In Beautiful Boy’s introduction, author David Sheff writes about wanting to tell the story of his son Nic’s addiction. He hopes that it might provide some comfort or guidance for those with addiction or those who have a loved one with addiction.
Nic is born on July 20, 1982, to David and his wife, Vicki, who live in Berkeley, California. But when Nic is three years old, David falls in love with a family friend, and he and Vicki get divorced. Vicki moves to Los Angeles, while David remains in the Bay Area. At five years old, Nic starts to fly between them, spending the school year with David and summers and holidays with Vicki. The divorce is difficult for Nic, who feels divided between his parents.
At school, Nic’s teachers describe him as creative and a leader. He loves writing, surfing, and music. When Nic is eight years old, David remarries a woman named Karen. They move out of San Francisco to the more rural town of Inverness just as Nic starts sixth grade. Nic’s younger brother, Jasper, is then born in December 1993. As Nic goes through middle school, he starts to experience some of the pressures of teenage life. David smells smoke on Nic’s clothing one day and finds a small bag of marijuana in his backpack. He speaks with Nic about the dangers of drugs and grounds him, and Nic agrees not to try marijuana again. Nic’s younger sister, Daisy, is then born just after Nic graduates from middle school.
In high school, Nic gravitates toward kids who are clearly stoners, and he is suspended for buying marijuana on campus. As a result, he is assigned an advisor named Don, who also loves to surf. Don steers Nic back to the right path, getting him involved in the swim and water polo teams. Nic also writes for the school newspaper. The summer after Nic’s junior year, however, he travels to Paris for a French language program and comes back with a stomach ulcer (later, it is revealed that he was getting drunk almost daily). Don leaves the school, and Nic quits his sports teams and the newspaper. David notices that Nic is getting high more frequently and more openly, but he doesn’t know what to do. He thinks that forbidding friends or drugs will simply push Nic further toward them. Once, Nic is even arrested for failing to appear in court after he was cited for marijuana possession. David bails him out, hopeful that this incident will teach him a lesson.
Nic decides to go to UC Berkeley for college, but he quickly grows depressed and tells David that he isn’t ready for college. Nic returns home, planning to take some time off and apply to a smaller college on the East Coast. However, a few months after Nic returns home, he disappears in the middle of the night. Four days later, Nic calls David. When David picks Nic up in an alleyway, he is feverish and rambling, having been high on meth. David is horrified that Nic has used meth, which is a particularly dangerous drug. One of David’s closest friends in college, Charles, also used many drugs including meth (and David frequently joined him). Charles died of liver and kidney failure the night before his fortieth birthday, and so David is particularly upset by Nic’s own drug use.
David provides some information about meth: it is quickly absorbed and results in a euphoric high, remaining in the body for 10 to 12 hours. However, it depletes the brain’s levels of neurotransmitters, leaving users “bleak, depleted, and agitated” afterward. At the time Beautiful Boy is written, there are 35 million meth users globally, compared with 15 million for cocaine and 7 million for heroine. Meth use is also increasing and often leads to “tweaking”: auditory and visual hallucinations as well as aggressive and violent behavior.
David insists that Nic go to rehab, but Nic refuses. Nic then disappears once again later in the spring. David feels helpless and out of control with Nic gone. Nic returns to the house a week later, an unrecognizable ghost of his former self. David searches for a rehab program, telling Nic that if he wants to live in the house or have help paying for college, he must go to rehab. Nic is angry and resistant but agrees to go to Ohlhoff Recovery in San Francisco. Nic spends a month there; at the end of Nic’s time, he asks to work and be independent rather than return to college. He moves into the halfway house at the center, but three days later, he disappears again.
Each time Nic disappears, David goes through the same steps: he calls hospitals and the police and speaks to Jasper and Daisy to try to get them to understand what Nic is going through. He even drives around San Francisco, hoping to spot Nic somewhere. After a few days, David hears from Nic, who says that he has been sober for five days but is obviously lying. When David picks Nic up, he looks terrible and has a gash on his forehead. David enrolls Nic in a program at Saint Helena Hospital in Napa Valley, threatening Nic with the choice of rehab or the streets. Nic agrees to try rehab again.
