Throughout the book Nic faces many challenges with drugs and people around him. The main cause of all this chaos that happens is because he started drinking and using drugs at a very young age. This led to many dysfunctions with his family and himself. Nic’s father really wanted to help Nic out when his addiction started but Nic refused to stay in the rehab centers through the whole process. Nic’s conflict with his father teaches the reader that having a drug addiction can hurt relationships with family through making one wrong decision that can affect someone for the rest of their life.
Nic starts to use drugs and drink before 15 years old but soon after he feels like he can’t stop. “I drank some and then I just had to drink more until the whole glass was drained empty. I’m not sure why. Something was driving me that I couldn’t identify and still don’t comprehend” (Sheff 2). As shown in the quote, Nic is experiencing alcohol for the first time and right away feels like he is attracted to it. From this point on Nic doesn’t really know how to control it and things start to get out of hand.
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By the time Nic finished his first year of high school he had already experimented with a variety of different drugs. “By the time I finished my first year of school, my using had progressed to the point where I could no longer really hide it. At first it was just drinking and smoking pot, a little acid, but then I started asking around to get my hands on some meth” (Sheff 18). Nic really didn’t know how to control it at this point, he was doing anything that he can get his hands on. His father kept trying to get help for him but Nic was too hooked on at this point. This just led to Nic letting his father down time and time