of Nic’s addiction (genetics, David’s divorce, David’s drug history, his leniency or harshness), the problem spiraled out of anyone’s control. David explains that he aims to recount Nic’s slow slide into addiction so that readers might have a better idea of the path to take with their own children. But he also says that they should not blame themselves if they take a wrong path.
David grapples with the responsibility that both he and Nic bear. He recognizes that drugs turn Nic into a different person, and this profound change in Nic makes it harder for him to remain clean. The potential causes for Nic’s addiction that David lists makes clear that it is hard to know who or what, exactly, to blame—after all, David could not have been both too lenient and harsh in bringing Nic up. In recounting his family’s story, David once again hopes to provide some support for others experiencing the same thing—but he also emphasizes the idea that people with loved ones who are addicts should aim not to blame themselves for what has happened.
Themes
