Beautiful Boy

Sheff feels “numb” and wonders if he is becoming “a parent who has accepted defeat” (300). Nic leaves messages claiming, “‘We’re going to meetings. I’m getting sober’” (300) but “the longer he talks, the more it becomes obvious that his voice is the voice of Nic on something” (301). Nic “calls up slurring and asks for rent money” (301) but Sheff refuses as does Vicki.

A few days later, Sheff receives an email from Nic saying “hey pop, we’re in the desert. Z is doing a commercial, out by Joshua tree […] and I’m writing in the shade here” (302). He thinks, “A respite. An oasis. Maybe Nic will stop on his own. Maybe he’ll be OK” (302). Days later, Nic’s godfather calls to report that Nic is in Oakland: “‘he’s in trouble and needs help’” (304). Vicki receives a similar message from Nic explaining, “‘I lied about Joshua Tree because I didn’t want you to worry’” and that they are “at the home of a crack addict in Oakland who is out of his mind and they have to get out” (304). 

Sheff is “aberrantly calm as [he] think[s], If he is here, what might he do? Might he come to our house? What do I do if he does?” (304). Nic leaves messages with his godfather and Vicki reporting that “the girlfriend of the crack addict with whom they were staying showed up and gave Nic and Z. money to fly home” (305). Nic calls Sheff’s phone but he has “no desire to hear more lies” (305) and turns it off. Nic leaves a message claiming “‘we’re driving back from Joshua Tree and we’re finally in cell phone range’” (305). 

Sheff is “struck not just by the lie but by its intricacy” and the way he “thought through the original lie and built on it, bejeweling it with detail so that I would never question it” (305). He reflects that he is now aware of “the web of lies by addicts” (305). He wonders if Nic really assumes “that my dear friend would not call me if he was worried about Nic” or does not realize that Vicki “will of course call to check in with me to talk about what, if anything, we should do” (306).

Nic leaves Sheff a message saying, “‘I just found out that you know the truth of what happened’” and apologizes, claiming that he “just didn’t want to worry you” (307). Sheff notices some newspapers on the floor and thinks “Nic broke in again. I’m certain” (307). However, they turn out to have been left by Sheff’s friend who visited the previous weekend. Sheff reflects, “It’s not just the addict who becomes paranoid and crazy” (308). 

Sheff does not return Nic’s call “because I just can’t face talking to him now, not until he is sober” (308). He thinks that “Nic could die” and that he would miss him, but “here it sinks in: I don’t have it now. I have not had it whenever Nic has been on drugs” (310). He accepts that “I have been afraid—terrified—to lose Nic, but I have lost him” (310). He reflects, “I grieve, but I also continue to celebrate the part of him that is untouchable by meth or any other drugs” (311). 

Eventually, Nic calls again and leaves a message saying that “he and his girlfriend ‘brought things way too far’ and now plan to get sober” (315). Sheff does not believe him and waits for “Nic to hit some sort of bottom” (315) that will force him into recovery. However, he is “fearful knowing that Nic will remain in this deluded state until the next dramatic event” especially as “[b]efore many addicts hit bottom, they die” (315). 

He considers how parents “want only good things for their children” but that here he is a parent wishing “for a catastrophe to befall his son” (316). Moreover, it must be a catastrophe of the correct scale. It has to be “harsh enough to bring him to his knees, to humble him, but mild enough so that he can, with heroic effort and the good that I know is inside him, recover” (316).

Sheff and Vicki agonize over what to do, reflecting that “[t]here’s nothing to be done, we have to do everything we can do. We have done everything we can do, we have more to do” (317). Sheff knows he “can’t control it” and yet he “cannot let Nic go. Not yet. Soon? Not yet” (317). He tells himself that “[s]ince relapse is often part of recovery, Nic still may get it. Nic can still be OK” (317). He, Karen, and Vicki decide they will pay for rehab one more time if they “can get him to go. Again” (318). 

Sheff reflects that “I have let go if letting go means that I am all right sometimes. I leave the crisis behind for periods of each day” (319). He continues to consult experts and asks if staging an intervention is worth a try. He is surprised that a particular leading expert considers that some interventions can get addicts into rehab before they hit rock bottom. Sheff phones interventionists and considers their proposals. Nic calls claiming to have been sober for eleven days and Sheff wonders “Is it real? Will it last to twelve days?” (323). 

Nic calls again saying things are going well but Sheff “can tell that he is high” (324). Nic “insists that it’s the medication for getting off meth and coke and heroin” (324) and says, “‘I know that on these drugs I’m not ‘AA sober,’ but that’s bullshit anyway’” (325). Sheff says, “Call me when you’re AA sober […] We’ll talk then” (325). The next morning, Nic’s girlfriend sends an urgent message saying that Nic “left me at the market this morning to go to his moms” (325), taking her car with her purse and inhaler. She waited for four hours and he did not return.

