Welcome
Beautiful Boy author encourages parents to talk with teens about drug use
David and Nic Sheff
Journalist David Sheff is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey through His Son’s Addiction. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, Sheff’s account of his son’s addiction, treatment, relapse and hard-won recovery speaks to every parent’s greatest fears and hopes for their children.
During his son, Nic’s, growing up years, Sheff says he talked with him several times about drug use and abuse, just as the experts had recommended. When Nic was 12, Sheff discovered marijuana in his son’s school backpack. He met with Nic’s teacher who dismissed the incident as normal kid stuff and assured Sheff that Nic was otherwise a great kid. That conversation, along with Nic’s promise not to try marijuana ever again, granted Sheff permission to be in denial about the situation that was just beginning to unfold.
Sheff talked recently with Four Generations about his personal journey as the parent of a young person with addiction, including his decision to let his son know about his own, earlier experiences with drug use.
Nic Sheff has written his own candid and harrowing first-person account of addiction and recovery: Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.