Customer Reviews

Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines

5 star:		(94)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

****
This book is much easier to understand if you read the author's father's book, also recently published, called "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction" by David Sheff. By reading his father's account of the same time, you understand from a parent's perspective just what is going on with Nic Sheff. You understand how brilliant and talented Nic is (he will not tell you this in his book) and you understand what this novel explores---his descent into methamphetamine addiction, how he lived for many years, how he squandered his potential by avoiding dealing with life, and the consequences in his life and in the lives of those he loves. Once you know more about who the young author is, you can appreciate his book so very, very much more.

The author is honest and transparent about the life he has lived as an addict, and the book is worth reading for this alone. Not many of us who haven't been through it can imagine what an average day is like for a meth addict, and this book shows us that. The insight this book truly gives you is what goes on inside an addict's mind, and how an addict views life and circumstances---very differently from a non-addict. Many of the terms may be confusing to those of us unfamiliar with drug culture (for example, "tweak", "rig", "push off") but again, they are explained in his father's book "Beautiful Boy".

So, read "Beautiful Boy" first from the parental perspective---don't miss it---and then, if you are still intrigued, as I was, follow up with "Tweak" and venture more deeply into the mind and life of the addict---who eventually becomes a likable person to the reader, not just an intensely selfish and initially totally unlikable addict. The author is courageous in sharing his life so openly in this book. I think it will make an impression upon you and leave you with a read you will not soon forget.

Recommended, especially after reading the "prequel".
****

I bought this book after finishing "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff, mainly because it's pretty rare to get to read both sides of an addiction story. I found this book to be somewhat manic in its retelling of events (expected), raw in its content (appreciated), and very, very candid. What I liked best about this book was how there was no sugar-coating. Nic Sheff wrote about his experiences and didn't hold back a thing, and I think this was what made this book so good. It's rare that we get a firsthand idea of what it's really like for an addict in the throes of needing to feed their demons but also trying to get rid of their demons, and getting this inside view really made me start to view addicts with a lot more compassion than I maybe would have prior to reading this book. As with David Sheff's book, I found myself rooting for Nic, rooting for his family and friends, and I really hope that Nic continues on his path of sobriety because I think he has more to offer people than even he realizes.

First off, I should say that I'm not one of those "I read it cover to cover in one day" kind of readers. I hear people say "I couldn't put it down" when describing a book and wonder what kind of life - obviously devoid of things needing to be DONE - they live.

That said, I read "Tweak" - cover to cover - in one day. I couldn't put it down.

I've had friends addicted to meth. I know that meth's grip is insidious and tenacious - that the predictable and almost-methodical way it destroys everything in a person's life is almost viral in nature. But seeing this "inside look" at how a meth addict perceives his addiction, his drug, his life, and the destruction of everything perceived as valuable - occurring right before his eyes... it's a compelling, haunting narrative.

The most striking thing for me in Nic's story is how at the very bottom - when virtually all is lost - the only thing that remains is the most sober of thoughts: "it's time to get clean". And at a time and in a condition where no hidden reservoirs of strength remain, the fight of a lifetime begins.

Watching Nic's recovery is like watching the heroine in a horror flick walk (usually backwards... go figure) into a closet where the slasher villain is lying in wait to kill her. You recognize the villain and the precariousness of the situation long before Nic does - and you're screaming "don't go in there" - because by this point, you see how far he's come and you're rooting for him to make it and you see the disaster about to happen. It's interesting that Nic's father (who also writes "the parent's perspective" of his son's addiction in Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction) is involved in the production of horror movies, because his story has so many elements of a great horror movie.

There are many heroes in this story aside from Nic - his family and his sponsor (Spencer) chief among them. To open yourself up to participating - emotionally investing - in a life with someone who repeatedly has shredded all sense of normalcy, safety and comfort - that takes a healthy dose of courage, perseverance, and love. Those are the hallmarks of every great hero, and his father, step-mother, mother, sponsor (and his wife) bear all of these hallmarks.

