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Works Cited

Sheff, Nic. We All Fall Down. LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. Vol. 2 of Living with Addiction. 2 vols.

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Nic is stuck in rehab and stuck thinking about his girlfriend Zelda. He reflects on how much he misses her and how bad they were for each other. He admits to himself that they were only using each other but still misses her a lot and has trouble letting her go.

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Nic meets with his supervisor Melonie and tells her that he is going to break up with his girlfriend Zelda and he wants to get sober. Melonie expresses her delight in his progress but still shows some skepticism about his commitment.

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Melonie says that she'll take him off of probation if he agrees to start the twelve step program and start going to meetings, and he agrees.   "Now, I am impressed with the progress you've made regarding your girlfriend, and I'd like to take you off probation so you can go on outings with the other clients, but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do that until you agree to go to twelve-step meetings at least six nights a week." (41)

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Nic meets the new girl in the facility. He finds out her name is Sue Ellen and feels instantly attracted to her. The only problem is that he keeps comparing her to Zelda in his mind.  Melonie notices how he looks at her and he promises to not have any contact with her. But he manages to slip a note to Sue Ellen telling her that he likes her and that they have to keep it a secret from everyone.

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Nic and Sue Ellen get caught kissing together and so they get kicked out of the facility. Before he leaves, Nic is given a choice by Melanie to either go to the isolated all male sober house in New Mexico, or get kicked out and struggle with Sue Ellen.  "Of course, you do have a choice in all this. But if you decide not to attend, I'm afraid you're going to be asked to leave the premises within the next hour."(94)

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Nic chooses to get kicked out with Sue Ellen. They meet up at a motel for the night and talk about what just happened. Nic reassured Sue Ellen that he wants to stay with her and that he loves her. The two of them try to figure out what to do now that they have nowhere to go and Nic suggests that he follows Sue Ellen to South Carolina where her mom is sending her.

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Nic ends up going to the facility in New Mexico after many failed attempts to get money to follow Sue Ellen and immediately hates the owner as soon as he's picked up from the airport.   "He snorts at his little comeback. Man, it really is all I can do not to punch him in the face." (126)

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Nic tries to go to the introduction meeting but figures out that he doesn't feel anything when they start talking about their journey's anymore. He walks out in the middle of the meeting and goes outside to smoke. "The meeting's not over, but I go on and push my way through the crowded aisles -- almost everyone turning to stare and silently criticize me in their heads for not being, you know, serious enough." (136)

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Nic gets dragged to a meeting with the weekend supervisor because of his walkout. The supervisor criticizes him on not being able to follow directions and blaming everything on his addiction controlling him. Nic decides that he's done with the place and calls Sue Ellen. She gets him a ticket and he starts his long bus ride to South Carolina to meet her.

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Nic gets off the bus and meets Sue Ellen. They are both happy to see each other and Sue Ellen tells him that her mom rented her an apartment and that her mom is letting him stay there if he helps with the rent. He agrees.
"...I agreed to finish school here in Charleston, so in return my mom rented me my own apartment and she agreed to let you stay with me there. You'll just have to start paying half of the rent once you get a job."(152)

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Nic manages to get a job at a nearby coffee shop. He doesn't like his job much and he's sad that since he and Sue Ellen are both working they don't get to see much of each other anymore.  "We've been living together only about a month now, but between my work and her work and her going to school, we barely see each other at all anymore."(163)

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Nic meets one of his coworkers and lets it slip that he's an addict. His coworker coaxes him into buying some weed and Sue Ellen gets mad at him for taking it before she calms down and forgives him. "At first, I mean, yeah, Sue Ellen was definitely freaking out. When I told her I'd bought that eighth, she pretty well lost it."(174)

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Sue Ellen takes Nic to a party where he meets a guy named Russell. They smoke weed together before going back to the party. He takes Nic to go crabbing with him the next day and tells him that sometimes it's good to slow down. Nic decides that he really admires Russell and wishes that this could be enough for him.

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Nic quits his coffee shop job and finds another one at a barbecue place that pays better. He reflects on how his alcohol problem has grown into a physical dependency. His life begins to spiral down further when he get offered coke from a girl who walks into his job and doesn't hesitate to take it. "My chest feels all tight suddenly...Somehow, I have a small bag of coke in my pocket."(211)

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Nic decides to lock himself in the apartment to stop himself from relapsing, Sue Ellen helps him and his cravings start to let up a bit. He finally reached out to his dad for the first time in a long time and they set up a time to talk. He ends up accidentally adopting a stray dog when the human society says that they don't have any room for her and names her Tallulah.

