David Sheff's story is a first: a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view—a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope.
Before meth, Sheff's son, Nic, was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first warning signs, the attempts at rehabilitation, and, at last, the way past addiction. He shows us that, whatever an addict's fate, the rest of the family must care for one another, too, lest they become addicted to addiction.
“Sheff does not spare himself or anyone else from keen professional scrutiny any more than he was himself spared the pains and joys of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery….this is an honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic.”
David Sheff’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wired, and Fortune. As a contributing editor to Playboy, he has interviewed John Lennon, Thomas Friedman, the founders of Google, Gore Vidal, and others.
