We All Fall Down: Living with Addiction

by Nic Sheff Narrated by Charles Carroll

Overview

In his bestselling YA memoir Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines, Nic Sheff shared a heartbreakingly honest account of his days as a teenage crystal meth and heroin addict. At the end of Tweak, listeners left Nic checking in to a rehab facility in Arizona. We All Fall Down is about what happened next...

In this powerful and immensely readable follow-up to his first memoir, Sheff picks up where he left off and reveals his first-person account of stints at in-patient rehabilitation facilities, devastating relapses with alcohol and marijuana, and hard-won realizations about what it means to be a young adult living with addiction.

In We All Fall Down, Nic voices a truth that many addicts understand: not every treatment works for every addict. By candidly revealing his own failures and small personal triumphs, he inspires young people to maintain hope and to remember that they are not alone in their battles.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

The author's second memoir begins with Sheff in an Arizona rehabilitation center after relapsing into drug use in 2005, while he was writing Tweak. After he is expelled for having a relationship with another patient, Sue Ellen, he moves in with her and attempts to stay sober, but his addictive behavior continues (he develops a brief, intense alcohol problem, snorts cocaine, steals his mother's medication, and relies on marijuana). While on tour for Tweak, Sheff feels like "a phony—a goddamn liar," since he still has to smoke marijuana to face life. The present-tense storytelling and Sheff's authentic voice will keep readers engaged, even when it's unclear where his story is going. He presents visceral images of both the gritty details of an addict's life and the desperation of a life of sobriety (" 'Cause really, what life is there to live? Working this dead-end job? Eating takeout with Sue Ellen?"). Saying a traditional 12-step approach "doesn't work for me," Sheff doesn't provide simple answers—or any answers, really—but readers will respect his ability to move forward "at my own pace." Ages 15–up. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Praise for We All Fall Down:
"Sheff is blessed with off-the-charts readability, and his sex- and profanity-laced first-person narration makes him lovable and hateable in equal measure."—Booklist (starred review)

"The present-tense storytelling and Sheff's authentic voice will keep readers engaged... Sheff doesn't provide simple answers—or any answers, really—but readers will respect his ability to move forward 'at my own pace.'"—PW

"Nic Sheff captures the insidious, almost vampiric mind-set of an addict who shrinks from any form of light. This book has more in common with Kafka than any recovery memoir I've read."—Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of Lit and The Liars' Club

Praise for Tweak:
"Difficult to read and impossible to put down."—Chicago Tribune

"Tweak is...Bukowski and Burroughs, the heart to his dad's head — and the kid can write."—Seattle Weekly

"An unflinching chronicle of life as an addict."—U.S. News & World Report

"Sheff's story takes off like a shot in the arm with a terse, honest and spontaneous narrative."—Kirkus

"The trajectory of drug use is nothing new, but Sheff's lucid, simple prose makes the heartbreaking journey seem fresh."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Sheff's journey, like his writing, is raw and compelling, heartbreaking and witty. An honest and gracious reflection about the challenges of recovery."—Rachel Sontag, author of House Rules: A Memoir

Rachel Sontag

"Sheff's journey, like his writing, is raw and compelling, heartbreaking and witty. An honest and gracious reflection about the challenges of recovery."

Mary Karr

"Nic Sheff captures the insidious, almost vampiric mind-set of an addict who shrinks from any form of light. This book has more in common with Kafka than any recovery memoir I've read."

School Library Journal

Gr 11 Up—In this follow-up to his debut novel Tweak (S & S, 2007), Sheff, a recovering meth addict, recounts his time in various drug rehabilitation facilities. The memoir also recounts his budding relationship with Sue Ellen and subsequent relapse back into drug use and alcoholism. Sheff is an unreliable narrator. He is constantly contradicting himself, vilifying the vaunted 12-step program and then later admitting that some elements of it work for him. He seems highly critical of rehabs and their staffs yet recognizes that they are working to try and make him better. His skewed worldview makes him difficult to relate to, but his honest and uncompromising ability to relate his emotional state makes him a tragic and eventually redeemable figure.—Ryan Donovan, New York Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

In a raw, honest and expletive-ridden narrative, 23-year-old Sheff effectively chronicles the ups and downs of trying to overcome his methamphetamine addiction and pull his life together. Fortunately, the author is not as whiny or narcissistic in this memoir as he was in his first, Tweak (2008), though he still manages to be quite unlikable and astonishingly unsympathetic. Sheff bounces in and out of two detox centers and impulsively into an ill-considered live-in relationship with a girl in Charleston, S.C. (A disclaimer at the beginning indicates that "[c]ertain names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed.") His good intentions are frequently thwarted by bad decisions. Frustration with a dead-end job in a coffee shop leads him to chronic alcohol consumption and pot smoking, once more testing the patience of loved ones. His frequent bouts of self-pity and rationalization, along with the constant use of "fucking" and "goddamn," quickly become tiresome. The author is forthright about the hypocrisy he feels when he speaks at schools about the dangers of drug abuse while still smoking pot daily. When he declares, "I am an asshole," it's impossible to disagree. He manages to end on a somewhat hopeful note: "I've got to hold on, is all," he says. It's painfully honest—but also painful to read, likely guaranteeing avid teen interest. (Memoir. 15 & up)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170090761
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

We All Fall Down

Living with Addiction

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By Sheff, Nic

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Copyright © 2011 Sheff, Nic
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780316080828

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Part 1

Ch.1

2005
23 YEARS OLD

She hasn’t called.

I mean, I haven’t called her either, but still—she hasn’t called and I know it’s over.

