An Intense Read

I (Erin) just finished a seriously intense book – “A Beautiful Boy” by David Scheff. It’s a true story of a father (David) whose son (Nic) becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol by the age of 17 and goes through several rounds of rehab before the book concludes with Nic tentatively clinging to sobriety. I decided to read the book after hearing a radio interview with David and Nic one morning on my way to work and was amazed by how candidly and matter-of-factly they were discussing their harrowing tale of addiction and of a family trying to hold the pieces of their lives together.

As a side note ... I later found out that Starbucks was carrying David’s book as part of their recommended readings series. I seriously have no idea how Starbucks chooses their books – its like they say “here, have a seriously overpriced (although fairly traded and sustainably harvested) coffee and while you’re at it, read this heart-wrenching story of someone’s life going to heck and back again”. I also read another of their series, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” (a story about a boy growing up in Sierra Leone who gets caught up in the civil war and becomes a child soldier by the age of 12), which was equally unbelievable at times and too crazy to believe that the story actually happened to someone and they lived to tell of it. Anyway, back to the book at hand …

Besides the obvious heart-wrenching story of Nic’s addiction and the pain that it causes his parents and, probably most sadly, his little brother and sister (at one point, Nic steals his little brother’s piggy bank savings to go score), its also fascinating/horrifying to hear how normal and smart and conscientious Nic is when he’s not high. Besides a messy divorce, his life seemed pretty normal – swim teams and carpools and school plays and parents who loved him - but some inner demon led him to addiction. Long story, short – it’s a good read but certainly not a fun one. Probably would make any parent with grown kids count their lucky stars that their kids didn’t go through what Nic did ... and would make any parent-to-be or parent of young kids catch their breath and hope that those lucky stars align for their family as well.

Nic also wrote a book about his addiction, “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines” – I’ll probably read that one day just to get the counter-tale to his dad’s book. But for my next read, I’m thinking that I may choose something off a “friendlier” book list – Starbucks is making my head spin, or maybe that's just all the caffeine ;)