Beautiful Boy, written by David Sheff, touches the hearts of many parents who have children struggling with substance use.
It was one of the first books to share the devastating parental experience of having a child dependent on drugs. Today, author David discusses his new book, Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy.
I’m honored to share my interview with David, where he discusses the addiction of his son, the stigma of addiction, and hope for the future.
How has the notoriety affected you and Nic since you’ve written Beautiful Boy?
When the book came out, we didn’t have any sense that it would connect with so many people in recovery, people who want to be in recovery, or people who are connected to addiction, such as moms, dads, brothers, and sisters. So with it, that brought this intensity of connection with people. It has felt like a privilege. I’ve gotten to know so many people who are suffering from addiction.
We all get it, anyone who has been through it. We understand that people who haven’t been through it can’t understand it. It’s the community of people who can share our stories and support one another.
The hardest part is that so many people I hear from and see weren’t as lucky as I was. Nic is fine now and has been sober for five years, but people have lost their children, husbands, wives, parents, or loved ones.
I hear a lot from teenagers who read Nic’s book and write to me because they can’t find him. He is not online, or at least wasn’t online for a long time. They tell me they read Nic’s book and it saved their lives. They went into recovery the second they finished the book. (Nice is the author of Tweak and We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction.)
The idea that you can go through something that can destroy you or does destroy you, and have some meaningful impact, is wonderful.
Why were you inspired to write Clean?
What I realized when Nic first became addicted was that I didn’t tell anybody. I kept it a secret because, around this disease, unlike any other disease, there is shame, blame, and guilt. We keep it hidden. The result of that is that we end up suffering in silence.
When Beautiful Boy came out, I heard from so many people, such as neighbors, friends, and my colleagues at work. They said that people don’t know that I’m an addict or that I’ve been trying to save my son or daughter’s life for the last ten years because we don’t talk about it.
The more I heard from these people, the more I realized that people are so isolated, and yet this problem is so pervasive. So few people who need treatment are helped.
I had to figure out why and continued to research the field. I went to rehabs, talked to counselors, schools, prisons, addicts, their families, AA, and other 12-step meetings, and just talked to as many people as I could.
The whole point was to try to figure out what we know about addiction and what we don’t know, why the treatment system failed so many people, and ultimately how we can make it better.
What are the three things you want readers to take away from your book?
- Addiction is not about willpower. It is not about choice. It’s not about morals. It’s a very serious illness.
- This is a treatable illness. In the past, we’ve written off people who have become addicted. It doesn’t have to be. There is a whole range of treatments that work. People can go into recovery, and they do every day of their lives. They can transform and live full, healthy lives.
- The National Perspective: Part of the reason that we are in this mess is that treatment is so ineffective, and our inability to prevent kids and others from using. In the past 40 years in America, we spent over a trillion dollars fighting, and yet there are 20 million people who are addicted and 100 million family members who are suffering because of their loved ones’ addiction.
We’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars literally by filling up our prisons, health care costs, and loss of activity. About 400 million is the calculation.
I want people to understand that what we’re doing isn’t working and we have to change the model. The model is moving from treating this as a criminal problem and a problem we judge, to treating it as a health problem we see with compassion.
How were you affected by the stigma of addiction and the idea that good people don’t do drugs? What can parents do to overcome the stigma?
Parents need to be educated themselves. We have this idea that we want our kids to be good kids, and God forbid if they try drugs, then they’ve crossed over, but we have to also understand their perspective. Children are growing up in an environment where stress is everywhere. There’s bullying, insecurity, and they are trying to connect with other people. There is peer pressure and academic pressure.
It’s not about being good or bad. It’s pretty normal for kids to be curious and influenced. Trying drugs may be a relief for some of the stress they feel, or it may help them connect with their peers.
These aren’t bad kids; these are our kids.
