Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

by David Sheff

  But I'm not certain if the wistful recollections of those times are justified. The news in our neighborhood traveled by way of our mothers' hushed voices. Charles Manson and 50-percent-off sales and fad diets were favorite topics on the sidewalk, at Tupperware parties and mahjong games, and in the beauty shop where my mother got her hair frosted. They whispered when a ten-year-old child who lived on our block hanged himself. Then a girl who lived two doors down was killed in a car accident. The driver, an older boy, was high on drugs.

  The proximity to Mexico meant that drugs were abundant and cheap. Geography, however, probably didn't make a lot of difference. A smorgasbord of previously unknown or unavailable drugs flooded our school and our neighborhood, as they have flooded America since the mid-1960s.

  Marijuana was most prevalent. Kids hung out by the bike rack after school selling single joints for fifty cents and ounce bags for ten dollars. They offered hits of their joints in the bathroom and while walking to and from our high school. One of my friends sought it out and, after smoking it, told a group of us about it. He said that he asked a boy we all knew was a stoner for marijuana and smoked the joint in the backyard of his parents' house, coughed a lot, felt nothing, and then went inside and ate a box of Chips Ahoy cookies. He began smoking almost every day.

  A year or so later a boy on our block asked if I wanted to smoke a joint. It was 1968 and I was a high school freshman. It didn't do much for me, but neither did it cause me to hallucinate or to try to fly off the roof of our house, like Art Linkletter's daughter supposedly did when she tried LSD. That is, it seemed harmless, and so I didn't think twice about trying it again when I walked into another boy's house and his older brother passed me a glowing roach held by an alligator clip.

  Of course it wasn't articulated, but pot, with its outlaw cachet, was a passkey into a loosely defined social circle. To be inside was a relief after my lonely geekiness in junior high. I laughed easier and felt funnier with a stoned—that is, less discerning—audience. Here was a palliative for raging insecurity. I experienced every thing—music, nature—in a heightened, far more intense way, and was less shy around girls, a benefit that cannot be overstated for a boy of fourteen or fifteen. The world seemed at once obscured and more vivid. But even these probably weren't the main reasons I continued smoking. On top of the continuous peer pressure and the high, plus the sense of rebellion in lighting a joint, plus the camaraderie, and besides the ways that pot helped assuage my awkwardness and insecurity ... besides all this, marijuana helped me feel something when I felt almost nothing, helped me block out feelings when I felt too much. In precisely the way that pot made things both blurrier and more vibrant, it allowed me to feel more and to feel less.

  Nowadays people of my age often say that drugs were different then—less potent pot and purer psychedelics. This is true. Tests of marijuana have shown that there is twice as much THC, the active ingredient, in the average joint or pipeful today than in the weed of a decade ago, which itself was stronger than in the 1960s and 70s. There are frequent reports that psychedelics and ecstasy are laced with or even substituted by meth and other drugs or impurities, though back then we heard of kids snorting Drano in place of cocaine. One thing is undeniably different. A body of research has unequivocally shown a wide range of dangerous physical and psychological effects of drugs, including marijuana. We thought they were safe. They weren't. I know that some people look back on what they consider the good old days of "harmless" drug use. They survived intact, but many people did not. There were accidents, suicides, and overdoses. I still run into a shocking number of drug casualties from the 1960s and 70s who wander the streets, some of them homeless. Some rant about conspiracies. Apparently it's a trait common in drug addicts and alcoholics. "Whenever his liquor began to work he most always went for the government," said Huck Finn about his drunkard father.

  And so throughout Nic's childhood, ever since he was seven or eight, I talked to him about drugs. We spoke about them "early and often" in ways prescribed by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. I told him about people who were harmed or killed. I told him about my mistakes. I watched for the early warning signs of teenage alcoholism and drug abuse. (Number fifteen on one organization's list: "Is your child suddenly volunteering to clean up after cocktail parties, but forgetting his other chores?")