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Nic finds out that Tallulah actually helps him get healthier and he sees a lot of himself in her. He finds out his dad has wrote his own book about his experience with Nic's addiction and the book publisher wants them to both go on a big book tour once both of their books come out. He feels happier now.

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Nic goes on the book tour with his dad and he can't seem to wrap his head around the fact that people actually want to buy his book and get his autograph. He gets to talk at a high school and he tells his story  "At bookstores people ask for our autographs. I mean, they actually want my signature. They want me to sign copies of the book that I wrote. It doesn't make sense."(257)

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Nic notices that Sue Ellen has been more controlling and negative lately and she keeps insulting his mom. Nic tries to bring her to a party but they get into a fight and Sue Ellen starts to yell at him and tells him that he can only spend time with her now and that she's sick of him being pathetic.

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Nic tells Sue Ellen that he's going to his moms for a while and that they should spend some time apart. He takes Tallulah and leaves with her screaming at him from the apartment and goes to his moms house.

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Nic talks to his dad about him smoking pot and his dad suggests him getting a psychiatrist and he recalls how Nic was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Nic agrees enthusiastically and apologizes for hurting his dad with all the bad decisions he's made in his life.

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Nic starts getting medicated by his psychiatrist and it starts to help even him out a lot. He moves back in with Sue Ellen and they decided to try it again. Sue Ellen is still acting suspicious of him and going through his texts and e-mails and is being mean to him. Nic meets a guy named Justin at one of his meetings and they click immediatly.

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Nic starts to have doubts about going back to Charleston. He feels obligated to stay with Sue Ellen but he feels like he's building a stable life in LA. He talks to his therapist about it and she says that he doesn't have to stay with her if he doesn't love her. He calls Justin and they settle on him staying at an apartment and fixing it up together. He breaks up with Sue Ellen.

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Nic has been clean for a year and a half now, he lives in his apartment with Tallulah and a new dog named Quincy and is living a fulfilling life now. He is finally happy. "The truth of it is, well, nothing ever works out like I plan. And yet, somehow, it all seems to work out all right. I've been sober a year and six months today."(342)

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https://www.davidsheff.com/events

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"In an ever-revolving panorama of health care execution, policy, transmission, preservation and, above all, the human experience, how are communicators preparing to relay the message in this active health care landscape?" Join David Sheff at the PRSA 2020 Health Academy Conference in New Orleans. Details are at: https://www.prsa.org/home/get-involved/professional-interest-sections/health-academy-section/health-academy-conference

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https://drugfree.org/drug-and-alcohol-news/nic-sheff-author-of-we-all-fall-down-interview-part-1-of/

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Join Together sits down with Nic Sheff, author of the new memoir We All Fall Down, to discuss his personal journey of recovery from substance abuse. Nic's 2008 bestselling memoir, , chronicles his battle with crystal meth and heroin. In 2008, while on a highly publicized book tour with his journalist father, David Sheff, author of the bestselling Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, Nic relapsed again. We All Fall Down explores Nic's recent relapses and presents a young man struggling to find his own personal path to sobriety.

Join Together: Please provide one piece of advice, or insight, to share with families who may be sending their kids into treatment for the first time.

Nic: I guess all I'd say is that, as hard as it is, no matter what, it is worth it-it is going to help. For me, every time I went into treatment I learned a little bit more and progressed a little bit further. It was never a waste-even if I didn't always stay sober afterwards. There are so many factors that have had to come together in order for me to finally get sober and, more importantly, to love my life and want to stay sober. Each time I went to rehab I got stronger and more and more confident. It always helped-always. In fact, just in general, I believe in getting as much help as possible-especially after the thirty days or whatever is finished. Outpatient, group therapy, individual therapy, meds-all those things have been truly life saving for me. So, yeah, I guess I'd also say that, as much as treatment does work, it is only the beginning. It's all about "after care."

Join Together: What do you wish your parents would or would not have done, when they first discovered that you were using and began to understand that you needed help?

Nic: This is definitely a hard question because obviously not every kid experimenting with smoking pot, drinking or whatever is going to grow up to be an addict. But there was something different about the way I went about getting high in high school that set me apart from other kids. I really needed it, you know? There was a desperation and a compulsion in me that I guess maybe my parents might've been able to recognize sooner. All I can really say is that, when I have my own kids, if I were to ever see that they were starting to use drugs in a kind of self-medicating way, I would immediately give them an ultimatum and stick with it. I would basically say they either had to get into treatment or they were going to be completely on their own. I know that's hard and scary for a parent to do, but if my parents hadn't finally gotten to that point, I am a hundred percent sure I'd be dead or in jail by now. In hindsight, I only wish they'd drawn that line sooner for me. I gained absolutely nothing being out there using. Oh, and if my child was under eighteen, I'd force them into a program whether they hated me for it or not.

