I read David Sheff’s "My Addicted Son" which was published in The New York Times Magazine. I thought this story was a very typical drug addiction story, told from the point of view of a methamphetamine addicted son’s father. He explained the story of a dug addicted life looking from the outside in. The father expressed his son’s journey on and off drugs from before he started and how promising and successful his life would be, from being on the water-polo team, surfing, and being a talented writer, to his downward spiral into drugs. He goes into each stage of his son’s life from slowly getting introduced to drugs, to becoming a frequent user, to experimenting different kinds of drugs, and finally to becoming an addict. From there, the father explains the struggle of Nick’s life as a roller coaster, due to his inconsistent progress always followed by a relapse.

The tension in the story is focused around the narrator’s drug addicted son Nick. There is the obvious tension with Nick’s fight to stay sober and make something out of his life, but then there is also tension and conflict between Nick and his father. Although Nick is the addict, his father is constantly struggling to help Nick get clean and also to make sense of why things are the way they are. He feels as though his son’s miserable life is somehow his fault, which is a typical concern to a parent dealing with a troubled child. Throughout the memoire, the narrator is constantly pulling Nick to try and get him on the right track, but Nick always ends up finding an alternative route which in consequence fuels Nick drug influenced life.

Through many back and forth stories of Nick taking a step forward only to take two steps back, he eventually gets clean. The resolution of the memoir takes place at the very end of the story when Nick decides to withdraw on his own because he was “mortified that he slipped” and then goes on to write a children’s book as well as review movies and magazines online. Coupled with his successful job he becomes more active by consistently biking and swimming. Personally, I was unsure that this was really the resolution due to Nick’s reoccurring progress, always followed by another failure. The reader knows the resolution is complete when Nick writes to his younger brother Jasper apologizing for stealing his money when he was younger, and giving him his word that from now on he would always be there for Jasper when he needed him.

The purpose of this story was to provoke emotion from the reader by explaining the challenging life of an addict. The memoir is defiantly relevant within the context of being in the New York Times since it is a personal piece. The intended audience would be any teenager or adult who wants to take a minute to look into the life of someone else to see how one progresses from a particular struggle. The narrator particularly focused on strong character development as one of his narrative techniques. He dove into Nick’s life, fully embracing the positive and negative aspects of Nick’s character. By doing this, the narrator was able to reveal to the reader Nick’s personality and habits. He also used the use of dialogue in his memoire which really added substance to his writing. In the end by having the dialogue of Nick’s letter to his brother, I believe that it was a very effective way of showing the reader (not telling) that Nick has taken a different pathway in life and that this time his sobriety is real. If the narrator would have said, ‘Nick’s sober again,’ as a reader I wouldn’t buy it even a little bit. I plan to incorporate the use of dialogue in my own piece to give my audience a true sense of the thoughts running through my head.

The transitions for the most part were easy for me to follow. By the author stating the stage in Nick’s life he was talking about, I was able to follow chronologically the timeline of the story. By using words like college, junior and senior year of high school, a few years later, I was able to keep track of how Nick evolved at different stages of his life. The narrator also talked about his youth, but then he would bring it back by using his youth as an example for Nick which intertwined with the story very neatly. I am going to have a similar approach in my own writing. I plan to include flashbacks in my scenes in order to give background knowledge to my reader as well as to develop my characters more.