Excerpt from Beautiful Boy

If you’re looking for some new reads, be sure to stop by this weekend for a round-up of freebies. I’ll have lots of good books for your Kindle.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.

Last week I read Beautiful Boy by David Sheff. This is a tough book, a memoir of his son Nic’s addiction too meth. If you have a family member with an addiction, you’ll find a friend in Sheff. He puts it all out there, the guilt, the worry and anxiety, imagining what might have happened to his son every time he disappeared. Sheff goes through the stages of not knowing, telling himself it wasn’t so bad, and then Nic’s rapid downward spiral and cycles of recovery and relapse.

As well as my quote from the book, I want to include one of the reviews on the book on Amazon.

Well, I’m addicted to methamphetamine. I’ve been in recovery for one year, 3 months, and 11 days. When I was released from jail one year ago, I decided to read Tweak. An old friend of mine read it while he was in juvie, that’s how I first heard about it. Tweak was relatable to me, and so was We All Fall Down. Nic Sheff is an amazing person, he had overcome a lot. He inspires me.

So when I found out that his father also wrote a book about his son’s addiction, I just had to have it. Let me tell you, Beautiful Boy tore me apart. I’ve only experienced life from the point of view of someone on meth. I thought I was being considerate, I always checked in with my family on a weekly basis. I was home at least twice a week. I worked full time, but still liked to go crazy with my friends. After reading this book (okay, while reading it) I cried and apologized to my parents, my grandparents, and my uncle for all the hell I had put them through. I honestly had no clue that I was hurting people so badly.

If you’re an addict, if you have a child that is an addict, even if you’re neither, READ THIS BOOK.

Jacqueline Gollnick, An addict’s point of view, *****

Okay, on to my teaser for the week.

“You’re right,” he says. He pushes past me. “I’ve been using since I came home. I was using the whole semester.” He leaves the house, slamming the door behind him.

David Sheff, Beautiful Boy

What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic 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 warning signs: the denial, the three a.m. phone calls—is it Nic? the police? the hospital? His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every treatment that might save his son. And he refused to give up on Nic.

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