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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beautiful Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Addiction, Ruin, and Redemption
Responsibility and Blame
Parenthood and Control
Support vs. Enabling
The Disease Model, Stigma, and Treatment
Summary
Analysis
Having missed most of the summer, David tries to hang onto it as much as he can while his head heals. He, Karen, Jasper and Daisy hike together, and when they drive home, Daisy says out of the blue that it would be sad to be old, because David and Karen and even Jasper would be dead. But she says that she wouldn’t be scared to die: it’s like the end of a vacation when you’re ready to go home.
Daisy’s precocious understanding of death touches once again on the theme of control. Daisy understands that she can’t be afraid of the unknown or of something she can’t control, like death. This is in contrast to so much of what David has been experiencing, where Nic’s life has been all that he can focus on despite its uncontrollability.
Themes
The kids return to school, and David starts to write again. The next day, they go to Nancy and Don’s for their weekly dinner and decide to spend the night when it gets late. David checks his answering machine in Inverness and discovers a voicemail from Nic, who is crying. It’s from three hours earlier. He calls Nic, who admits that three days prior, he was at a party with Z. and he did a line with her. He admits that he’s been high since then. He knows he messed up, and says he’s going to stop. David tells him to get help.
As Nic relapses yet again, David is reminded of the incurable cycle of addiction. By this point, however, David understands that the most he can do is tell Nic to get help from his support network, knowing that this is the only way that he can recover. This is in contrast to Nic’s relationship with Z., which he views as supportive but in reality only enables him to justify bad behavior.
Themes
David hangs up, furious. Nic had made it almost two years sober. David erupts in worry again before becoming overwhelmed and falling asleep. He remembers that lying in the neuro ICU, he’d had a realization: Nic, Jasper and Daisy would survive his death. David is inconsequential to Nic’s survival. He can try to protect his children, to help and guide them, but he cannot save them.
David admits that he wanted to end his book with Nic’s letter to Jasper; he wanted to move on from Nic’s addiction. But he knows that addiction is incurable, and there won’t be a perfect happy ending. David prays, “Please God heal Nic.” David has never prayed before, but he knows that this is the only thing he can do.
David’s prayer represents another turning point—a recognition that Nic’s situation is out of his control, and that the only thing that he can do is appeal to a higher power. This ties back to AA’s principles, wherein addicts must also come to terms with the idea that their addiction is incurable but that they must seek support from others to manage it.
Themes
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Nic shows up high at work and loses his job. His phone is disconnected, and he deserts his friends, including Randy. He says in an email that he and Z. have sold their clothes to pay for food. Vicki drives to his apartment and finds the place filthy: there is brown water on the floor and trash everywhere. Nic is trembling and high, and Z.’s legs are bleeding; she explains that a lightbulb broke on the floor. Nic tells Vicki to leave and not come back.
Again, Nic descends into this place of complete self-destruction. He and Z. live in complete squalor, and he is also pushing away all of the sources of support that would help him recover once again. Again, David emphasizes how impossible it is to support someone and help them recover from addiction when they actively avoid help.
Themes
A week goes by. On Sunday, David is driving Daisy and a friend to a birthday party. They play a game where they start a sentence with “fortunately,” then another with “unfortunately.” David plays his own version: “Fortunately I have a son,” “Unfortunately he is a drug addict,” “Fortunately he is in recovery,” “Unfortunately he relapses.” He repeats these last two sentences in his mind until he concludes, “Fortunately he is not dead.”
The game that David plays echoes the cycle of Nic’s addiction: it is fortunate when he recovers and unfortunate when he relapses, and he may be doomed to repeat this cycle again and again. David’s conclusion is an ambivalent one. It inherently acknowledges that the cycle could continue until Nic is dead, but it also retains some hope that he is still alive—and that he still has the ability to get well.
Themes