Join Together: Looking back - do you recognize any warning signs that may have drawn you to substances at such an early age?

Nic: Well, I'd say I have always been intensely sensitive and intensely uncomfortable in my own skin. I hated living as myself. And, as far as I can remember, that was actually pretty conscious. That is, I think I was aware of it. I think I knew that I hated myself. So it makes perfect sense to me that I would've sought relief in drugs and alcohol. I mean, that's exactly what those substances gave to me, a way of not having to be myself anymore. I definitely get why I was drawn to substances, they seemed like the answer to all my problems. And that's really what differentiates addicts from normal people-addicts use as a way to try and fill that empty space inside. Drugs seem like the thing we've always been missing. So, yeah, for me, I approached using drugs completely differently than a normal person right from the beginning.

To find out what else Nic Sheff shared with Join Together, stay tuned for Part 2 of his interview on Friday, April 15.

Visit Amazon.com to read an excerpt and purchase a copy of We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction.

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Nic Sheff, Author of We All Fall Down, Interview: Part 1 of 2

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Join Together sits down with Nic Sheff, author of the new memoir We All Fall Down , to discuss his personal journey of recovery from substance abuse. Nic's 2008 bestselling memoir, , chronicles his battle with crystal meth and heroin.

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https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-30898289.html

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Young man of substance: The real Nic Sheff from Beautiful Boy

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Nic Sheff got addicted to crystal meth when he was a teen. New film ‘Beautiful Boy’ shows how his father helped him overcome years of drug abuse. He spoke to Esther McCarthy.

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https://www.wmta.org/nic-sheff-to-speak-at-theeconomic-club-of-southwestern-michigan-speakers-series-young-professionals-presentation-on-feb-11/

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For a second season, The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Speakers Series, hosted by The Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College, is presenting a professional development and networking event for young professionals in the region when it welcomes author, recovering addict, and subject of the major motion picture Beautiful Boy Nic Sheff on Tuesday, February 11, at 7:30 pm. Tickets are on sale now to the public.

Sheff's heartbreaking and inspiring struggle with substance abuse disorder is the story of Beautiful Boy, starring Timothée Chalamet as Nic and Steve Carell as his father, David. The film, which earned Golden Globe and SAG nominations for Chalamet, is based on Sheff's New York Times bestselling memoir, Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines and David's bestseller of the same title. Sharing an unglamorized, authentic and heart-touching story of substance abuse and recovery that is deeply rooted in mental illness, Sheff has been recognized as "a life-changing speaker."

Sober since 2011, Sheff continues to write and travel the country speaking about substance abuse, mental health, bipolar disorder, and recovery. His talks cover areas ranging from prevention and talking effectively to teens to using prayer and meditation to quiet the unquiet mind.

Sheff is also the author of four books on these subjects: High: Everything You Want to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction; Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines; We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction; and Schizo, his critically acclaimed novel about a teen's downward spiral into mental illness.

Sheff drew upon his own history of self-harm and attempted suicide as a writer for Netflix's controversial series, 13 Reasons Why and upon his experiences in rehab as a writer for ABC Family/Freeform's series Recovery Road. Sheff was also a writer on AMC's crime drama The Killing and has written several features and developed TV series with Warner Brothers, USA, Amazon, and Paramount Television. He has also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and on CNN with Sanjay Gupta and ABC with Diane Sawyer.

A passionate voice and inspiring speaker, Sheff hopes that the intense notoriety and media attention being paid to the film version of Beautiful Boy will elevate awareness, create more empathy for those who struggle with substance abuse disorder, and inspire more to recognize danger signs and get help. A self-identified "bipolar addict," he also seeks to raise awareness of dual diagnosis and the frequent interconnection between substance abuse and types of frequently untreated mental illness.

Honest, authentic, and able to connect with a wide range of audiences, Sheff tells the story behind what promises to be the most important film about substance abuse and its impact in decades, making a struggle that has touched millions of families deeply personal, urgent, and unforgettable.

In his presentation "Tweak: A Harrowing, but Hopeful Portrait of Addiction," Sheff puts a compelling human face on our nation's substance abuse epidemic, encouraging those who struggle to embrace help and bringing hope to all who are touched by it.

