Beautiful Boy

by David Sheff

  "What about hard drugs?" I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer. "When did you start?"

  "Remember when [he names the boys and his girlfriend] and I left after the barbecue the night I graduated from high school?" He is sitting with his elbows on the table. "There was ecstasy at the party we went to. I took some. I was flying. I felt so close to everyone, going through these long, meaningful goodbyes. After that I took whatever I could find—E, LSD, mushrooms, and then..." He looks up. "Then crystal. When I tried it, I felt—I felt better than ever before in my life."

  Once again, we gather in the large conference room, patients and family members, for the afternoon group session. More chairs are brought out from a closet to accommodate fifty or so people; the circle stretches into a long, meandering oval that touches the walls. A counselor leads the session, which starts, as usual, with introductions around the room—a room full of resentment and sadness and rage.

  "I cannot think of anything other than my daughter. I cannot let go of it. I dream about it. What can I do? This has taken over my life. People tell me to let it go, but how does one let go of their daughter?" The speaker cries and cries. Her daughter sits next to her, stone-faced.

  When it is his turn, Nic says, "I'm Nic, and I'm an addict and alcoholic."

  I have heard him say it before at other sessions, here and in San Francisco and at a couple AA meetings I attended with him, and yet still it jars me. My son the addict and alcoholic. It fills me with a certain pride to hear him admit something that must be extremely difficult to admit. But does he really believe it? I don't. Not really.

  Compared to those who gathered at the old Victorian in San Francisco, the crowd at St. Helena is better dressed, though an aged woman appears as if she could have been, hours ago, a derelict on the street. The group therapy begins with patients and their families sharing stories, sometimes commenting on one another's progress. The aged woman shocks me. In a gravelly voice, she explains, "I have a master's degree. I'm a teacher. A good one, I think." She stops and stares vacantly ahead for a moment. "I was a good one. Before speed."

  Like me, the addicts' relatives all seem simultaneously hopeless and hopeful.

  Sometimes the pain in the room is nearly unbearable. Without respite, we hear, see, and most of all feel with heart-tearing jabs the bleakness of the lives of people whose loved ones have become addicted to meth, though the "drug of choice" hardly matters. Meth, heroin, morphine, Klonopin, cocaine, crack, Valium, Vicodin, alcohol, and, for most, combinations of all of these. The people in the circle are different, yet we are all the same. We all have gaping wounds.

  Nic's friend Stephen speaks. He describes his lifelong "dance" with alcohol—he was ten when he got drunk for the first time. His wife cries continuously.

  "We love you so much," she says to Stephen when it is her turn, "but I have heard your remorse before. I have heard your promises. I can't live this way."

  James's wife speaks about how he has plummeted from "the person I respected most in the entire world, my soul mate," to someone consumed with pills at the expense of everything else. "He went from being the kindest, gentlest—"

  The counselor, in a quiet, even voice, interrupts. "Try addressing him directly," she says. "Talk to your husband."

  Looking into James's eyes, trembling, she continues: "You went from being the kindest, gentlest man I had ever known in my life to a stranger, yelling at me, listless, depressed, unkind, and unable to share any kind of openness and intimacy. I keep asking myself..."

  She begins to cry.

  And then another, and another. They tell their stories, address their loved ones, apologize, rail at them, and weep. Our similarities are profound. To varying degrees, we have spent years accepting and rationalizing behavior in our loved ones that we would never tolerate in anyone else. We have protected them and hidden their addiction. We resented them and felt guilty for it. We have been furious and have felt guilty for it. We vowed not to take their cruelty or deceitfulness or selfishness or irresponsibility any longer and then we forgave them. We raged at them, often inwardly. We blamed ourselves. We worried—worried incessantly—that they would kill themselves.

  Every addict's story has similar themes, too—remorse, out-of-control fury, directed most often at themselves—and a sense of helplessness. "Do you think I want to be this way?" a man screams into the face of his shaking wife. "Do you? Do you? I HATE MYSELF." Both of them cry and cry and cry.