Read this book to reaffirm your faith in the strength of the human spirit - its dogged determination to survive, its desire to thrive and its capacity to forgive. Give this book to the young people in your life to instill an honest, powerful image of how drugs can destroy a life and inflict pain and sadness on everyone connected to that life.

But be prepared to lose a day, because you're not going to want to put it down.

For someone that repeatedly proclaims his writing expertise I was very disappointed with this book. It is a rambling, self-centered pity party. I read "Beautiful Boy" and thought that it was an excellent book that successfully portrayed the horrible struggle that parents have when their children start using drugs - the out of control aspect, the helplessness, the grief - this book really showed them all.

I thought that having a second book written by the son telling his side of the tale was an interesting idea, and I bought it because I was very curious to hear what Nic had to say about the same events. Compare how the father was seeing the downfall while Nic was actually experiencing it.

"Tweak", however, falls flat. I didn't come away with it with any better understanding of why a child of privilege would throw everything away on meth. There were no insights. I didn't even think it was very interesting, and I certainly didn't think it was well written.

Honestly, I think if there had been an editor for this book that actually made the writer refine his work it would have been a better story. Everything about the book just seemed so even handed. There were no ups or downs, no rush or climax, it was all just the same monotone voice. As it is I think there are much better books out there that deal with personal addiction. Nic didn't reach me. He didn't make me care. If anything I came away with the feeling that he was spoiled and selfish, not sympathetic towards his addiction at all or with any new understanding about addiction. Nothing new here.

Let me save you $10. Nic does drugs because he likes them. He complains about his parents divorce and how he was abandoned. He complains about his father and that he was raised more like an adult and didn't have a childhood. Then he praises his father for his parenting skills and his wonderful childhood. He can't find God. He thinks he found God. No, he can't find God. He sobers up. He relapses. He sobers up. He relapses. He is diagnosed Bipolar. Things make sense. He stops taking his meds and relapses. He has sex a lot. He hustles. He steals. He shoots up. He falls down. He shoots up some more. Complains about parents. Praises parents. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I'll keep "Beautiful Boy" but "Tweak" goes in the Salvation Army giveaway pile.

A few weeks ago, I purchased both Nic Sheff's memoir "Tweak (Growing Up on Methamphetamines)" and his father's counterpoint "Beautiful Boy (A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction)." I set them both aside, going back and forth in my mind about with which one I should start first, but ultimately I put off reading them both until a day I could read them back-to-back, uninterrupted, and just immerse myself in the Sheff family's world. I expected to be a bit biased toward Nic's telling of events, but I never in a million years could have imagined just how much I would find myself nodding along and connecting to the very internal issues that lead to and continue to feed his addiction.

Nic Sheff spent much of his young life hanging out with his writer-father at gallery openings, dinner parties, and VIP events; he spent more time with adults than he did children his own age and therefore was in a rush to grow up, but however he tried to emulate said adults on the outside, on the inside he was trapping himself in a perpetual state of adolescence that would come to haunt him in his later years. Nic's parents divorced when he was young, and both subsequently remarried. His father went on to have two more children, whereas his mother would just have constant fights with her new husband-- fights that got so loud Nic would run into the tv room and blast an old movie, to drown out the sounds of the screams and yelling. By the time we actually meet Nic, he has already been in and out of rehab, though (all of the aforementioned and more comes out as exposition to fill in the holes later in the story), and he is on his way to San Francisco to partake in yet another bender. This time he ends up dealing, too.