A pre-presentation Dinner & Discussion event will be held in newly renovated Grand Upton Hall. The buffet dinner begins at 5:30 pm. At 6:30 pm, a panel discussion titled "The Local Path Forward from Opioid Addiction" will be presented. According to the State of Michigan, there were more deaths in 2018 from opioid addiction than from car accidents. This panel of addiction specialists will examine how the opioid epidemic is affecting our local community, discuss the treatment pathways available for those struggling with addiction, and the harsh stigma that so often prevents individuals from seeking that treatment.

Panelists are:

Jeannette Holton, LBSW, CADC, MPA, is West Michigan Division Leader for Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Services. She leads a residential treatment facility in Berrien Center, recovery housing in Benton Harbor, peer-based recovery support in local Emergency Departments, and outpatient services in Watervliet. Before that, she was a counselor at a local outpatient medication-assisted treatment program, where she witnessed the devastating effects of stigma on people receiving treatment with methadone for heroin use disorders. Her focus there was helping women who have experienced severe trauma. She also served as a medical and psychiatric social worker and in healthcare management for 20 years with the predecessor organizations to Spectrum Health Lakeland.

Cara Poland, MD, M.Ed, FACP, DFASAM was trained in internal medicine at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in addiction medicine at Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She has an interest in educating healthcare providers and providers-in-training to improve care for patients with substance use disorders and alcohol use disorders. She is an assistant professor at Michigan State University, is the past president of the Michigan Society of Addiction Medicine, and is the medical director of addiction medicine at Spectrum Health and collaborates with other providers in Spectrum Health's GREAT MOMs program to treat pregnant women with substance use disorders.

Kaye Sanders is a licensed professional counselor currently employed with Community Healing Centers as the Berrien County supervisor, supervising the Niles outpatient staff and Carol's Hope. She is also the Women's Specialty and Recovery House Coordinator overseeing six recovery houses and the pregnant and parenting program. Sanders has focused her counseling career on trauma informed care and has spent the past three years focusing on gender specific care specifically, working with women who suffer from substance use disorder. Sanders owned and operated her private practice for five years before joining the Community Healing Center team. Sanders has a Master's degree in Professional Counseling and specialized training in interpretive arts counseling, missing and exploited children, and EMDR therapy.

Panel moderator Kendall Troyer serves as vice president of organizational excellence and quality and chief quality officer at Spectrum Health Lakeland where his goal is to ensure safe, high-quality patient care. Since beginning his career in the Lakeland laboratory, Troyer has served the organization in a number of positions including as director of outpatient services at the Lakeland Health Park, project director of Lakeland's electronic health record system, and chief operating officer for Lakeland Medical Practices. Troyer holds a bachelor's degree in clinical laboratory science from Michigan State University, a master's degree in health services administration from the University of Michigan, and is currently enrolled at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health anticipating a doctoral degree in public health in 2022.

Following dinner, ticket holders for Sheff's presentation will take a short walk through The Mendel Center to their reserved seats in the Mainstage. Dinner and presentation tickets are sold separately. Reserved presentation seats ($20 - $50) and dinner tickets ($35) are on sale now at www.TheMendelCenter.com, by calling 269-927-8700, option 1, or by visiting The Mendel Center Box Office in person. The box office, located in the Grand Upton Hall Lobby, is open weekdays from 10 am to 6 pm.

This Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Speakers Series event is sponsored by Spectrum Health Lakeland, and presented in collaboration with Benton Harbor Promise and The First Tee of Benton Harbor
About The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Speakers Series
Established in 1943, the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan has brought more than 430 world leaders, policy makers, experts, and other newsmakers to the region. Its goal is to provide unique opportunities for personal and community growth. By presenting national and international speakers from a wide range of fields and expertise, this non-partisan series is dedicated to the discussion of social, economic, and public policy questions important in today's complex society.
About The Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College
The Mendel Center is 30 minutes from Niles and 40 minutes from the Kalamazoo and South Bend areas. It is located on the Lake Michigan College campus at 2755 E. Napier Avenue, Benton Harbor, Michigan, one mile east of I-94 (Exit 30) and one mile west of the US 31 Bypass (exit 24). Its GPS mapping address is 1100 Yore Avenue, Benton Harbor, MI.

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Nic Sheff to speak at TheEconomic Club of Southwestern Michigan Speakers Series Young Professionals Presentation on Feb. 11 West Michigan Tourist Association

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For a second season, The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Speakers Series, hosted by The Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College , is presenting a professional development and networking event for young professionals in the region when it welcomes author, recovering addict, and subject of the major motion picture Beautiful Boy Nic Sheff on Tuesday, February 11, at 7:30 pm.

