by David Sheff
DAVID: When did you become aware that there was something different about you?
NIC: Pretty early on I sensed that my drug use was not the same as that of other kids my age. At a party on a Friday or Saturday night in high school, there were definitely quite a few kids who were smoking pot, and even more who were drinking, but those same kids weren’t waking up in the morning before school and smoking pot first thing—then smoking pot at every break throughout the day. But even among the tiny handful of kids who, like me, would sneak off during break to smoke pot, and meet up before school to smoke, even the majority of them didn’t seem to need the drugs with quite the same desperation that I did. I felt literally panicked without drugs. I planned my entire existence around using. Of course, there were probably a few other kids in my class, or, at least in my school, who would go on to develop the same disease of addiction I had. In fact, I know for certain that at least one of them did go on to have serious addiction problems. But at the time, I didn’t even know addiction was a disease. I only learned that later. Still, at some point I did know that there was something deeply wrong with me. I began to figure out that the feelings I had weren’t normal—and that I was using drugs with a kind of intensity unique to me among my circle of friends.
Once when I was really young, eleven, I was with a friend, and we broke into a liquor cabinet in the house where we were staying. We filled a Snapple bottle with a little alcohol from each bottle so the grownups wouldn’t notice any was missing. He took a sip and spit it out. Like, “This is disgusting. Why would anyone drink this?” I took a sip and just drank it all down. It’s not that it tasted good, but I was drawn to it. Even though I got totally sick that night, something had changed and I wanted more.
Something in my brain was turned on that night, some switch had been flipped. And as I would come to learn later, that switch would get flipped on whenever I took drugs or alcohol into my system.
Because once I started, I couldn’t stop. There was no getting around that.
DAVID: I didn’t know, of course. If I had, and if I’d known what I know now, I would have gotten you help right away, because that response to drugs, including alcohol, is definitely a sign of addiction.
NIC: Yeah, but it’s also important for people to know that even kids who don’t respond to smoking pot or drinking or whatever the way I did—those who may not grow up to be a hardcore addict like me—can still have serious problems. I knew kids who got arrested, ones who passed out drinking and ended up at the emergency room, one who got kicked out of school, and someone who almost killed himself and his family in a car wreck.
DAVID: We’ve talked about risk factors for addiction—what made your response different from the other kids’—and you had many of them. There was addiction in our family, as well as mental illness—you probably inherited your bipolar disorder from me, and I have had anxiety disorders and depression.
NIC: Yeah, and you add to that how I felt in high school, and it all led me to drugs and addiction. It might have helped if I knew that many other kids that age feel exactly the same way. It’s just that nobody talks about it. So many of us feel similar—even without serious psychological problems, we feel scared and like we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.
I know there was always a part of me that felt like I could never admit to what I was afraid of, because to admit to my fears would be to make them real or something. If I admitted I was afraid, I would have to face my fears—and that was my biggest fear of all.
But, of course, the fear of the fear is always way worse than whatever it is I’m afraid of in the first place. And when I run away from my fears, everything just gets bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I think that’s a message that transcends drug abuse.
So can I ask you a question now? When did you start to get worried about my drug use?
DAVID: I worried from the beginning, but just dismissed how I felt—in a way, like you. I did once go to counselors and a teacher at your middle school and they told me what I wanted to hear: “It’s not a big deal, a lot of kids try drugs, Nic’s a great kid—he’ll be fine.”
I never worried that you’d become addicted. I never thought about it. My kid? Addicted? There was no way. I knew that drugs were out there and we’d have to deal with it at some point, but when I found out you were smoking pot it broke my heart because you were so young. I mean, you were only twelve. I was also sad because I thought we were so close that I’d know what was going on with you, and I had no idea.
NIC: I remember that you grounded me.
DAVID: A lot of good that did. I was naïve. I don’t know if you remember what you said then—that you tried pot and hated it and you’d never do it again.
NIC: I probably meant it. For that day, anyway. When I said it, did you think I’d stop?
DAVID: Maybe because I wanted you to stop, I believed you, which was pretty stupid. When I was a teenager, I told my parents what they wanted to hear too. I’d get warnings from them or at assemblies at school and never listened. They didn’t have any effect on me at all.
NIC: Did you start as young as I did?
DAVID: I was older, in high school. Even then, I tried a lot of drugs but never was really out of control. Mostly I smoked pot, and marijuana then wasn’t like it is now. It’s a lot more potent now. And overall, drugs weren’t as prevalent. You had to work harder to get them.
NIC: The truth is that I could get any drug I wanted at any time at my high school. People were always selling pot, but you could get anything. We knew who to ask. They weren’t these shady dealers in alleys or like drug kingpins like Pablo Escobar or El Chapo. They weren’t like on TV, on the street corners dealing out of the trunk of their car. They were just kids like me who were making some money. And beyond drugs, of course, there was alcohol, which was easy to get too. Even though we were young, stores would sell it to us or we’d sneak it from a parent’s house. People drank a lot. It wasn’t just for partying on weekends. People would come to school drunk, though that’s one of the few things I never did.
