I'm walking my dog Libby and listening to an audiobook of Nic Sheff's Tweak. The sidewalk is so slushy and the air is so chill and the narrator's voice is just talking slowly, slowly, slowly. Nic got himself pretty messed up on crystal meth, and heroin, and crack and whatever. I look at the sun stuck on the horizon and I can imagine I'm in Nic's brown aired LA. Suddenly I can't tell if the sun is bleeding into dusk or crashing into dawn, but either way it's shattering the light into little fragments that mix with the snow and puddles and stuff.
It's so goddamn beautiful that I'm just kind of stopped, staring at the sun. When my dog turns and looks at me with her big and knowing eyes, I realise that I'm crying for the first time since I don't know when. Just crying, crying, crying. I wipe snot on my sleeve and look straight back into Libby's eyes and say, "I think Nic's going to be okay this time."
She looks at me with such understanding, I think she agrees with me.
Smiling through the tears, I say, "Word."
With apologies to Nic Sheff, if the above sounds both a little sophomoric and overwritten, that's how his memoir comes off to me. On the other hand, he was basically still a kid when he wrote it, and if he was experimenting and falling in love with the sound of his written voice, then more power to this damaged soul who was learning to love himself for the first time in his life.
After reading Beautiful Boy A Father's Journey through His Son's Meth Addiction, an account of Nic's drug addiction from the point of view of his father, David Sheff, I was fascinated to hear many of the same stories from Nic's point of view. While David was frantic with worry when his son disappeared, obviously relapsed into drug use, here Nic fills in the blanks and tells us the gritty truth about what drugs he was using, what he had to do to acquire those drugs, and who he was consorting with at the time.
My main interest in these two stories is as a parent of teenagers, and as I said in my review of Beautiful Boy, the superaddictive drugs like Nic was using are of particular concern-- even now I'm left without any real clues about how to positively prevent one of my girls from ending up just like he did. It seems like such a crapshoot-- unless you're on a deserted island, kids will likely experiment with soft drugs, some of them will try harder drugs, and some of them will become hopelessly addicted, living on and off the street, in and out of rehab, struggling with sobriety for the rest of their lives. So I'm looking for clues and can't help but compare these two books.
In Beautiful Boy, David Sheff says that Nic appeared to adjust well enough to his parents' divorce at a young age and spent his childhood as bright and engaged, going on to become a Varsity athlete, an Honour Student and an award-winning writer, even published in Newsweek while still in high school. Although Nic had been caught with pot at 12, his Dad understood about drug experimentation, having used just about everything himself at one point or another, and Nic was able to assure his Dad it was a one time thing. David was eventually stunned to discover that his bright and shiny golden boy was a meth addict who barely finished high school. The whole story seems like it could happen in any family at any time and there's little to be done to prevent it.
In Tweak, Nic Sheff says that his parents' divorce was devastating and he spent his youth shuttling back and forth between two homes, neither of which he felt he belonged to. When he was with his Mom, her second husband would be demanding and abusive, often leading to frightening shouting matches with Nic's mother. When he was with his Dad, he would be brought along to Hollywood parties where his father would drink and do drugs with famous people, all of which seemed impressive and glamorous to Nic. When his Dad remarried and had a son and daughter, Nic felt removed, replaced. While no one was paying attention, Nic smoked pot throughout every day, starting at the age of 12, eventually progressing to more drugs, harder drugs. So could this particular story happen in any family at any time?
As a journalist, David Sheff's book came across as honest and open. It seemed like he has laid out all of the facts, taking blame for himself for the parts he could have done better as a father.
As a damaged yet aspiring writer, the parts that sound over-written in Nic's book seemed to take away from the plain facts truthfulness of his story-- yet I couldn't help noting that there's a lot more blame that could be apportioned to his Dad than David had been willing to claim.
So I am left to examine the clues, to see if anything from these memoirs can educate me, can keep my own kids from this pain. To the extent that I have been so educated, I am grateful to both of these writers for sharing their harrowing experiences and I wish them both futures full of peace and happiness.
