Beautiful Boy

"When Nic was growing up, I thought I would be content with whatever choices he made in his life... Now I live with the knowledge that, never mind the most modest definition o fnormal or healthy life, my son may not make it to twenty-one." What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff's harrowing journey through his son Nic's addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied repeatedly, stole money from his eight-year-old brother, and lived on the streets. David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the three A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the rehabs. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. Beautiful Boy grew out of an article in the New York Times Magazine that drew an overwhelming response from readers grateful that Sheff had finally given voice to the devastating experience they shared. As the psychologist Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia, said in praise of Beautiful Boy, "When one of us tells the truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our pain and that of others." -- Book Jacket.