The fact is that I was using so much, it’s hard to believe that I was able to hide it. Is it really true that you had no idea? When did you figure it out?
DAVID: The next time you were caught with pot—I guess you were a freshman—you basically said the same thing you said the first time: “Someone just handed me a joint. It was stupid and I’m not going to use it anymore.” Again, I really wanted to believe you. Part of it was, yes, you were good at hiding it. Second, I wanted to believe you. So I didn’t know the extent for a long time. I should have known when your mood was changing and I didn’t know what was wrong—you’d be down or surly or angry.
NIC: What did you think was going on?
DAVID: I’d think, Oh, teenagers get down and surly and angry.
NIC: What changed? When did you know?
DAVID: You’d come home high, or then you disappeared, and the trouble escalated. At that point I knew it was definitely beyond experimentation, though even then the therapist you saw was reassuring me, “Nic’s experimenting, but he’s committed to going to college and knows that he has to be sober then. So he just feels as if he deserves some partying. If his rebellion is extreme it’s because you don’t give him a lot to rebel against.”
Finally there was that Friday night you didn’t come home, and I was completely freaked out, and I was calling the police and hospital emergency rooms, trying to find you. I don’t think anyone can know how bad it is when a child is missing unless you’ve been there. I thought you were dead. And that time the hell lasted a couple days until you called and told me where you were. When I drove to get you in that alley and found you, I knew. You looked terrible, like you could die. That’s when I knew we were in trouble and I finally got you into treatment.
NIC: I was so scared.
DAVID: And I was. But I was hopeful. I thought you’d be in the program for a month, and you’d be “cured.”
NIC: We learned the hard w
ay that this is a disease that isn’t cured overnight.
DAVID: What were your biggest challenges when you finally went into treatment?
NIC: Getting off drugs—when you have to detox—is hell, but it doesn’t stop when the drugs are out of your system. Early recovery is a different kind of hell, really. I don’t think there’s any way around that. Basically, I felt like I’d totally ruined my life and I was never going to ever know even the tiniest bit of happiness again. I’m really not exaggerating, either. I truly felt like my whole life was over.
I didn’t know what it was like to function as a normal person without drugs.
DAVID: I remember you talking about needing drugs to write. Did you really believe that?
NIC: Yeah. I bought in to the thing that you had to be some hardcore drug addict like Charles Bukowski in order to be creative. I wanted to be like him, like Kurt Cobain or all the stoners on TV. I thought I could never be a writer if I wasn’t using. It’s one of the reasons why, even after I was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder, at first, anyway, I’d stop taking the medications that were helping. I thought I’d lose the edge I needed to create. I learned that the opposite is true. The stuff I wrote when I was high was incomprehensible. I only became a true writer when I got sober. Since then I’ve become a writer for TV shows and movies, which is work I love. I could never do it if I were using and if I weren’t taking the psych meds, either. Being depressed and feeling crazy doesn’t make you more creative; it just makes you depressed and crazy.
DAVID: I wish I had known how depressed and crazy you were feeling.
NIC: What would you have done?
DAVID: I would have done what I could to find professional help before you started using, or at least before your use was out of control. I didn’t know how bad it was, but also I didn’t know what I know now, that the research shows that it’s actually possible for parents to get their kids to stay away from drugs or, if that doesn’t work, to stop, or at least use less.
NIC: What might have helped?
DAVID: You’re smart; maybe if you knew the impact of drugs on our brains—the science—maybe you would have thought twice. It would have helped if I knew about risk factors and we talked about them—the mental illnesses and drug use in our family, the impact of your mom’s and my difficult divorce. I wish we could have protected you more. You were stuck in the middle.
NIC: But that’s just life. Divorce is pretty common—something like half of marriages end in divorce. There’s not much you could have done.
DAVID: Well, I wish I’d understood how all that stress can lead to drug use, and therefore figured out how to protect you more and to help you deal with the changes. Now I know that family and individual counseling and therapy can make a big difference in how a kid copes with their parents’ divorce.
NIC: Yes, but in my case what may have made the most difference is if I got diagnosed with bipolar and depression and treated for them. I really was trying to self-medicate—to feel better. It’s why things got so bad.
At its worst, when I was breaking in to the house, stealing, using every drug I could get, was there ever a time when you thought about giving up on me for good?
DAVID: I thought about giving up all the time, but I never could. I wanted the suffering to stop, but giving up on you wasn’t possible. I would hear parents talk about letting go of their kids, and I’d think, What? How do you let go of a child? I never will.
NIC: Here’s a question for you. You let me drink some wine at dinner when I was a teenager, supposedly so I’d learn to drink “responsibly.” Was that a mistake?
DAVID: For sure. When I let you drink, I was giving you permission. Do you think it made a difference?
NIC: I’d say no, but I do remember that it made me feel older. It gave me more of a taste for it, but I didn’t really need help for that. What you didn’t know then is that I had already been sneaking stuff since I was eleven. I’m not sure how it affects other kids.
