The Weight of Worry

               Panic. Dread. Fear. Terror. As I read through Beautiful Boy, by David Sheff, these feelings are constantly conveyed to the reader. Sheff repeats of his distressing journey with his son, Nic, who struggles with a drug addiction (particularly crystal meth) and his constant tries at relapse. Nic was once an intelligent and creative child whose grades were top-notch and who also participated in extracurricular activities in high school, such as the school paper or the swim team. Suddenly, to Sheff’s shock, Nic starts getting into trouble at school for drug use which ultimately leads to a cycle of further atrocities. His father, who feels like he had failed his child, looks up treatment centers, battling the influence of the drugs with his son. Refusing to quit on Nic, Sheff does everything in his will to let Nic let go of his addiction, even if the price is of the constant fear and worry.

As the story opens, it immediately places the reader into a scene that is so familiar to Sheff. Nic disappears, as he often does, to either buy drugs or use them, leaving Sheff and his family in terror. The constant thoughts of death, arrest, and hospitalization occur, putting a massive and familiar weight on their shoulders, hoping for the worst not to happen. Sheff then takes us through a timeline, from when Nic was born to now. He blames himself for Nic’s addiction, particularly placing it on the divorce from his wife as well as his own experience with drugs. Throughout this journey, Sheff relays the feelings of shock, guilt, and failure he had correlated with his son and his addiction to drugs.

To be honest, the extent to which Sheff had gone through for his son is emotionally amazing. He had watched someone he had loved so much ruin himself with drugs and alcohol. What was an even greater effort to see was the fact that Sheff had not given up on his son, despite the continuous concern and the robberies that his own son had committed on his own family. No matter what his son had done, Sheff could always see his beautiful boy.