  "I'm so proud of him for being here," a woman says of her heroin-addicted husband. "But what happens next? I am terrified." An elderly woman whose sister, a lawyer, is addicted to meth, says, "I no longer give her money, but I buy her food and drive her to the doctor and pay for her medications." She adds, "She is incapable of making it across the apartment to the refrigerator." The therapist gently prods her. "She is capable of scoring drugs but she can't make it to the refrigerator?"

  Then another parent interrupts. "I felt the same way about my son until I realized that he couldn't get to school or work or a therapy appointment but he could get to pawn shops, get to his dealers, get whatever drug he wanted, get alcohol, break into houses, get needles—whatever was required. It's a fairly sophisticated process to cook a batch of methamphetamine, but I felt so sorry for him, thinking, He's depressed. He's fragile. He's incapable. Of course I should pay his bill if he winds up in the hospital. Of course I should pay his rent or he'll be on the streets. So for about a year I paid for a comfortable place for him to get high."

  A handsome woman with auburn hair cut short, wearing a silk blouse, cardigan, and wool pants, says that she is a doctor. Deeply sad, she admits that for more than a year she conducted surgeries while high on meth. She initially tried it at a party. "I felt better than I had ever felt before in my life," she says. "I felt as if I could do anything. I never ever wanted to lose that feeling."

  She shakes her head. "And you know the rest of the story. I snorted so I could work all night. I snorted when I wasn't working. I knew I had a problem," she continues, "but I'm only here because a colleague threatened to report me if I didn't voluntarily deal with my addiction."

  Another patient berates her. "You performed surgery while you were high! You should be reported. You could have killed someone."

  The counselor turns to this patient and, without raising her voice, says, "Didn't you say that you had a DUI and you fell asleep at the wheel? You could easily have killed someone, too."

  Some stories are beyond my comprehension. A small, jittery woman who almost disappears inside her bulky sweater and sweatpants remembers her son's last birthday. "I was on crack," she recalls. "I left home, left my son, left him with my husband. For crack. He's three."

  A woman with pale skin, limp blond hair, and misty golden eyes tells the group that a judge sent her husband to this program as an alternative to jail. Her husband, a GI with buzzed hair and a short-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the collar, sits rigidly on her right. He stares blankly ahead.

  She says that, high on meth, he attacked her, banged her head against the floor. She managed to dial 911 before she blacked out. Later, when it is his turn to speak, he thanks God that the court allowed him to try rehab instead of jail. "I still cannot believe that I attacked my wife, who I love more than my life," he says. "But now I understand my problem. I'm graduating next week and I'm looking forward to coming home and beginning a new life."

  His wife will not meet his eyes. She looks horror-struck.

  There is a coffee break.

  Sitting in the cafeteria, Nic, indicating the woman's husband with a flash of his eyes, tells Karen and me that the wife would be safer if he were locked up. "He is one scary motherfucker," Nic tells us.

  The meeting resumes. More heartbreaking stories, more tears.

  At the conclusion of each session, the counselor always asks if anyone has anything to say before the group adjourns. Family members often say how proud they are of their loved one and how much better he or she seems. Fellow patients so
metimes cheer on the session's sharers. This day, in the room of fifty or more people crowded together in chairs around the snaking oval, Nic speaks up. He directs his words to the GI who had attacked his wife.

  "I'm sorry, but I have to say something to you, Kevin, because as you said, you're supposed to get out of here next week." Nic stares across the room at him. "I've been in groups with you since I've been here, and though everyone else seems sincere and open, genuinely trying to learn about their addiction, there has been no indication that you get what this is about. The program requires humbleness, and you are arrogant. It doesn't seem that you really understand and admit that you're powerless over your addiction. You constantly interrupt people. You talk a lot, but you don't listen."

  Then Nic looks at the man's wife. Her wide-open eyes pour tears. She trembles like a terrified animal.

