beautiful boy chapter 6-12

WHY AM I ANNOTATING 40 SOMETHING PAGES IN ONE DAY IM GOING TO DIEEEEEEEE 

—6— 

  • Mark thinks all of junior high school sucks (in todd solondz’s welcome to the dollhouse) 

  • Narrator thinks school’s a waste of time 

    • tuition for Nic’s school is expensive 

      • Narrator wonders how much of it will matter 

      • Narrator is wondering if it’s just a delusion of purchasing a better life for kids 

  • Nic is obsessed with movies

  • Nic has younger siblings: Daizy and Jasper

  • Nic was doing well in school until they get a call that he’s gotten suspended for buying marijuana    

    • narrator instantly begins rationalizing 

      • Nic is experimenting, he’s not a typical drug user, Nic isn’t like the other drug users he knows about, etc

  • The narrator himself did marijuana

    • Him and his friends ignored a lot of antidrug public-service announcements and warnings bc they thought it was hysterical 

      • believed authority figures were trying to scare them because with the drugs they couldn’t be controlled

  • narrator felt right with LSD 

  • Nic needs drug and alcohol counseling and gets a surfer advisor named Don  

    • Nic says the appointment was a waste of time 

  • Nic changes his mind about the teacher and even goes surfing with him 

  • Nic joins the swim team and water polo sophomore year because he feels the want to please him 

  • Spring’s Awakening play: frankness of the sexual awakening of adolescents who can’t turn to parents for help. 

    • foreshadowing mayhaps??

  • Junior year is his best year yet- he’s VERY involved in the community and school

  • He goes to Paris in June-July and comes back with his hair unkempt, dark circles under his eyes, and somehow grayer

    • his manner alarmed the narrator 

    • Nic’s very agitated 

  • Nic somehow got an ulcer at 17 

—7—

  • Narrator’s roommate in the University of Arizona was peculiar

    • Charles did alcohol and drugs 

  • The teachings of don juan- the narrator and friends started seeing psychedelics (peyote, datura, psilocybin) as intellectual inquiry

    • justified marijuana, cocaine, etc 

  • Charles got passed out and cracked his skull

    • the doctor told him to stop drinking but he doesn’t 

  • narrator transfers to university of california 

    • individual social science field major: death and human consciousness

  • Cocaine and pot were common in UoC 

  • Charles drinking and drugging escalated

    • Narrator puts those fears onto Nic 

  • Nic quits the swimming team, water polo team, and the newspaper 

    • begins cutting classes 

    • gets home late and pushes curfew 

    • He’s starting to spend as much time possible away from home 

    • getting better at covering his tracks 

    • Admits to using some drugs 

  • Narrator knows he’s losing it but is still trying to rationalize it 

    • rationalizing it: adolescents typically drift away from parents 

    • rationalized smoking as bonding 

  • After Nic goes to therapy he starts to seemingly get better 

  • Summer: Nic is no longer restraining 

    • becomes more argumentative, reckless, etc 

  • narrator has no support or firm advice on what to do with Nic

  • Nic robbed the house of cash, food, and good wine 

    • narrator panics 

    • WHY IS THE THERAPIST ENABLING THIS

    • therapist blames narrator → narrator kinda goes into a spiral on how come strict parents get okay kids and he didn’t 

  • Nic is still irritable and blames the narrator for being controllling 

  • MORE OF THIS STUPID THERAPIST ENABLING THIS BEHAVIOR BROOOOOOO

  • uhhh police take nic in handcuffs?? 

—8—

  • oop Nic failed to appear in court after he was caught possessing marijuana 

  • Nic gets a job as a barista. Starbucks fears him. 

  • Narrator keeps seeing two different personalities in Nic and wonders how they’re the same person 

  • Nic attend Berkeley 

  • Nic stops calling home 

    • Soon admits college isn’t working 

      • Diagnosing is hard bc drugs and mental health is like a constant cycle of “but.. wait! there’s more!” 

