The death of Americans below the age of fifty is a result of drug abuse. According to statistics, approximately 50000 people died from a drug overdose in 2016. And some of the deaths result from heroin and cocaine, but the highest percentage is from pain relievers prescribed by physicians. The movie, Beautiful Boy, is a film that centers on drug addiction, and Felix Van Groningen directed it. The film features Tweak (Nic Sheff) and his father, David Sheff. Additionally, this film puts forth areas of strength to depict what the sickness interaction means for an individual, bringing about conduct that harms solid connections and pushes persons into patterns of healing and relapses.
The current complaint is an addiction which is a precarious peculiarity to portray on screen since it’s a particularly slippery inner infection. Frequently, we see similar damage caused both to the victimizer and individuals who love that individual, coming about in true-to-life banalities.
Nic’s history of present illness started when he disappeared from home for two days, and then he showed up with a hangover. David, Nic’s father, decided to take him to rehab to help him heal from addiction. But after a few days, his father gets a call from the recovery that his son is missing, so he goes out to look for him and finds him in the streets. Furthermore, Nic reveals that crystal methamphetamine is among the drugs he has been using in the rehab center. The methamphetamine drug is profoundly habit-forming that harms the focal sensory system.
After Nic David finds on the streets, he suggests to his father that he wants to return to the rehab facility to complete his recovery journey. His father, David, does not hesitate to take him back. So Nic completes rehab classes, and his father hopes he has fully recovered because he has not received any complaints from the facility about his son. Therefore, he decides to send Nic to college.
Nic attending college to pursue his career in writing is part of his educational history. Despite having found new liberty in college, he starts off as a good student. He later meets his classmate, Julia, with whom he becomes friends, and then after a while, they fall in love and start dating. Nic’s social life became better because of his girlfriend.
One time his girlfriend invites him for dinner at her parent’s house. But during a cheerful family supper at his better half’s parent’s home, Nic tracks down pills in their medication bureau and takes one. After this episode, he gradually relapses, making Julia part ways with him, and his substance use rises until, at last, he purchases heroin.
Nic is not the first in their family to be involved in drug addiction. We see his father share with him how he was addicted to drugs on campus. And now that Nic is addicted in his teenage years, his father becomes worried. After Nic returns for a holiday, David chooses to peruse Nic’s journal because he has started to become dubious of Nic’s gradually evolving conduct. Regrettably, Nic has filled a portion of the pages by vividly depicting his developing addictions through stressing words and upsetting cartoon shows. In one of the last pages, Nic explains his trouble acquiring Methamphetamine in school. However, he figured out how to get heroin instead.
Substance use disorder affects behavior and makes users lack control over using the drug(s). Addicts continuously use the drug despite the danger it poses to their health. Therefore, there are several symptoms of a substance use disorder. These symptoms include; failing to meet school or work obligations, spending a lot of time to recover from the effects of the drug, failing to stop using the drug more matter how one tries, and depicting different behaviors like stealing to get money to buy the medicine, and many others (Mayo Clinic, 2022).
In the case of Nic, his substance use history starts in his teenage age after his father and mother divorced. One night Nic fails to go home, so David calls his ex-wife to tell her about their son’s current conduct. After two days, Nic shows up at his father’s house depicting the effects of a drug overdose. Here, David decides to seek help, and he enrolls Nic in rehab classes.
While in rehab, David gets a call that Nic is missing. And because no one is bothered to look for his son, he decides to go out and look for him. After a long search, David finds him on the streets and drives him back to the rehab facility. At the rehab, Nic reveals that he has been using Methamphetamine.
After some time, Nic is improving and tells his father he needs to attend a university. David is excited, and he drops Nic off at college. It works out perfectly well until Nic begins dating his classmate. His girlfriend invites him for dinner at his parent’s house, but Nic tracks down pills in their washroom and takes one. Because of relapse, he finds heroin again. His relationship ends because of this behavior.