Nic describes his descent into drugs with enough detail to make his readers cringe (like when he describes the abscess he develops on his arm due to a dirty needle), but he is never gratuitously graphic. Nic is never preachy, in order to attempt to scare kids off trying drugs, but he doesn't glamorize them either, even when he talks about the famous people (all names have been changed) he meets during such exploits. Instead, he merely lays out the facts of who he was and what he did, and in reality, he could be any one of his readers speaking. While the people he met along his journey and the way in which he started taking his drugs and then spiraled, got sober, and relapsed (lather, rinse, repeat) are specific to him, the mentality with which he approaches his addiction and his life with it is universal. The feelings of alienation, inadequacy, and general discontent could be ripped from the pages of any teenager's diary. He describes his struggles with his appearance, with coming from a tumultuous home life, his obsessive need to put himself in competition with others, and even his misguided belief his mortality could never be tested (in that "it could never happen to be me" oh-so-common way) with refreshing frankness, as if he can look back now and see it was all just an obsession. And it is in that obsession that he is most vulnerable but also ironically most accessible because we can all share in and relate to that personality trait; it is just more severe for some than others. And without naivety, denial, or just bold-faced lying, there is no one who can say he or she does not obsess over something, and if you think you can, then that notion will be more detrimental than crystal meth.

Nic talks a lot about his outlets: he always had drawing, writing, an interest in movies, his younger brother and sister; hell, he was even on the swim team! But all of that took a backseat to his addiction-- and not just to narcotics. "Tweak" looks at a few of Nic's close relationships-- from his AA sponsor whom he treats as a surrogate father to a woman with whom he had an affair and still carries a torch-- and in each one, Nic attaches himself quickly and spends all of his time with that person. That kind of dependence is an addiction within itself; he feeds off the other person's energy and spirit for the same high he gets from his drugs, and it often blinds him from the person's flaws or problems. He held that woman on such a high pedestal he couldn't even tell she started using again, even though as an addict the signs were all right in front of him (I use the past tense because I hope he has put her and his old life behind him now and for good, but only time will be the real test).

Nic is a beautifully poetic writer, and the honesty with which he opens his life and his soul to strangers in "Tweak" speaks volumes for him as an artist. He doesn't ask for pity or even empathy; he just writes from the heart. And he may always feel a little lost-- he may always feel a little on the outside of things-- but looking through history, most true artists did. What makes them channel their energy and passion into a form like writing or painting is often the feelings of not fitting in with those around them. Instead of diving down a rabbit hole of despair and trying to make the wrong kinds of people like him (as he has already tried and which were neither particularly successful or healthy), Nic has his stories, and in the end, that's all he needs as salvation.

As an author and a recovering addict, I found it difficult to believe that Nic Sheff's "writing success" (to which he refers many times throughout the book) was the product of anything but his father's connections. I also read BEAUTIFUL BOY, which--as the child of addicts who died of their diseases--I found very well researched and written, and deserving of publication. More people need to know that addiction is indeed a family disease, and that those of us who are relatives of addicts/alcoholics suffer from the disease in similar ways--many of us just don't abuse substances. For those of us who have become addicts ourselves, and who have also lost family members to the disease--well, we choose life and recovery. We surrender.

However: TWEAK suffers not only from poor writing (details of which are in other reviews), but also from ethical problems. I found it very disturbing that a book that would be marketed to kids--I found it in the young adult section at Borders--engages so heavily in what we term "euphoric recall": the glorifying of the feelings we get when we abuse substances. This kind of behavior not only keeps the person who engages in it stuck in the powerful illness that is addiction, but it also subjects readers to the dangers of glorifying the damage of drug-use. In other words, it risks making young readers--many of whom may have picked up the book because they're either active addicts or are in the beginning stages of full-blown addiction--WANT TO GO OUT AND GET STONED. The fact that the author himself relapsed during the writing of the book is testimony to this ethical problem. He himself was engaging in un-sober behavior. ... The sad part is, this choice may not have been made strictly by the author, but by his agent and/or his editor, who may have advised him that the book would not sell well enough to justify publication unless he dug real deep into what it felt like to shoot/snort/smoke etc.

Very sad.