  • drugs radically alter the way teen brains will develop

  • Narrator thinks Nic could be depressed and is covering it up well with drugs 

    • is hoping drugs is a symptom, not the cause 

  • Nic was doing better at home till he missed curfew… for four days 

  • Nic started using crystal meth 

—PART II: HIS DRUG OF CHOICE—

—9—

  • narrator has his own experiences with crystal meth 

    • only did it once bc he feels awful 

  • Charles went further into substance use and died on the eve of 40th bday 

    • meth reminds him of Charles 

  • history of meth:

    • popularized in Japan as a stimulant to increase endurance, performance, vitality, and fight sleep

    • doctors first termed symptoms as meth induced psychosis 

  • US in 1951 said that a prescription was recovered 

    • illegal use started in 1960s 

    • Smith issued the original speed kill warnings 

    • meth use waxed and waned constantly 

    • meth use spread wildly- 35 million approximately compared to 15 million for cocaine and 7 for heroin 

  • most ubiquitous (present) form is crystal meth 

    • ingredients like decongestants and brake cleaner?? yo??

  • it’s pretty easy to make actually

    • users who want it can find it anywhere ig 

  • about half of meth users tweak- the meth induced psychosis

    • lead to aggression and violence 

    • typically law enforcement officers should call for backup 

    • the protocol for handling them is literally like protocol to handle violent animals 

  • meth causes a lot of environmental damage when made 

    • a lot of the waste are going into food and groundwater 

  • don’t have to OD on meth to die 

  • Nic is 18 so narrator can’t force him into rehab 

    • Bro disappears again after 3 days 

—10—

  • Nic took the car 

  • Narrator is raking through his memories and is clearly spiraling 

  • Nic comes back and the narrator is determined more than ever to send him to rehab    

    • narrator realizes how futile rehab is (with single digit percentage of those who actually sober up)

  • Nic begrudgingly follows narrator to the car (to drive to rehab)

—PART III- WHATEVER—

—11—

  • Nic is high while he’s trying to convince his dad he doesn’t need rehab 

  • Narrator recalls how much he knows his son- but in that moment in the car he doesn’t recognize him 

  • Nic is in denial and is still throwing tantrums 

  • Narrator tries out one more rehab center 

    • Nic gets admitted to rehab 

  • Narrator feels like he betrayed Nic by forcing him to rehab, but also consolation because he knows where he is

  • He’s still getting contradictory advice from friends 

  • Karen and the Narrator seek a therapist for Nic and lay their worries 

    • Therapists give advice for themselves 

  • Nic isn’t doing well in rehab so far 

  • Narrator talks to researchers and finds out that those who use meth can’t go back to that initial high bc one use of meth can deplete the brain’s dopamine by 90%

    • It’s possible meth users may never recover 

  • Meth users refusing treatment has a biological bases

    • feel pain 

  • Physical effects of meth is psychological and emotional but have physical bases

    • hot brain activity for trait (ongoing) and state (situational) anxiety 

    • cognitive impairments 

      • blue patch in decision making (medial orbitofrontal cortex) 

  • V-MAT2 levels seem normal in the sample, meaning the brain may have reversible damage and fried nerve endings probably do grow back 

    • kinda long though- 2 ish years 

  • Nic, after the third week of family group therapy sessions, tells the narrator and Karen that he doesn’t want to go to college and he wants to work and be independent 

  • narrator sees Nic differently than the other addicts- a smart kid who lost control 

    • he believes Nic will return to a normal life 

  • 4th family session: Nic says he needs more time 

    • he moved to the halfway house and vanished 

—12—

  • narrator is worried again and is lashing out at Karen 

  • Narrator meets a girl who smokes meth and tries to get information about Nic

    • the girl used to be a good kid but now she doesn’t want to stop using meth

    • been to multiple rehab centers 

  • narrator starts to wonder if somehow Nic’s addiction is his fault again 

    • a lot of if only’s 

  • Nic calls and the narrator forces him into rehab again

  • why is rehab so expensive what 

  • narrator is still holding onto some hope that rehab will work

  • the rehab focuses a lot on educating 

    • speaks of genetics dispositions 

      • Narrator is in between thinking that Nic is in control and not the drug, but he’s also thinking that Nic is not in control. 

  • Nic is sedated to aid his come-down process 

  • Nic suddenly apologized 

3 STATEMENTS 

  1. Rehab centers did not treat drug addictions like they should have 

  2. Being involved with the community does not stop people from getting addicted to drugs 

  3. Therapists can make the drug use worse by enabling behavior disguised as blaming adolescent attitude