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https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-blake-nelson-20110320-story.html

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Recovery Road

A Novel

Blake Nelson

Scholastic: 320 pp., $17.99, ages 13 and up

We All Fall Down

A Memoir

Nic Sheff

Little, Brown: 348 pp., $17.99, ages 15 and up

We live in a society filled with temptation, where drugs and alcohol are illegal for minors but still easy to obtain. They're so readily available, in fact, that 11 million American youths need treatment for substance abuse, according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. Yet few teen addicts get the help they need. And those who do are likely to relapse before they truly recover.

It's these hard truths that are tackled in two new books for young adults, each of which handles the subject slightly differently. Blake Nelson's "Recovery Road" is a fictional account of 16-year-old "Mad Dog Maddie," whose rap sheet includes drinking alcohol, downing OxyContin, smoking hash, snorting coke, stealing a car, getting arrested and being thrown out of her home and sent to a halfway house.

Nic Sheff's "We All Fall Down" is the real-life account of Sheff's struggles to recover from addictions to increasingly hard-core substances. He started smoking pot at age 12 before the high no longer worked, and he moved on to alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin - and rehab. Rewind, and repeat.

Both books are told from the addict's perspective, offering up-close and personal views of their protagonists' descents into substance abuse and the tragic effect on those who care most about them. "Recovery Road" just offers a slightly more sanitized version of the rehabilitation process - one that is likely to appeal to readers whose interest in illicit substances is purely vicarious. The follow-up to "Tweak," Sheff's New York Times bestseller about his meth addiction, "We All Fall Down" is a grittier, in-the-trenches retelling of his recovery that will resonate with readers who are struggling with their own addictions or those of someone they love.

Written in staccato and presented in chapters that are at most six pages long, "Recovery Road" opens with Maddie at Spring Meadow rehab center in Oregon. Maddie's best friend there is Trish, a fellow alcoholic who paralyzed her best friend in a drunk-driving accident. The true focal point of Maddie's attention, however, is Stewart - an older addict with whom she falls in love.

Falling in love at any point along the addiction trajectory is bound to be problematic, as addiction tends to cloud reality and is in itself unhealthful. Maddie's involvement with Stewart is no exception as the two exit Spring Meadow and try to reintegrate themselves into the environments that first led them to drinking and drugging - a difficult hurdle made even more so because it needs to be jumped while clean and straight.

"Recovery Road" is an intriguing look at the aftermath of addiction, as Maddie returns to high school and is forced to find a way to fit in to the social order that won't land her back in rehab. "It's extremely weird to be sober," she says, attending parties where everyone else is drunk. "It's like I'm watching everything on TV."

Though "Recovery Road" is a little heavy-handed about the high-stakes after-effects of teen drug use - there are multiple deaths throughout the book - it is curiously light on the details of what led Maddie to use in the first place other than "being the smart girl who somehow decided she shouldn't be or [was] afraid to be."

"We All Fall Down" goes into far more psychological detail. Starting in 2002, when Sheff was 20 years old and shooting heroin in San Francisco, "We All Fall Down" benefits from hindsight. Divided into parts set off with datelines and penned in the present tense, "We All Fall Down" has a similar staccato writing style to "Recovery Road," but it is more graphic.

A word of caution for parents: Linguistically, Sheff is liberal in his use of F-bombs and other off-color epithets. The details he chooses to share about the physical effects of his hard-core drug use, his sexual antics and his no-holds-barred behavior are startling and raw, as is his emotional candor.

As Sheff moves from an Arizona rehab center to one in New Mexico, he only pretends to follow the 12 steps before abandoning them entirely. Ultimately, "We All Fall Down" is about recovery, but the majority of its pages focus on relapse, which is where many addicts end up - falling off the wagon and into old patterns, which, in Sheff's case, means taking advantage of women, contemplating suicide, fantasizing about book deals and, of course, "numbing out."

"The only thing I've been trustworthy of is being untrustworthy," Sheff acknowledges, as he steals from his girlfriend and then his employer.

Readers will be propelled through "We All Fall Down" by Sheff's unabashed, call-it-like-it-is writing that really gets into the mind of the addict. Watching him get from where he was to a bestselling author is the icing on the cake of a book that shows there's light at the end of the exceptionally long, dark tunnel known as addiction.
susan.carpenter@latimes.com

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Not Just for Kids: 'Recovery Road' by Blake Nelson and 'We All Fall Down' by Nic Sheff

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Recovery Road A Novel Blake Nelson Scholastic: 320 pp., $17.99, ages 13 and up We All Fall Down A Memoir Nic Sheff Little, Brown: 348 pp., $17.99, ages 15 and up We live in a society filled with temptation, where drugs and alcohol are illegal for minors but still easy to obtain.