Furthermore, during the holiday, he enquires whether he can get David’s car to go to an opiate’s mysterious gathering. But instead, he scores after getting permission from his father. So the following day, his half-siblings are fighting over the loss of money. But David realizes Nic stole their money to buy drugs. David is disappointed that his back on drugs again, and he wishes that he would not have allowed Nic to go to college. So Nic denies any further treatment, and he takes off.
At the film’s beginning, Doctor Brown makes sense that Methamphetamine is an addictive drug, and regardless of any efforts, the probability of somebody beating a dependence is 80%. While looking for Nic, David goes through extreme encounters – purchasing and utilizing cocaine to attempt to figure out his child’s insight. At last, he finds Nic, yet when they meet, Nic is unpredictable and tells his dad he needs two or three hundred bucks. But David does not give him. So Nic does not go home with his father; instead, he runs away.
After that incident, David gets a call from one of the hospitals in New York. Nic got admitted to the hospital because of a drug overdose. But on reaching the hospital, the doctor tells David Nic went missing from the hospital without his knowledge. As David is on his back to San Francisco, Nic calls him and tells him he wants to stop using drugs. His father suggests that he goes to Los Angelos to stay with his mother and continue with treatment. But after successful classes with Dr. Spencer, Nic goes to San Francisco to meet his other family. And here, his father tells him he wants a sample of his poop to test and see if he is still using drugs because he could not believe him. Immediately after, he leaves his father’s house, calls his doctor, and tells him he feels he cannot hold on; although his doctor insists that he goes over for supper, Nic fails to go. Nic comes across his friend from the rehab facility before he joined college, and they end up using drugs again.
Nic goes missing again, and his mother requests David to help him find their son. But Karen, his current wife, tells David he no longer needs to look for his son and that he should let him live the life he has chosen. After that, there were several episodes of Nic overdosing until he got admitted to a hospital. David comes to see him, and the two decide to take outside, and then they tightly hug. The aftermath tells us for eight years, and Nic has been clean from drugs.
From this description of Nic’s use of drugs, we can identify the co-occurring symptoms of substance use disorder. These symptoms he depicted include lack of appetite hence malnourished, depression and anxiety, and untidy (Taylor, 2019).
Regarding the behavioral patterns depicted by Nic, his addictive patterns led to relapse, and at other times had sustained periods of abstinence. First, he starts with Methamphetamine, which gets his father’s attention, so he decides to enroll him in rehab sessions. But because he cannot stay without it, he runs away from the rehab facility, and when his father finds him, Nic reveals that he manages to use the drug and many others. Also, the rehab center told David that relapse is a way of recovery.
Another time of relapse was when he joined college and after he got an invite for thanksgiving dinner at her girlfriend’s parents’ home. He then sneaks into their washroom and comes across pills, taking one. He then becomes “high” and relapses after being a good student in college for a long time.
After this incident, he goes home and experiences a series of relapses. But his father does not give up on him after realizing Nic is back into drugs. Because of the addictive nature of the drugs, he steals his half-sibling’s money and goes to purchase drugs. And to make matters worse, he runs away from home because he does not want to go to rehab again. Other times he liars to David that he is longer using drugs so that he can give him money to get some more drugs.
It is until he goes to live with his mother that he accepts to get treatment. Although he had stayed for a while without using drugs after treatment with Dr. Spencer, he relapsed after meeting his old friend from rehab when he visited his father.
In summary, overcoming drug addiction is not an easy journey. Especially if it is not the willingness of the addict to stop it; since Nic’s father, David was determined to see his son free. He should have allowed him to stay at home for like a year to study his behavior, and after he gets convinced that his son has changed, he could let him go to school. But my recommendation for anyone like Nic, finding a hobby that would make him busy from the desire to use drugs.
References
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2022, October 4). Drug addiction (substance use disorder). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-addiction/symptoms-causes/syc-20365112
Sheff, D. (2018). Beautiful boy: a father’s journey through his son’s addiction. Simon and Schuster. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from http://dspace.vnbrims.org:13000/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/4432/Beautiful%20Boy%20A%20Father’s%20Journey%20through%20His%20Son’s%20Addiction.pdf?
Taylor, J. (2019, December 5). Beautiful boy. American Journal of Psychiatry Residents’ Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2019.150212
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