At Saint Helena, David and Karen attend family sessions. In one, a lecturer talks about the disease model of addiction, which argues that addiction is a disease like any other. There is a genetic predisposition for addiction—though addicts are responsible for their recovery and getting themselves necessary treatment, they did not cause their disease. David and Karen also go to group sessions with Nic to hear others’ stories about battling addiction. Afterward, Nic blurts out how sorry he is for everything.
Nic completes the program and asks to go back to college. In the fall, he sets off for Hampshire College in Massachusetts, agreeing to find a 12-step meeting there and to work with a sponsor. After a month, however, Nic uses again—but he quickly stops himself from experiencing a full-blown relapse. He completes the spring semester and returns home. But a few days after his return, he admits that he was using the whole spring semester. He steals eight-year-old Jasper’s $8 worth of savings and disappears.
David and Karen continue to go to meetings, and David blames himself for what is happening, worried that the divorce or talking to Nic about his own drug use contributed to Nic’s addiction. Nic turns up at Karen’s parents, Nancy and Don’s, house, sleeping under a pile of blankets and high—but then he disappears again. A few nights later, Nic returns home to search for something in his room, but David is unable to make him stay. The following day is Nic’s 20th birthday. In the ensuing days, every time the phone rings, David’s stomach lurches. He is anxious and incapable of sleep.
Nic tries to ask Vicki for money, but David tells her to refuse. Vicki persuades Nic to have dinner with family friends, and they suggest staying with them in New York while detoxes. Nic agrees and moves into an apartment in Brooklyn while seeing a psychiatrist, who gives him medication to help stay off drugs. Around this time, David discovers that Nic has been forging checks from David’s account. Soon after, David learns that Nic has been rushed to the emergency room; he is in critical condition and on life support. Luckily, he recovers, and David helps him check into Hazelden, another rehabilitation program in New York. After this program, Nic moves back to LA and works with a new AA sponsor named Randy. Nic turns 21 in June, and in September, Nic celebrates a year of sobriety.
Six months later, however, Nic stops returning David’s calls, and David soon discovers that no one has seen him in days. Vicki calls Z., Nic’s girlfriend, who says that Nic called her high from San Francisco. David is both frantic and exhausted trying to track Nic down. Nic is gone for weeks, and David and Karen discover one day that Nic had broken into their home and the home of family friends. Three days later, Nic calls David, who suggests that Nic go back to LA and call Randy. Nic agrees, and David hopes that this nightmare might end. He tries to figure out how to stop constantly worrying, knowing that it is debilitating.
Two months pass, and David visits Nic in LA. Nic apologizes again, and David is again cautiously optimistic, hoping that Nic can stay in recovery. Nic also writes a letter to Jasper, telling him that he wants to be there for him and returning the $8 that he stole.
In February 2005, David writes an article for The New York Times Magazine about his family’s story. Encouraged by feedback, he and Nic both start writing books about their experiences. Then, in June, David suffers a cerebral hemorrhage. He spends over a week in the hospital and can’t remember his own name, but he still worries incessantly about Nic. He slowly recovers and has a revelation: that his children will live with or without him. His incessant worry does not help Nic and only hurts David and the rest of his family.
At the end of that summer, Nic calls David, high once again after having made it almost two years in recovery. David tries to let go, simply praying for Nic to heal. Nic spends weeks getting high with Z., asking for money and lying about where he is. Nic tries to break into Vicki’s garage and pile things into shopping bags, but he accidentally locks himself inside. With prompting from Vicki and David, he agrees to try rehab again.
Nic goes to one more program in Santa Fe. David and Vicki visit him for a weekend; it is the first time that they have been in the same room for more than five minutes since their divorce. They attend group sessions together, and Nic shares in one session that he is trying to heal, not make excuses or blame others for what he is responsible for. David thinks that it is a miracle that he and Vicki are there together and wonders if it’s too much to ask for another miracle: for Nic to stay well.
David finishes his story with advice to others: to talk to kids early and often about drugs, to go to Al-Anon meetings, and to err on the side of caution in knowing whether kids are experimenting. He tells family members to be patient with themselves and not to blame themselves for what is happening. David also speaks about the necessity of reform when it comes to drug policies in the U.S., calling for more funding for research and treatments. He also writes about the importance of removing the stigma of addiction as a moral failing, handling it instead as a disease that needs to be treated.
