Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

David Sheff

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Jan 6, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 340 pages

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 journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. 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, stole, and lived on the streets. David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3 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 is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.

What people are saying

Review: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

User Review  - Terri - Goodreads

Everything. That is what I felt as I read David Sheff's "Beautiful Boy." Joy, anger, hope, pride, frustration, despair, guilt, grief...all of it. David Sheff's son, Nic, penned "Tweak," which is ...

Review: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

User Review  - Sara - Goodreads

I couldn't finish this while I was working as a substance abuse counselor, because it kept reminding me of me of a family I was working with. The parents were not taking any of the same steps as Sheff ...

About the author

DAVID SHEFF's books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying. His many articles and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Wired, Fortune, and elsewhere. His piece for the New York Times Magazine, “My Addicted Son,” won an award from the American Psychological Association for “Outstanding Contribution to Advancing the Understanding of Addiction.” Sheff and his family live in Inverness, California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
• Author: David Sheff
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009
• ISBN: 0547203888, 9780547203881
• Length: 340 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs; Family & Relationships / Family Relationships; Psychology / Psychopathology / Addiction; Self-Help / Substance Abuse & Addictions / Drug Dependence