  When I was a child, my parents implored me to stay away from drugs. I dismissed them, because they didn't know what they were talking about. They were—still are—teetotalers. I, however, knew about drugs from first-hand experience. So when I warned Nic, I thought I might have some credibility.

  Many drug counselors tell parents of my generation to lie to our children about our past drug use. It's the same reason that it may backfire when famous athletes show up at school assemblies or on television and tell kids, "Man, don't do this shit, I almost died," and yet there they stand, diamonds, gold, multimillion-dollar salaries and cereal-box fame. The words: I barely survived. The message: I survived, thrived, and you can, too. Kids see that their parents turned out all right in spite of the drugs. So maybe I should have lied to Nic and kept my drug use hidden, but I didn't. He knew the truth. Meanwhile, our close relationship made me feel certain that I would know if he were exposed to them. I naively believed that if Nic were tempted to try them, he would tell me. I was wrong.

  We are still nearer the winter edge of spring on this cool and misty May afternoon, the scent of wood smoke in the air—a remnant of the afternoon fire. This time of year the sun falls early behind the ridge and poplars, and so, though it is only four o'clock, the yard is shrouded in shadow. Fog swirls at the boys' feet as they toss the ball back and forth. It is a desultory game; they appear to be more interested in their conversation, maybe about girls or bands or the rancher who shot a rabid dog in Point Reyes Station yesterday.

  The boy with Nic is muscular, a weightlifter who shows off his pumped-up chest and biceps in a tight T-shirt. Nic wears an over-large gray cardigan—mine. With his stringy hair and world-weary visage and languor, anyone else would guess he'd go on to smoke pot, at least. Yet in spite of his costume, and in spite of his variable moods—his increasing ennui and hunched surliness—and in spite of his new crowd that includes the school's tough, phlegmatic boys, when I look at Nic I see youthfulness and vitality, playfulness and innocence. A child. And so I am utterly bewildered by the tightly wound green buds of marijuana that I hold in my hand.

  Karen sits on the living room couch, bent over her journal, drawing with India ink. Jasper is asleep near her on the couch, lying on his back with his hands clenched in tiny fists.

  When I approach her, Karen looks up.

  I show her the marijuana.

  "What is that? Where did you...?"

  And then: "What? Is it Nic's?" It is half a question. She knows.

  As usual, I manage my panic by trying to forestall hers. "It will be all right. It was bound to happen at some point. We'll deal with it."

  Standing on the deck, I call to the boys. They come over, Nic palming the ball, breathing hard.

  "I have to talk to you."

  They look at my outstretched hand holding the marijuana.

  "Oh," Nic says. He stiffens a little, waiting, docile. Moondog comes up to Nic and nuzzles his leg. Nic is not one to fight back in the face of hard evidence. He tentatively glances up at me, his scared eyes large, trying to evaluate how much trouble he's in.

  "Come inside."

  Karen and I stand facing the boys. I look to her for guidance, but she is as uncertain as I am. I am shaken not only by the discovery that Nic is smoking pot, but by the even more perplexing fact that I had no idea.

  "How long have you been smoking this stuff ?"

  The cornered boys look at each other. "It's the first time we bought it," Nic says. "We tried it one other time."

  I think: Do I trust him? This too is a radically confounding proposition, one that has never crossed my mind. Of course I trust him. He wouldn't lie to me. Would he li
e? I know parents whose children are in constant trouble at school and at home. The most disconcerting part is the dishonesty.

  "Tell me exactly what happened."

  I look at his friend, who hasn't said a word. He stares at the floor. Nic answers for them both: "Everyone does it."

  "Everyone?"

  "Almost everyone."

  Nic's eyes aim at the long fingers of his boyish hands, which are spread out wide on the table. He closes them and stuffs his fists into his pockets.

  "Where did you get it?"

  "Just somebody. Some kid."

  "Who?"

  "It's not important."

  "Yes, it is."

  They tell us the boy's name. "We just wanted to see what it was like," Nic says.

  "And?"

  "It's no big deal."