DAVID: Do you think parents should tell their kids the truth about whether or not they used drugs when they were young? You asked and I told you the truth. Should I have?
NIC: I don’t think you should have lied necessarily, but I do think I got the sense a little bit that it was possible to use drugs without too many bad consequences. I mean, you said you did drugs and that I shouldn’t, but you were doing fine. Looking back, do you think you should have told me?
DAVID: When I was growing up, my parents warned me about the evils of drugs, but I dismissed them, didn’t take them seriously. I knew they had no idea what they were talking about because they never used drugs—didn’t even drink. I thought I’d have more credibility when I warned you, because I did have experiences with drugs. I told you about my friend who overdosed and died.
But I worried when I told you. Sometimes adults talk about their drug use and send a mixed message: do as I say, not as I did. So there’s no easy answer. I do think it’s important to be honest with your kids—not to lie to them—because your relationship is more important than any specific thing you can say. Your trust in them and their trust in you.
NIC: I agree there’s no easy answer. Now, looking back on those hard years, what were other lessons you learned?
DAVID: God, where do I start? I learned how complicated people are—how much we are all dealing with, and that life is really hard, and as a result, people are always looking for something to numb the pain, to distract us, to make us feel better. I learned that we can’t help people with addiction or other problems unless we look at the root of the problems, which are always complex—a combination of factors, including biology, psychology, and environment. And I learned about love. It’s more powerful than almost any other force, and it can help us get through what we don’t think we can survive.
So I learned a lot. What about you? After everything you went through, what are the most important lessons? What else should kids like you know?
NIC: I guess the best thing I can say to kids who are struggling is that it will get better. I mean, it will. If you are using, get help, because things can go downhill fast. And yeah, it can be hard to stop because of the social pressure.
Also, when you stop using drugs, you can feel terrible, because you’re used to functioning high. But the world will start opening up to you. As long as you keep holding on and staying sober, anything is possible. And from my experience, good things really will start to happen. Your life will start to be truly beautiful—maybe for the first time ever. It’s true, when you stay sober—the longer you stay sober—the more the universe keeps opening up to you.
See, I’m proof. Honestly, I didn’t really think I was gonna live this long, so I never planned for my future or thought about long-term goals. But now, I’m really excited about being alive. There was a time when I couldn’t have said that.
It’s hard, though, you know, ’cause I really am starting a good ways behind most other people my age. I wasted so much time, and I’ve been totally stunted emotionally. But like I said before, as long as I stay sober and just keep doing the next right thing, the world will keep opening up for me. It’s what I say to kids who are struggling like I struggled. Hold on. Don’t give up. Get help, and it’ll get better.
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Addictionary
ALCOHOL
NAME
COMMON COMMERCIAL AND STREET NAMES
COMMON FORMS AND WAYS TAKEN
POSSIBLE HEALTH EFFECTS
Alcohol (ethyl alcohol)
Alcohol, booze
Liquid
Swallowed
Slurred speech, impaired movement, intense emotions, mood changes, loss of consciousness, damage to heart, high blood pressure, stroke, gastrointestinal issues, liver damage, pancreatitis, malnourishment, alcohol poisoning and related death
CANNABINOIDS
NAME
COMMON COMMERCIAL AND STREET NAMES
COMMON FORMS AND WAYS TAKEN
POSSIBLE
HEALTH EFFECTS
Marijuana
Weed, pot, grass, dope, Mary Jane, herb, chronic, blunt, ganja
Greenish-gray mixture of dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds and/or flowers, resin (hashish) or sticky, black liquid (hash oil)
Smoked, eaten (mixed in food or brewed as tea)
Sensory distortion, panic, anxiety, impaired movement, lowered reaction time, fatigue, depression, increased heart rate, lung damage, suppressed immune system, apathy, lack of motivation, mood changes, personality changes, impaired thinking
STIMULANTS
NAME
COMMON COMMERCIAL AND STREET NAMES
COMMON FORMS AND WAYS TAKEN
POSSIBLE HEALTH EFFECTS
Cocaine
Cocaine hydrochloride
Blow, bump, coke, dust, nose candy
White powder, whitish rock crystal
Snorted, smoked, injected
Dilated pupils, hyperthermia, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, insomnia, loss of appetite, restlessness, headache, euphoria, increased energy, erratic and violent behavior, panic attacks, irritability, anxiety, reduced mental clarity, depression, fatigue, paranoia, psychosis, stroke, seizures, death
Methamphetamine
Desoxyn
Meth, crank, tweak, ice, crystal, speed
White powder or pill, crystal meth looks like pieces of glass or shiny blue-white “rocks” of different sizes
Swallowed, snorted, smoked, injected
Impaired memory, cognitive deficits, anorexia, mood disturbances, violent behavior, anxiety, depression, confusion, paranoia, delusions, insomnia, severe depression, increased breathing rates, increased blood pressure, hyperthermia, stroke, heart attack, severe dental problems (“meth mouth”), paralysis, convulsions, aneurysms, death