I know she’s not gonna wait for me.

I know it.

She hasn’t called.

The only reason I can figure is that she’s afraid of telling me—afraid of what I’ll do.

But I haven’t called her either.

At least this way I can still pretend it’s my choice.

Besides, I know leaving her is the only option I have. Practically all the therapists in this whole goddamn place have made it their personal mission to convince me she’s nothing but poison for me—that what we have together isn’t really love—that she’s been using me—that I’ve been using her.

I fought it at first.

I fought it real hard.

But I can’t deny it anymore.

I know the truth.

Even if I still can’t give her up.

Even if I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to.

Being with her is the only thing that’s ever made me feel good about myself.

The fact that she chose me. I mean, Christ, she could’ve had anybody—fucking anybody.

And who am I?

Nothing.

Nobody.

She’s everything that I’m not—everything I’ve always wanted to be.

She’s just so cool, you know?

So fucking cool.

The way she talks, dresses, carries herself—her experiences—her beauty—how much older she is than me—how goddamn funny she is.

I admire everything that she is. Her famous ex-husband. Her famous family. Her charisma. The way every goddamn head turns when she walks into a room.

The first time I saw her—that first moment—I had to go talk to her.

I never do that.

Especially at a fucking twelve-step meeting in West Hollywood.

Being with her, I felt important—beautiful, for the first time ever.

She introduced me to her friends, family.

People in LA knew our story.

I finally had an identity, and I needed to hold on to that.

So we planned on getting married.

I made payments on a goddamn ring.

We made love all morning—all night—all afternoon.

We never wanted to get out of bed.

She told me her secrets. She gave me her past.

But then, well, then we went down.

Relapsing—shooting heroin, cocaine, crystal—popping pills till we couldn’t even feel them anymore—smoking crack. We sold our clothes, books, CDs for drugs. We fought—yelled—screamed at each other. I felt her fingernails dig into my face—tearing. I ran to get away as she bit down hard at the bridge of my nose, pounding her fists into me—accusing me of hiding drugs under the tiles in the bathroom floor.

We stayed locked in our apartment.

I went into convulsions shooting cocaine.

My arm swelled up with an abscess the size of a baseball.

My body stopped producing stool, so I had to reach up inside with a gloved hand and pull out solid pieces of excrement the size and density of goddamn hockey pucks.

We both lost most everything we had—our relationships with our families, the respect of our friends.

And then I tried to steal a computer from my mom’s house. The cops showed up, and I was faced with the choice, you know: detox or jail.

I chose detox.

But my family was determined to get me away from her, so they shipped me out here to Arizona.

She went into UCLA’s county program, and then the owner of the old sober living we’d both been at allowed her to come back for free.

That was over a month ago—three days before Thanksgiving, to be exact.

And at first, you know, we talked all the time.

Her detox was even worse than mine, and my detox was the worst hell I hope I’ll ever have to know.

But I’m twenty-three—my body’s still pretty young.

She’s almost forty, and her body just couldn’t take it.

First two major seizures landed her back in the hospital, and then they discovered she had gallstones, which had to be removed.

She was sick, fucking sick.

But I talked to her every day, borrowing people’s calling cards so I could dial out on the one phone they had set up for us in a little enclosed room off the kitchen.

I’d sit in the wooden office chair that rocked back and forth, listening to the static hum of the space heater and my love’s sweet, sweet voice. I’d have to close all the blinds ’cause I’d be crying so much—my body still vibrating with tremors from my own detox—freezing—always freezing, in spite of the space heater and the jackets and sweaters I’d borrowed from my roommate ’cause I had almost no clothes of my own.

She would tell me she loved me. We’d make plans for when I’d be able to get back to LA.

But then one morning before group, I called and things were different.

It was her voice—vacant-sounding, the sweet seductiveness gone.

I told her I loved her.

She said she didn’t even know what that meant anymore.

My stomach went all tight suddenly—twisted up—knotted—the pressure building like I’d been swept down, down into the deepest ocean.

I called everyone I knew, asking for money to help me get back to LA to be with her. No one would even speak to me. I guess I’d used up every last favor from every last person in my life.

At one point I even thought about hitchhiking.

But, honestly, I’m still too weak.

And, besides, I know damn well she’s not gonna fight for me anymore.

I mean, at one point she would’ve.

At one point she actually believed in me.

Before we relapsed, I’d been offered a book deal to write a memoir about my life. I’d finished half the manuscript, and I’d received nothing but positive feedback. I’m pretty sure she saw success in my future. Hell, maybe that’s why she stayed with me.

But now I’ve lost all that. The book is on hold. Actually, I may have blown the whole thing completely. I have no money—no place to live—no car—no cell phone—nothing. My only prospect of getting out of here is to go into sober living and start working some shit-ass minimum-wage job. I’m just not glamorous enough for her anymore. She’ll find someone else—someone with money—someone in the entertainment industry who can open doors for her.

I know how she works. I know her so goddamn well.

We explored each other fully.

Physically and otherwise.

There was a time making love, locked in our goddamn apartment, where she lay on her back. Without really thinking about it, I began rotating my body, fucking her from every angle until I was facing completely away from her, and then back around the other side.

Goddamn, I still want her so much.

She can’t be the one to leave me.

She just can’t.

So I will leave her.

I won’t call her—not ever again.

It’s over.

I’m gonna start telling people today.

I mean, I’m gonna go do it right now.

So I walk up to the smoke pit.

It’s been over a month of this shit already.

It’s time to end it.

Continues...

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Excerpted from We All Fall Down by Sheff, Nic Copyright © 2011 by Sheff, Nic. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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