

In these different sessions he is continually told of the three Cs: you did not cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it. Throughout the memoir Sheff attends numerous Al-Anon Meetings and therapy sessions. Another theme throughout the memoir is Sheff wondering about how much he is to blame and what he could have done to prevent his son's addiction.

But in his mind he knows that a relapse can easily happen again and that it will be very difficult for Nic, his family, and himself. He hopes with all his heart that this will be the last time, and believes in him once again. By the end of the memoir Sheff tells us that Nic has been sober one year. He then relapsed once again and went into treatment.

The longest stretch of sobriety Nic had, prior to his last relapse in the memoir, was almost two years. Nic attends many rehabs throughout the memoir, and even with those he relapses many times. Nic, then a senior in high school, steals money from his younger siblings and gets arrested for possession in front of them, leading Sheff to install a security system to prevent Nic from breaking in. Content īeautiful Boy covers a substantial portion of Nic's life and deals with the elder Sheff's struggles of how to respond to a son whom he loves but who is also a danger to his family. Son Nic Sheff's perspective was told in his own memoir Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines, published concurrently by an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The book grew out of the article "My Addicted Son" that Sheff had written for The New York Times Magazine in 2005. It was published by Houghton Mifflin on February 26, 2008. Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction is a memoir by David Sheff that describes how his family dealt with his son Nic's methamphetamine addiction.