  Nic's friend asks if I am going to call his parents. When I say yes, he begs me not to. "I'm sorry, but they need to know. I am going to call them and then I'll take you home."

  Nic asks, "What about the sleepover?"

  I glare at him. "We'll take him home and then you and I will talk."

  He is still looking down.

  The boy's father, when I call, thanks me for letting him know. He says that he is concerned but isn't entirely surprised. "We've gone through this with our older kids," he says. "I guess they all go through it. We'll talk to him." He resignedly adds, "We are so busy. We can't monitor him."

  When I call the mother of the boy who sold them the pot, she is livid, adamant that her son wasn't involved. She charges that Nic and the other boy are trying to get her son in trouble.

  When Nic and I are alone, he is contrite. He nods when I tell him that Karen and I have decided to ground him. "Yeah, I understand."

  Our thinking went like this. We don't want to overreact, but even more, we don't want to underreact. We issue a punishment to show how seriously we take the breach of the rules of our household as well as our relationship. There are consequences for one's actions, and we hope that these are appropriately onerous. In addition, I am wary of his new crowd of friends. I understand that I can't choose his friends for him, and forbidding friends might only make them more attractive, but at least I can minimize the time he spends with them. The other part is simply that I want to watch him. To look at him. To try to fathom what is going on.

  "How long am I grounded?"

  "Let's see how things go over the next two weeks."

  We sit down on facing couches. Nic appears genuinely chastened. I ask, "What made you want to try pot? It wasn't very long ago that the idea of smoking anything—a cigarette, never mind marijuana—repulsed you. You and Thomas"—I mention one of his city friends—"used to get in trouble for throwing away his mother's cigarettes."

  "I don't know."

  Using the red pen that is lying on the coffee table, he begins to scribble crosshatched lines on the day's newspaper.

  "I guess I was curious." In a minute, he says: "I didn't like it anyway. It made me feel. I don't know. Weird." Then he adds, "You don't have to worry. I won't ever try it again."

  "What about other drugs? Have you tried any?"

  His incredulous look convinces me that he is telling the truth. "I know this was stupid," he says, "but I'm not that stupid."

  "How about alcohol? Have you been drinking?"

  He waits before answering. "We got drunk. Once. Me and Philip. It was on the ski trip."

  "The ski trip? To Lake Tahoe?"

  He nods.

  I recall the midwinter long weekend before Jasper was born, when we rented a cabin at Alpine Meadows. We let Nic bring along Philip, a friend we like, a soft-spoken, easy-to-be-with boy. He is small, with hair combed down over his forehead. We are friends with his parents.

  We arrived in the mountains at night, just before a blizzard shut down the roads. In the morning, the pine trees were dusted white. Nic had skied before, but this time he and Philip decided to try snowboarding. As a surfer, Nic thought it would be easy to switch over. "You're carving snow instead of water," he had said. "They're both about balance and gravity." Maybe, but he spent most of the trip tumbling down the mountainside before he finally got it.

  Now I ask, "When did you have an opportunity to drink? Where did you get liquor?"

  His body rocks back and forth on the couch. "One night you and Karen went to sleep early," he says. "We were hanging out by the fire watching TV. We got bored and wanted to play cards, but I couldn't find any. I went around looking and found the liquor cabinet. We got glasses and poured in some of everything—only a little of each so no one would be able to tell. Rum, bourbon, gin, sake, tequila, vermouth, Scotch, some weird-ass green shit, crème de something." He pauses and says, "We drank it all. It was gross, but we wanted to see what it was like to get good and drunk."

  I remember the night. Karen and I had been awakened by the sounds of the two of them throwing up. Simultaneously, in the two downstairs bathrooms. We went to check on them. They were sick throughout the night. We thought they had the flu.

  In the morning, we called Philip's mother. "Yes, the flu is going around," she agreed. The boys were ill the next day on the long, windy drive home down from the Sierra. One time we couldn't make it to the shoulder of the road quickly enough, and Philip threw up out the car window.

  "That was the only time. I haven't touched anything since. It makes me sick to think about it."

