Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

Nic admits to opening up a bit and giving the treatment program a genuine try. He has two particularly eye-opening experiences. One is in his all-male core group called Empowerment. After he tells the group his story of addiction, he tries to avoid their eyes but is forced to sit and make eye contact with all of his group. This is incredibly difficult for him, so much so that he wants to disappear, but it forces him to face how disconnected he is from his story. One of the therapists notices that he talks about the horrific things that have happened to him as if they happened to someone else. In another session, Nic is asked to truly relive a former traumatic event and release the trauma trapped within. He expresses “genuine sadness over what I put myself through” (300).

Nic notes that he’s “started to really value the time [he’s] spent at Safe Passage Center” (302). He emphasizes that he’s learning about the importance of self-love and self-acceptance and realizing that he needs to stay sober first for himself. The treatment process has helped him to address suppressed trauma and to be more honest with himself. Nic has arrived at a place where his “mind isn’t such a scary place anymore” (303). Nic also adores and appreciates the people around him, and consents to stay as long as his therapist prescribes. He also notes that “Zelda is the one aspect of my life that I haven’t completely given over to this process” but also that he is beginning to doubt whether he can be with Zelda as a sober and healthy person (305).

On Annie’s recommendation, Nic’s parents come to visit and partake in group sessions. Nic admits to being “pretty goddamn nervous” (310). He realizes that his parents will be skeptical of his recovery and progress, and tries to keep in mind that he cannot depend on them for validation. The three of them undergo sessions in which they discuss their collective issues honestly and openly. They also take part in art therapy exercises that help Nic understand his parents better. The experience is a painful and emotional one for Nic, and he notes that he feels a range of emotions. He leans on the community to get through the experience and ends by saying, “I feel like I’m able to claim my own person” (319).

In the book’s brief Epilogue, Nic reveals that he has been out of the center for a year and living with a friend and her family in Savannah. He is trying to live simply, smoking, and drinking coffee, writing, and taking care of his cats. Nic reveals that his friend’s family took him in after he completed four months at the treatment center. He has been sober ever since, and he writes that “[u]sing just has no place in my life and I can’t see that ever changing” (321). Nic still struggles with mental illness, but he is trying to work through it and work on this book. For him, this memoir is a part of being honest about his life in order to move forward with his recovery and be authentic.  

In 2008, Nic writes that his past will always be with him and that he used drugs in order to escape many things, particularly his mental illness and self-loathing. However, he found some solace growing up in reading, particularly reading works by authors who were unafraid to expose their dark sides. Nic sees his memoir as a contribution to that conversation. However, while writing the memoir had a cathartic and therapeutic effect on him, he recognizes that “I exposed other peoples’ lives in my writing” (329) and that perhaps their stories were not his to tell. In the spirit of being honest about his mistakes, Nic also reveals that he relapsed on pills after the memoir was published but was able to get himself into treatment “before things could spiral out of control” (330). He is now 100 days sober and working on himself.