  Nic speaks to her. "I'm saying this for you, because I'm worried that Kevin needs more time before he goes home. I don't want anything to happen to you."

  No one, not even the counselor, says a word. The man looks as if he might lunge across the circle at Nic. Then he and the rest of us stare at his wife, who is gasping for breath between guttural sobs. Through her tears, she finally speaks up, steeling herself, sitting taller, addressing Nic. "Thank you," she says. "I know. I don't trust him." A woman next to her puts her arm around her shoulder.

  She turns toward her husband and speaks sharply, wildly, into his face: "If you ever touch me or the children again—"

  She cannot finish her sentence. Her sobs erupt from her roars.

  The man looks at his wife. The expression on his face is not one of remorse or love or sorrow. He appears wounded and embarrassed and enraged. He sits erect, his eyes darting around the room.

  Finally the counselor speaks, ending the session. She thanks everyone who shared, and she adjourns us. Kevin's wife makes a startling beeline across the circle and, still sobbing, hugs Nic, thanking him.

  Her husband, immobile in his chair, glares malevolently across the room.

  As we leave, Karen whispers to Nic, "Watch your back."

  14

  In the program, patients keep journals, and Nic shares an entry with us: "How the hell did I get here? It doesn't seem that I long ago that I was on the goddamn water-polo team. I was an I editor of the school newspaper, acting in the spring play, obsessing about which girls I liked, talking Marx and Dostoyevsky with my classmates. The kids in my class are in college. This isn't so much sad as baffling. At the time it all seemed so positive and harmless."

  It is Nic's third weekend at the hospital, and I am here for another family visit. After the group session in the morning, Nic, on a day pass, will visit the inn where we are staying.

  Nic is open and emotional, even expressing his gratitude for the chance to go through this program. He seems sincere. Next he broaches a new subject. He wants to know if college is still an option. He knows that he has made enormous mistakes, but he will do anything if he can still go to Hampshire. He is excited about the school. Because he understands his drug problem, he promises to attend AA meetings regularly and to work with a sponsor. He has been told that many colleges have substance-free dormitories, and he will request one. He understands that relapse will mean that I will follow through on my threat and withdraw my support and he will be out of college and on his own.

  In the car, as we drive to the inn to meet Karen, Jasper, and Daisy, Nic tells me what made him change his mind. Others in his group therapy sessions heard that his parents were willing to send him to college and they ganged up on him. The general consensus was summed up by a man whose drinking and drug addiction had estranged him from his parents and siblings. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" he howled at Nic. "You have parents? They love you? They are still willing to send you to college? Go to college. Don't be a fucking idiot. I would do anything for a chance to go to college."

  I think over Nic's request. "Karen and I will talk about it," I say. "I'll talk to your mom. We'll have to make our agreement clear. I think it might work if you really want it and think you can pull it off." I still fantasize that everything can be fine. Nic will stay sober. He understands his problem. Thank God he hasn't done more damage to his life—to his body and brain—to his options for the future. He can still go to college, get a degree, a good job, have a loving relationship .. . Everything will be all right.

  I drive to the inn, a rundown resort with grapevines, a cracked swimming pool, cracked tennis courts, and old horses wandering through the property. Nic is nervous when I drive through the gate. This will be his first visit with Jasper and Daisy since he entered Ohlhoff nearly three months ago.

  Nic is elated at seeing Jasper and Daisy and, in spite of their initial reluctance—the last time they saw Nic he was coming down from his high and depressed, angrily leaving for Ohlhoff—they are happy to see him. He plays with them in the icy-cold water and they bat tennis balls back and forth. I sit at a picnic bench under a grape arbor and watch as Karen joins them and the foursome play croquet. As they knock the balls around, Nic asks the kids about school and their friends, and he tells stories about a cat that lives on the hospital grounds. When it is time for me to take Nic back to the hospital, Jasper and Daisy seem perplexed. We continually do our best to explain what is going on with Nic, but in their eyes he seems fine. They don't know why he can't come home with us.

