Beautiful Boy

THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR FILM, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND BAFTA AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED TIMOTHEE CHALAMET

‘What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?’

Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery.

Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets.

With haunting candour, David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3am phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll.

But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. This 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. 

Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.

Read the other side of Nic Sheff's bestselling memoir, Tweak.

Review

'Both takes on this story are riveting, brilliantly written, thoughtful, searingly honest and equally essential. They should be mandatory reading for every teenager and every parent of one.' ― Daily Mail

'My generation experimented with drugs and, now that we are parents, we're caught off guard: we never contemplated having to face what David Sheff has faced. He writes with candour, courage and grace of his family's harrowing – and sadly not atypical – story. Beautiful Boy is an important book. It is moving, timely and startlingly beautiful.' -- Sir Richard Branson, chairman, Virgin Group

'Those of us who love an addict – or are addicts ourselves – will find Beautiful Boy a revelation. David Sheff knows all too well what must be endured with faith, and his extraordinary book describes it better than anything else I've read. While painfully candid, Beautiful Boy is equally optimistic and powerful.' -- Martin Sheen, actor

'An honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic.' ― Publishers Weekly

'An excellent book that all parents can relate to whatever their children's situation.' ― Library Journal

'Moving, painfully honest, very revealing, it tells a story which just never gets told and which is extraordinarily important.' -- Rosie Boycott

'A brilliant, harrowing, heartbreaking, fascinating story, full of beautiful moments and hard-won wisdom. This book will save a lot of lives and heal a lot of hearts.' -- Anne Lamott

'Beautiful Boy is so beautifully written that it will come as a welcome balm to millions of parents and loved ones who thought they were making this journey alone.' -- Armistead Maupin

About the Author

David Sheff's work has appeared in the New York Times, Outside, Rolling Stone, Wired, Fortuneand elsewhere. His piece for the New York Times Magazine, "My Addicted Son", received an award from the American Psychological Association for "Outstanding Contribution to Advancing the Understanding of Addiction".