I tend to think he made the choice largely on his own, because he made another ethically poor choice, which is the one that he wusses out of in his afterword, published in the paperback edition: he exposed others in his account of his own life. He writes: "I didn't understand how sharing someone else's secrets, even anonymously, is a violation of their right to their own story." I mean, holy cow?? I have to confess I was absolutely appalled 1) that at 25 (his age when he wrote the book) he did not get this; and 2) that his agent, his editors, or his parents, both of whom work as journalists, would not advise him of this gross ethical lapse. Now the internet is buzzing about who these people are, many of whom are still active addicts. This perpetuates the rampant stigma that addicts are just degenerates who don't deserve respect. ALSO: anonymity is a prized tradition of 12-step programs, and the author's long (and critically flawed) history with 12-step programs runs the risk of scaring away newcomers, who may assume from reading this book that their own privacy will be violated in the way that Nic Sheff violated the privacy of so many. ... One way to really recover and conduct amends would have been to give these people the dignity of their choice and negotiate with them for inclusion of their stories. If they refused to be included--well, then, there you have it. The book shouldn't be published. Yet.

But, no, Nic Sheff is determined to "run the show," as we say...

I should preface this by saying my sister is a recovering Meth and Heroin Addict. The stark contrast between what is available for treatment when you have parents with money and insurance is astounding but not surprising. I would have killed to have the resources to get my sister into the types of treatment that Nic had access to. In the end, it may or may not have made any difference because addiction is one of the few personal journeys that one takes with everyone they love in the front seat powerless to alter the direction.

Dealing with my sister's addiction and our addiction to her I truly believe that people will treat you as badly as you allow them and they will get away with what they can. I wonder if Nic always felt like he had a safety net knowing his parents had the insurance and financial means to afford his rehab once he had reached a bottom he was not comfortable with. Not saying this to minimize the complete and utter despondency that is synonymous with addiction but perhaps a different perspective when it comes to addiction and socioeconomic status.

Tweak begins at a fast and engaging pace for about the first 100 or so pages. During the first of Nic's description of his sobriety the book begins to lag and become repetitive and I start to wish there was a "Name-Dropper Anonymous" that Nic could attend and breathed a sigh of relief when his treatment facility suggested he spend the time not focusing on who he knows. During some points of the book he describes his situation with brutal honesty and at other points he glosses over situations that would have added an extra layer of depth and understanding to the book.

The lowest part of Nic's addiction appears to be at a point before his books started. I felt like to truly understand how low he had reached in his addiction it was important to read more about this period in his life as it affected him so greatly in the book and was only mentioned in an almost passing way. We read about the aftermath of his time as a prostitute but again the details of this time period were glossed over again lessening the impact of the book.

I was surprised to see who Nic decided to dedicate his book to. Perhaps, I am jaded after reading "Beautiful Boy" and dealing with the utter despair that a family member feels when an addict in the family is knocking on death's door with an uncontrolled and desperate vigor and you tying to do anything to slow their nose dive into hell and realizing there is nothing you can do but watch. The choice of dedication also left me with the feeling that we were missing more pieces of the puzzle to Nic's story.

I would absolutely recommend this book and his father's "Beautiful Boy" to anyone dealing with an addict in the family even with the books imperfections it is an insightful read and gives a sometimes powerful glimpse into the mind of addiction but also leaves a lot of unanswered holes and questions about Nic's life as an addict.

This guy is trying so hard to be a hipster (name dropping, judging himself by the people he hangs out with, and the endless quest to negate all things good by getting high) that the book drones on like a 60s-era slide show of someplace I never want to visit.

Sheff seems to be morally and spiritually bankrupt. He continually sets himself up to do drugs and wonders what happened (ie, his choosing to continue a relationship with a known drug abuser who he "falls in love with.") His insights seemed forced and unreal.

That, plus his ending far too many sentences with "and whatever," "and things," "and everything" plus using the word "really" far too often ("I didn't eat anything, really. I wasn't high, really") makes this a very sloppy book. He also has a habit of repeating the same word three times - "I was high, high, high. She had freckles, freckles, freckles."

I found myself thinking, thinking, thinking that it was good that I got this bloated treatise from the library, or whatever.