  His reasonableness is disarming, but I take in this information like a punch in the gut, reeling as much from the deception as the drunkenness. And yet at the same time I appreciate Nic's candor. I think, At least he's coming clean.

  Then he says: "If it's any comfort to you, I hate all this. I'm not making an excuse, but"—after a moment—"it's hard."

  "What's hard?"

  "It's hard. I don't know. Everybody drinks. Everybody smokes." I think about his beloved Salinger, from the mouth of Franny: "I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody."

  On Monday, I call his teacher and tell him what happened. He sets up a conference with Karen and me for after school. We meet with him in his vacated classroom, the three of us sitting at students' desks.

  The teacher has given me one of Nic's binders of work—mathematics, geography, literature. Nic has covered a page with ballpoint graffiti, a buxom, big-eyed girl, hollow-eyed men, and blocky initials. In style and content, these drawings contrast sharply with the chalk mural of a scene from the Middle Ages meticulously shaded over the entire green board along the front of the classroom. The students' expressive self-portraits are pinned up on another wall. I easily pick out Nic's: harshly drawn, more of a cartoon, it is a boy with a wild smile and big, wide-open eyes.

  The teacher is built like Ichabod Crane, with receding, flyaway auburn hair and a crooked nose. Bending forward on the small chair, he pages through Nic's folder in front of him. "He's doing fine in his schoolwork," he says. "He's doing quite well. I'm sure you know. He's a leader in the class. He gets other kids—some who wouldn't necessarily be engaged—he gets them excited about contributing to the discussion."

  "But what about the marijuana?" Karen asks.

  The teacher, way too large for the student's chair into which he is folded, leans uncomfortably on his elbows. "I have noticed that Nic is being pulled by the students who the others see as cool," he says. "They're the ones who sneak cigarettes and—I'm only guessing—probably smoke pot. They may. But I don't think you have to be overly concerned. It's normal. Most kids try it."

  "But," I say, "Nic is only twelve."

  "Yes." The teacher sighs. "That's when they try it. There's only so much we can do. It's a force out there. The children have to figure it out sooner or later. Often sooner."

  When we ask for his advice, he says: "Talk to him about it. I will, too. If it's all right with you, we'll talk about it in class. We won't mention any names." Whether out of guilt or resignation, he repeats, "There's only so much we can do. If we work together—the school, the families—then maybe."
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  "Would you forbid him from playing with...?" I name the boys. "They don't seem to be a very good influence."

  The leaves of a tree outside the window flicker in the afternoon sun as the teacher mulls the question. "I would encourage healthier friendships, yes," he says, "but I'm not sure how far you'll get by forbidding him. From what I've seen in the past, when you forbid children, they usually sneak what they want. Steering them works better than forcing them. You can try."

  He recommends a book about teenagers and he promises to keep in close touch.

  It is breezy outside. The schoolyard is abandoned except for Nic, who is waiting for us. He sits on a tiny swing in the kindergarteners' playground, his long legs bent underneath him.

  Alone in our bedroom, Karen and I talk it over, sorting out our puzzlement and worry. What am I worried about? I know that marijuana can become a habit and Nic could be sidetracked from his schoolwork. I worry that he could go on to try other drugs. I warn Nic about pot. "It really can—often does—lead to hard drugs," I say. He probably doesn't believe me, just like I didn't believe the adults who said it when I was young. But in spite of a myth perpetrated by my generation, the first to use drugs en masse, marijuana is the gateway drug. Almost everyone I know who smoked pot in high school tried other drugs. Conversely, I never met anyone who used hard drugs who didn't start with pot.

  I begin to second-guess each of my past decisions, including our move to the country. I have never fantasized that any American suburb or exurb or country town, no matter how remote, is far enough away to be untouched by the perils most often associated with inner cities, but I thought that towns like Inverness must be safer than the Tenderloin. Now I'm not sure. I wonder if we should ever have moved out of San Francisco. Moving probably was irrelevant; this would have happened wherever we lived.