My son is living proof that those like him can not only be treated, but can live lives free of the pain that plagued them and the disease that controlled them.
— David Sheff
Your children live or die without you. No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die. It's a devastating realization, but liberating.
I was ashamed. My son is a drug addict. What does this mean about me?
Though addiction is a disease - a brain disease that's often progressive - addicts who relapse are often blamed.
That's the difference between even the best video game and what's going on in books. Video games can inspire a reaction, but not the emotions.
Few adults realize what a huge force video games have become in children's lives.
I chose a rehab center for Nic that was recommended by a friend who had sent her son there. The program lasted 28 days, after which he relapsed. Over the next six years, he was admitted to six residential treatment programs and four outpatient programs. He would do better for a while, but then relapse. Each relapse was crushing.
I came to understand that Nic on drugs was not the Nic I knew and trusted. Nic on drugs was somebody else. We were afraid of him.
I have my limited skills as a journalist and a father, and the journalist part is really part of my mindset, to use my skills to try to solve problems.
Reading Bukowski and Burroughs and Henry Miller doesn't necessarily mean that a kid is going to try to emulate their debauchery to the point that Nic did, but he really was fascinated by it.
At some point, parents may become inured to a child's self-destruction, but I never did.
Nick's mother and I were attentive, probably overly attentive - part of the first wave of parents obsessed with our children in a self-conscious way.
Everybody tells you over and over again that addiction is a disease. But when I read Nic's book I understood not just that this is a disease, but what the disease means.
If a child had another disease, we'd be open about what we were going through, but addiction is stigmatised and comes with shame and guilt.
Many doctors are stuck in the idea that addiction is a choice, and they don't treat that.
Relapse is very dangerous. However, relapse can be a symptom of the disease. Sometimes there are multiple relapses before you get sober and stay sober.
The rest of the world may devour Japanese hardware - from Honda Civics to Sony Walkmans - but Japanese software, such as books, movies and recordings, has had little impact outside Japan. The exception is video games.
This idea that some kids have now in some communities that if they haven't filled out their college resumes by the time they're 12, they are going to fail in life, it's a lot of stress on kids.
When he was on the streets, I was consumed with Nic. I was obsessed with him to the point that I could barely function.
The tragic fact is that with addiction, like many other illnesses, sometimes you can do everything right and people die.
Like so many of us, I'm brokenhearted about the death of the remarkably talented actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I came home one day and Nick was in his bedroom reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' and the tears were just flowing down his cheeks, at the terrible injustice that was being described in that book and the bravery of fighting against it.
After a hellish decade, my son got and stayed sober.
I'd heard about rehab, where you send people with drug problems, but I soon learned that there's no standard definition of it; instead it's a generic word for a wide variety of treatments, including some that are outrageous. Past-life therapy? Exorcism?
So often we have this image of what drug addiction looks like, and it's not fun. Our loved ones who go down that path are in pain.
I finally stopped worrying what people would think. I found out that almost everybody has some secret, some dark fear that if people knew this about them they wouldn't like them anymore, or would look down on them.
I totally believe parents should talk to their kids about drugs. I totally believe that educating them in every way is really important. But on the other hand, I've learned it's not as simple as that.
When change takes place gradually, it's difficult to comprehend its meaning.
It's hard to find someone who did as many drugs for as long and in such dangerous combinations as Nic - spending years going to Oakland and finding abandoned warehouses, getting beaten up, getting threatened by a guy with a crossbow. By all accounts, he shouldn't have made it, but he did.
One of my dearest friends is alive only because of AA. But it doesn't help a lot of people. And everyone is different, and everyone needs different kinds of treatments.
Like most people I knew, I thought drug addicts were the kinds of people we see in doorways in neighbourhoods most of us try to avoid - people obviously strung out, often homeless and possibly psychotic. I didn't think my son could become addicted, but he had.
Some parents want to be popular, but that's not their job.
Elvis Presley's music said, 'Free your body.' The Beatles said, 'Free your mind.'
The motivations for using drugs, often it's pretty obvious and common: you know, peer pressure. You know, kids are struggling growing up.
Having been hit by drug addiction, knowing how many are hit by it and what a big problem it is in our neighborhoods and our culture, I feel a responsibility to do something. I can see what's wrong with the system - that we have to recognize mental illness as we do cancer or broken bones - and how we need to make it better.
When I was a child, my parents didn't know anything about drugs. They didn't even drink.
After writing about addiction in a pair of books, I frequently hear from addicts and their family members about serial relapses followed by treatments followed by more relapses. It's not uncommon for addicts to go through a dozen treatment programs.
I spent years searching for effective programs that would lower drug use and prevent addiction.
Kids love the 'Mario Brothers' games, which are whimsical, inventive and lots of fun.
Twelve-step programs require people to accept their powerlessness and turn their lives over to God or another higher power. Many adolescents question religion, and in general teenagers aren't going to turn their lives over to anyone.
There are many things I wish I could redo as a parent.
So many times in the middle of an interview I've had people say, 'Can we go off the record?'
To try to help somebody who doesn't want to be helped is ludicrous. It doesn't work.
Everyone's generation probably feels like they're parenting in a better way.
Nick spent his first years on walks in his stroller and Snugli, playing in Berkeley parks and baby gyms and visiting zoos and aquariums. His mother and I divorced when he was 4. No child benefits from the bitterness and savagery of a divorce like ours.
The war on drugs is a joke. We spend $40 billion a year, and the proof that it's a failure is that any kid can get almost any drug they want in any city in America within half an hour.
Since his breakout role in 'Call Me By Your Name,' Chalamet has been described as a young Leonardo DeCaprio and James Dean. Not only does Chalamet resemble my son when he was younger, but he embodies his spirit.
Nic was a lovely child, though of course I'm prejudiced. I'm his father.
No, I don't believe in tough love. I just believe in love.
David Hockney is best known for his work with paint and canvas, but he has also worked in media as diverse as Polaroid-photo collage and fax painting.