I'm so conflicted about rating/reviewing this book. I want to separate the actual story being told from the mechanics of the story-telling. I want to separate my personal feelings about the person who IS Nic Sheff (at least, as I perceive him through his and his father's writing) from the story (I think) he is trying to tell... and therein lay the problem.

In no particular order, here are problems I had reading "Tweak."
1.) As one of his counselors mentions, Nic seems removed from his own story. He tells the story as if it's happening to someone else. This could make sense, as a coping mechanism - after all, the guy did experience trauma - but I found myself wondering, due to the disconnect between the story and its 'teller,' if things actually happened the way he says they did. Or was he embellishing, in the tradition of James Frey?
2.) The story-telling was shallow, flat. In a way, perhaps because of his repeated use of "and whatever," I found his story was so nonchalantly (sloppily, lazily) told that I questioned, "If this kid doesn't care about his own journey, why should I?"
3.) The editing was horrendous... or non-existent. I kept trying to make excuses for Nic, telling myself, "He repeats, repeats, repeats himself and jumps around in his recall of events because that is how the chemical-addled, damaged brain of a speed-freak and junkie works; he's simply capturing the mania in the cadence of his writing." That only took me so far, though. I could not get past repeated misuse of "than" (it should have been "then"). I could only tolerate "and/or whatever" so long (eventually, I'd just skip over it, as I did when I saw any word repeated 3 times). While the editing I think I would have preferred would have changed the character of the story, I think some simple "clean-up" of Nic's text would have worked wonders for the final product.
4.) Sobriety and recovery seem to be afterthoughts, or like footnotes, to Nic's story of descent into hell. While I did comment on what seems like Nic's lack of connection to his own story, I did sense an intimacy/authenticity in the sections detailing drug binges (and the feelings he gets from them) that I didn't sense any time he spoke of sobriety (esp. in his epilogue). While I understand the power, the sensory nature (and, thus, the body's sensory memory) of drug use, I felt like the publishing of this book may have been a bit premature (should he have waited until he had more time clean under his belt? more time to reflect on and process both use and non-use and the role of drugs in his life?). Perhaps he had to get it out now, if he was to get it out at all, because his father had published his "Beautiful Boy," and what better way to ensure book sales than to follow on the bootheels of your father's book about the same series of events? In any case, I'm still trying to figure out why Nic had his story published now. What was his purpose? Who was his intended audience?

In the end, I DO think Nic's story is worth telling. Unfortunately, I think it was done mostly in a superficial and self-indulgent way. I found myself thinking that the problems/complaints Nic had/has come from an extremely privileged place (making him, at least slightly, an unlikable character). Frankly, he sounded spoiled and whiny a good deal of the time, which made identification (sympahty/empathy) with his character and his struggle difficult. Finally, I can't help but wonder if this book made it to publication solely because of who his parents are.

This book is disappointing, and I'm SO glad I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it. While there are a few nuggets of insight and cosmic revelations in here, I'd be willing to bet there's another story out there that captures the same ones but does so in a text that's less excruciating to read.

All I hope is that Nic gives his sobriety more attention and effort than he gave to "Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines."

I didn't finish this book. Not because I wasn't interested in the subject, but because the writing left me frustrated. I found the author's repetition of the phrase "or whatever..." to be very distracting. The book seemed to have been published after only one draft, and I didn't care about any person in it. Another "quirk" seemed to be a kind of laziness in the writing (though, as we get to know the author's tastes and heroes, it is understandable). Some examples of this are his constant use of the word "some" after such statements as 'it had begun to rain, or he had stopped crying or vomiting'. The same goes for "things". The word seemed to end every list of objects in the book. To me, these are small problems that could have been fixed by an editor. Perhaps, all involved were trying to portray the author as a scrappy Gen-Xer with no time on his hands to tune up his work, instead of keeping the reader at a distance by creating muddy prose. Fine, but after a hundred pages of this sort of thing, it wears thin. Mr. Sheff lost me, and therefore, I learned nothing from his tale.