David Sheff

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.

Close your eyes
Have no fears
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your daddy's here

I'm not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I'm having fun

My heart is broke
But I have some glue
Help me inhale
And mend it with you
We'll float around
And hang out on clouds
Then we'll come down
And I'll have a hangover

I found it hard, it was hard to find.
Oh well, whatever, nevermind

The absent parent may well seem even more elusive than the furniture

I am always missing someone

I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry, each emotion darkening and distorting the other. It is a bleak and hopeless feeling. I may know it well, but it is no easier to bear

I look over at him, look deeply into his impassive face. Nic has many of his mother's handsome features. Like her, he is tall and thin and has her fine nose and lips. He had her fair hair before it darkened as he grew up. Even so, sometimes I have looked at his face and it was as if I were peering in a mirror. It was not only the physical similarities that I would see. I saw myself hidden in his eyes, in his expressions. It would startle me. Maybe all children as they grow up take on their parents' traits and mannerisms and become more like them. I see my father in me now in ways that I never did when I was young. In the car, however, I see a stranger. And yet he is a stranger whose every part I know intimately. I recall his soft eyes when they were elated and when they were disappointed, his face when he was pallid from illness and when he was burned red by the sun, his mouth and even each tooth from visits to dentists and the orthodontist, his knees from when he skinned them and I put on Band-Aids, his shoulders from putting on sun block, his feet from taking out splinters—every part of him. I know every part from watching him and living with him and being close to him, and yet driving to Oakland I look at his sullenness and anger and vacancy, his retreat and his turmoil, and I think, Who are you?

relapse is part of recovery.

It may be true that suffering builds character, but it also damages people.