  On our way back to St. Helena, Nic tells me about two other events of the week. The first is disheartening. Stephen left the program—simply and unceremoniously left one midafternoon, walking down the long road that leads from the hospital to Calistoga. Later the patients learned that he immediately relapsed at a bar. Nic was saddened but not completely surprised. "On the surface, he seemed committed to staying sober," he says. "He knew that he risked losing his wife and that gorgeous baby. But he never took it that seriously. He blamed his wife for their problems. Blamed his parents. Blamed everyone but himself. He never got it."

  His other news is harder to believe. Whenever someone completes the twenty-eight-day program, a goodbye ceremony is held among the patients. The graduate asks another patient to "stand up" and speak for him or her, sending the graduate out into the world. These ceremonies are designed to embolden the graduate and inspire newcomers.

  The morning Kevin, the GI, was to graduate, he had approached Nic. "You are a brave fucker," he said. "I have to give you that." Then, shocking Nic, he asked him to stand up for him at his departing ceremony. "I respect you," the man said. "I've been watching you and know that of all of us, you're the one who is going to make it. You're young enough not to have fucked up your life too bad. You have a loving family. And you are so damn smart. I want to make it more than anything I have ever done. I'm going to prove that you're wrong. I'm going to make it."

  Nic agreed. "So I stood up for him," he says. "I said that I hope and pray that he makes it—that he works his program. I said, 'I hope so for you and for your wife and children.' Later I watched them leave—he and his wife. They both gave me hugs. They were holding hands when they walked away."

  I am nervous a week later when, following Nic's own graduation, I pick him up. The car windows are down, the air is warm. Nic speaks brightly about the future. His optimism comes through not only in his lucidity, but in the way he holds his body, confident and strong, and in his eyes, which are once again filled with light. He says that he is committed to staying away from drugs. I share his hopefulness, but I know that sobriety is far easier in the safe, structured environment of a rehab program, and so mine is a tentative hope. I need to believe that everything is going to be all right and at the same time I am unable to accept that it will be.

  Things are easier at home, though there is occasional tension. I worry when Nic leaves the house for AA meetings. I worry when he seems distracted or down. I worry when, in August, it is time for him to head off to college, this time three thousand miles away.

  Hampshire College is on a former apple orchard that retains the fe
eling of a farm. The college offers an impressive, stimulating liberal arts program and hundreds of majors and courses. If those aren't enough, Hampshire is part of a five-college consortium, which includes the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Smith, and Mount Holyoke. Nic can pick and choose from the courses offered at the other campuses. A shuttle bus connects them.

  Karen and I fly east with Nic to help him settle in and get ready for freshman orientation. We eat at the Indian restaurant Nic and I discovered when we took the college tour more than a year ago.

  "Turn right at the light," Nic yells. "Right, right, right!"

  In the morning, we drive to campus. It is warm and sunny. Families are busy dropping their children off at their respective dormitories in vans, station wagons, and, in one case, a limousine loaded with suitcases, trunks, a stereo system, a drum set, and several computers.

  Nic's room in the sober-living dormitory is small but comfortable. After dropping off his suitcases, we follow posted signs to the center of campus for the welcoming barbecue. Karen and I survey the incoming freshmen for potential drug dealers.

  At the end of the meal, various deans speak to the assembled families. Afterward, I seek out the dean of students and ask her about drugs on campus, explaining that my son has recently been through two rounds of rehab. She admits that marijuana is rampant, but correctly notes the obvious. "Drugs pervade every college campus in America, and every city, so a young adult must learn to live among them."

  She directs me to the head of the college's health services, who writes down her name and telephone number and says that she will help Nic in any way she can. She'll guide him to twelve-step meetings and introduce him to other students in recovery. "He's not the only one," she says. "There is a lot of support for people who want it."