Meth x 2

Two books about methamphetamine addiction: "beautiful boy" by David Sheff and "tweak" by his son, Nic Sheff have filled my airplane journeys to and from NY. Brave books both, beautifully written, heart-wrenching, all the things you would imagine. But I'm left with something a friend said many, many years ago, when someone we know was sent to rehab for heroin addiction. He said she was "selfish." And at the time, and for years after, I pondered this and wondered why it seemed very narrow-minded and small to discuss a drug-addict as selfish. Surely an addiction is a disease. They cannot help themselves, can they? Selfish seemed to be too small a word to describe it. But now, after two hefty volumes that traverse the highs, the lows, the sordid, the bloody, the horrible, it's all I'm left with. Drug addiction and narcissism dance a pretty waltz through a sordid Berlin nightclub with a droning Brechtian soundtrack. There is no light. No acknowledgment of the existence of anyone else. No conscience or consequence, and no understanding of the complicated silky threads that tie us all together, weaving us inextricably into a large whole. The kid is hateful. And the father while appearing to be the perfect father is only revealed truly through the kid's book, as being weirdly inappropriate in his relationship with his son. This is the curse of our generation; trying to be our children's friends and conveniently forgetting to parent. It's a depressing little duo to be sure, but gives one enormous gratitude for the perfect imperfection of our lives.