We All Fall Down: Living With Addiction by Nic Sheff

Pub Date: April 2011

Non-Fiction (Young Adult)

Memoir

368 pgs.

Never have I ever met a character to route for more than Nic Sheff.  When we last left Nic, in the book Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines, he was struggling to maintain his stability with drugs and alcohol.  Then in a profound companion novel, Beautiful Boy, his father, David Sheff, shares the family’s battle with Nic’s addiction.

Now, in We all Fall Down: Living with Addiction, Sheff offers the reader his heart wrenching attempt at recovery.  In and out of detox centers and on and off of the drugs, Nic’s story is garnished with detail, compelling and emotional. Although profane language is used, Nic’s voice is both daring and truthful and resonates with readers.

Nic shares a lot of characteristics of an addict, such as self-destruction, lying, and harming close relatives and friends.  Within his story, Nic also shares long term relationships with women who have addictive behaviors.  More so, Nic goes through several abuse programs, none of which seem to aid him.  However, as Nic faces such setbacks he continues his attempt to be clean and extracts use out of a 12 step program. Because of his fight, Nic is able to find solace in relating to the sober community.

Complete with relapses, bad language, and sexual encounters, it is a poignant and true account of drug addiction.  However, nowhere does Nic say recovery is easy.  If anything, his narration reveals that not every program works, nor is there a single program for any one addict.  This memoir of addiction is more than just a complex story of a boy’s battle with sobriety;  it is about faltering, realizing and accepting your mistakes, and grappling with picking yourself up afterwards.

-Noelle