Top 30 David Sheff Quotes

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.

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.

I spent years searching for effective programs that would lower drug use and prevent addiction.

Addiction is a disease like anything else. It’s like cancer, like heart disease, like diabetes.

After a hellish decade, my son got and stayed sober.

To try to help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped is ludicrous. It doesn’t work.

Like so many of us, I’m brokenhearted about the death of the remarkably talented actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

When he was on the streets, I was consumed with Nic. I was obsessed with him to the point that I could barely function.

If you love someone who’s an addict and their use is life-threatening, you don’t wait until they hit bottom because that can mean that they’re going to die. You have to do everything you can to get them in treatment.

Elvis Presley’s music said, ‘Free your body.’ The Beatles said, ‘Free your mind.’

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.

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.

Few adults realize what a huge force video games have become in children’s lives.

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.

No, I don’t believe in tough love. I just believe in love.

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.

Certain people are more likely to use drugs because of whatever it is: They’ve suffered some trauma in their life. They have risk factors like mental illness, people with learning disabilities, with attention problems.

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.

At some point, parents may become inured to a child’s self-destruction, but I never did.

Every relapse is dangerous, but often it takes multiple relapses before someone finally gets sober for good.

Nic was a lovely child, though of course I’m prejudiced. I’m his father.

Many doctors are stuck in the idea that addiction is a choice, and they don’t treat that.

Though addiction is a disease – a brain disease that’s often progressive – addicts who relapse are often blamed.

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.

Some parents want to be popular, but that’s not their job.

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.

Drugs shift the way that we think. So, yeah, the logical thing would be to get help, but that’s not the way addicts operate, which is why it’s really, really hard to get someone to understand that they need treatment.

I was ashamed. My son is a drug addict. What does this mean about me?

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.

Well, addiction does start with a choice.