Sheff calls Z. back and learns that Nic was planning “to break in and steal Vicki’s computer. She says it as if he were going over to borrow sugar” (326). Vicki reports that “‘[Nic] is in the garage. He broke in and was robbing us […] [but] got confused and somehow managed to lock himself inside. He’s panicked and crazed’” (327). She tells Nic that he can go back to rehab, or she will call the police and he can be arrested. 

Another expert advises to “get Nic out of LA and in an inpatient program that lasts for a minimum of three or four months, preferably longer” (328). After a lot of persuading, Nic agrees to go. However, the original rehab falls through so he goes to a hospital to detox. One nurse reports, “‘Given the quantity and variety of drugs in his system, it’s a miracle that he made it in. I don’t think his body could have survived another month’” (331). On the third day, Nic phones up and cries, asking “‘What is wrong with me? I feel as if my life has been stolen’” (333). Sheff gets him into a rehab in Santa Fe. 

Sheff, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy go to family therapy and the children slowly start to talk about their experiences with “a cautious sense of relief” (337). Together, they “talk about things that are undeniable and yet have never been adequately acknowledged” (337). They acknowledge that telephone calls cause Sheff to panic and that this affects the rest of the family. Sheff begins “to monitor my telephone use, shutting off the ringer in the evenings and on weekends. I make a plan to speak to Nic once a week. Small things” (339). 

Three weeks into rehab, Nic calls “blaming me for where he is” (339) and asking for a plane ticket home. He calls back the next day and apologizes for the day before and for everything else, saying that “he feels guiltier about it than he can say” (339). He explains that the rehab takes a different approach to recovery to other centers. To illustrate, he reports that the counselor asked him what his problem was and he replied “‘I’m a drug addict and alcoholic’” (340). The counselor replied that “‘No […] that’s how you have been treating your problem. What is your problem? Why are you here?’” (340).

In the new year, Sheff and Vicki visit Nic. Nic has been in rehab for two months but Sheff has not seen him since June. Sheff wonders “Why am I here? A weekend cannot undo these years of hell, a weekend cannot turn Nic’s life around” (341). However, he acknowledges that “a cautious and well-guarded place inside of me misses him like crazy, misses my son” (342). 

They attend group family therapy and Sheff thinks, “This is bullshit. I have been here and done this and it did no good whatsoever” (345). He is particularly unimpressed when they are instructed to do art therapy, considering that “I have been through too much to be sitting on the floor finger-painting with Nic and my ex-wife. I am raging inside” (345). Nevertheless, the art therapy and other activities open the family up. Sheff cries and begins to accept that this “is about healing, not blaming” (348). 

On the final day, they discuss the future, recognizing that it is “fraught with danger” (349). They note that Nic has hard tasks to do but that Sheff and Vicki’s tasks “are not inconsiderable” (350). They must “step back, be supportive, but let Nic’s recovery be his recovery as we work on disentangling and have healthy […] loving and supportive, but independent relationships” (350). 

On returning home, Sheff reflects that his cell phone is off, “a state formerly unthinkable” because, previously, “every call fed my growing obsession with the promise of reassurance that Nic was all right or confirmation that he was not” (351). He recognizes that “My addiction to his addiction has not served Nic or me or anyone around me. Nic’s addiction became far more compelling than the rest of my life” (351). He also recognizes that he is “open again, and as a consequence I feel the pain and joy of the past and worry about and hope for the future” (352). 

Nic completes “three months at Santa Fe” and his counselors suggest that he go to another program where “he would continue his work in recovery, plus get a job and volunteer” (353). He declines, insisting that “‘I have to get on with my life’” (353). Sheff remembers to disentangle and let him do what he wants to do. They do not “speak for a while” but now “we check in with each other fairly regularly” (354). He has a job and a new partner and “[a]s far as I know, he’s a year sober again” (354). Sheff does not deny the harsh reality of the situation but he “continue[s] to believe in him” (354). 

Sheff begins to address his own life, beginning twice-weekly therapy, and focusing on his own recovery rather than Nic’s. He learns that “at some point, focusing on Nic’s perpetual crisis became safer territory than focusing on myself” (356). It has helped. Sheff is also now “confident that I have done everything I could do to help Nic. Now it’s up to him” (357). He imagines that “Nic, too, may be relieved that I have stopped trying to take on his recovery” (357). 

Sheff now understands that “recovery is an ongoing process. [Nic] may have relapsed, but rehabs interrupted the cycles of using” (361), giving Nic a chance at life. Sheff is also “no longer preoccupied with Nic. This could change, but at the moment I accept and even appreciate that he is living his life his way” (362). He still hopes the Nic stays sober and that “our relationship continues to heal, knowing that this can happen only if and while he’s sober” (362). He is getting “better at taking it one day at a time” (363). 

Sheff receives photos from Nic’s girlfriend showing him smiling “a joyful smile” (365). The next day, he calls Nic “to say hi” and they “talk awhile” (365). He reflects that “he sounds like Nic, my son, back” and wonders “What’s next? We’ll see” (365).