It’s our job to take away the stigma around this so we can help them grow up healthy. We can have conversations with them and acknowledge the fact that it’s seductive. What are the stresses that they are going through? Stress is completely tied to drug use. When we can do away with the stigma, we can deal with this problem effectively, instead of this moral view that you are bad if you use drugs. Of course, that applies to those struggling with addiction as well.
When people are addicted, they don’t feel great about anything they are doing. Nobody chooses to be addicted. Nobody chooses to do the horrible things that addicts do. They are ill and feel terrible. The culture that blames them and stigmatizes them just makes them feel worse.
What’s the solution? Some people would say it is to stop using drugs. Well, you can’t wish away cancer, and you can’t wish away addiction.
The stigma is one of the most dangerous forces around this disease.
What are the three changes you would like to see in the addiction treatment system?
- Treatment no longer relies on pseudoscience, tradition, and best guesses, but instead uses evidence-based treatment, which means that treatments that have been proven to work, not just stuff that we hope works.
- To create a system of compassion and not judgment. Right now, in so many treatment programs, patients are yelled at, they are kicked out, and they are punished if they don’t behave. It’s like they are little children. That doesn’t help somebody who is sick. Create a system that acknowledges that these people are ill and they should be treated just as if they had any other disease. You would never yell at somebody because they have cancer. If you are in the hospital, you would do everything possible to treat them, and that is what needs to happen in these programs.
- The third thing is the recognition that everybody is different. One size does not fit all, and so people need to be treated with whatever works for them. That can include anything from the 12 steps to behavioral treatments to medication. It has to be done by someone who knows what they are doing, by a qualified person, but somebody who is actually a doctor, trained in addiction medicine and addiction science. This doesn’t happen in many treatment programs. People have not had the training, yet they are supposedly qualified to help people get well.
As a parent, what kept you going during your darkest hour? Did you ever feel tempted to give up on Nic?
Every parent who goes through this, especially when it gets as severe as my son’s, we are tempted to give up. We suffer so much. We don’t eat or sleep. It was so hard for me to function, take care of my younger children, and work.
It was so frustrating because everything I was trying to do to help Nic wasn’t working. I wanted to give up all the time. But I could never give up on my son, and I think most parents can’t.
We have to navigate this thing that takes over our lives. We become addicted to addiction. I became addicted to Nic’s addiction, as I became obsessive. It preoccupied me because my son was dying. I think it would be anyone going through this.
Although I wanted to give up, I never did. Some people struggle with this idea of how to create an environment in which you are not enabling an addict. That doesn’t mean you are giving up on somebody. Figure out the lines that you have to draw that will help your loved one ultimately choose to get help.
People are really confused about this, and I think this is really important.
When you asked me about the three things, I would add a fourth one, and it applies here. We need help. We are human beings, and we’re parents. We’re expected to be thrown into this crisis and figure out what to do to make decisions about how to get someone into treatment, how to take care of ourselves, how much separation to have, and what kind of treatment to use.
We’re not qualified to do that, so I really encourage people who are facing this at any stage to not try to figure it out themselves, but to go talk to professionals who can help.
What words of hope do you have for parents who are struggling with their child’s addiction?
Research suggests that your child is most likely going to be okay. In the middle of it, you don’t believe it, but it’s true. Of course, there are no guarantees, so we have to take this seriously for what it is: life-threatening. Most young people who become addicted are okay. That is the first thing to know.
The second thing to know is that it is so stressful, and you can crumble around this. Parents get divorced, families explode, so we need to get help by going to therapy or going to Al-Anon meetings or whatever it is. The hopeful part about that is that when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn’t make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions. You can suffer a lot less.
There is also hope that, as this field progresses, we will be able to learn about why people use and how to stop them from using in the first place, why drug use escalates, and how we can stop it before it gets to be a serious addiction. When it does escalate, what addiction is and how we can better treat it.
There really is a reason to be hopeful about the future. Things are going to get better.
Click here to get your copy of the book, Clean.
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