The real-life father and son whose struggle with drug addiction inspired the film “Beautiful Boy” will be appearing at the Eccles Theater this Saturday, December 15th
The presentation, starting at 7:30 Saturday, features journalist David Sheff, who wrote about his son’s addiction, in the 2008 book “Beautiful Boy” along with son Nic who wrote his own perspective in the book “Tweak.”
In a KPCW interview, David said his son is now age 36 and has been sober for 8 years. He said they consider themselves very lucky, considering the 200-overdose-deaths a day occurring in the country.
David said their No. 1 message is that the problem has to be discussed.
“This is the problem that always because of the association that we make with drug use and addiction that people that use drugs are bad people. We don’t want to talk about it, we shame them, we think it’s about willpower. I want people to understand that’s not what it’s about. Addiction is a mental illness and people who become addicted are ill and they need our compassion and they also need treatment. They need the best medical treatment that we have to offer.”
The addict finds out that the danger of relapse is never left behind. He said son Nic found this out after his own memoir “Tweak” was published.
“I think he had been sober for about a year and a half when his book came out. Then he thought that his addiction was in the past and of course we learned very quickly that its not as easy as that. This is something that requires, in many cases, a lifetime of attention to. What Nic has talked about is that his stress had increased, he was at a situation one time where he was just at a party. He went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet which is what I guess people who are addicted do. He said that there was a bottle of Vicodin and he thought, oh I’ll just take a half, it’ll help me get through this party. So he took a half and then he went back to the bathroom later he took another half and eventually he took the bottle and his descent began again very quickly.”
He said Nic feels that with his own good fortune comes a responsibility.
“It comes with a responsibility to try to stay involved, try to connect with families, try to support people who are going through this and to try to offer suggestions for people when they need help. Nic spends a lot of time talking to kids in high school. I think it has a powerful impact because he is them and they are him. They can relate to him. It wasn’t that long ago when he was in high school. He understands how hard it is to be in high school and he understands the seduction of drugs and the way that drugs can appear to solve the problems of a teenager.”
He said Nic’s struggle went on for about ten years, during which David tried a seemingly-endless series of hoped-for remedies.
“Since he was about 25 years old, he must’ve gone into about six or seven residential programs. About the same number of outpatient programs. He saw therapists, he was in sober living houses, he saw psychiatrists. We did what people who are going through this do which is just the best we could. We didn’t know what we were doing. A lot of times we got really bad advice when I look back, I realize that some of the advice was dangerous actually and I sent Nic to programs that were appalling.”
Sheff said he firmly rejects the idea of “tough love” of letting the addict hit bottom.
“It’s the complete contradiction to what we know about addiction. When we know that addiction is a disease and it’s progressive—if it’s not being treated it gets worse—then we know that the last thing we want is somebody to hit bottom. We don’t want them to get worse. We want to catch them before they get worse because first of all it’s easier to treat, second of all there’s less damage to their bodies and their lives overall. Of course, every time somebody uses, they can relapse and die and overdose. I’ve got letters from parents who told me, as one dad sad, ‘they kept telling me over and over again to use tough love. Not to help him, to close the door and I finally did. He went out that night, he relapsed, he overdosed, and he died.’”
Sheff said he believes in unconditional love, in doing whatever you can for as long as you can. He said the struggle was overwhelming and difficult, but he made it through thanks to the support of his wife and two other children.
“I wasn’t going to give up and I feel like that’s the message that I would give to other people. Families going through this, yeah, it’s hell. It’s incredibly hard, but don’t give up.”
Tickets are $29, for more information about the presentation go online to parkcityinstitue.org
