When I was in high school, there was a time when I was just bored out of my mind and didn’t have much to do. But I can remember this one oral presentation a classmate gave on the book “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines,” by Nic Sheff, which caught my eye and made me want to explore the book more.

The book is a memoir about Nic Sheff, a former drug addict from San Francisco who talks about his struggles with methamphetamine and other drugs.

Temptation is constantly haunting you when it comes to being in a situation like this. For example, Sheff visits a friend in the hospital who is going to receive a morphine injection. It makes him think about using heroin, but then has second thoughts. 

“Part of me wants to see the needle go in so I can just, you know, remember. But I also just feel sort of sick about it all,” Sheff said. 

This book opened my eyes to what drugs can lead you to do and its effects. It also reminds me of people who are going through addictions, just like Sheff, and the struggles they go through.

Sheff didn’t go right into hardcore drugs, he first took it light and then after a while moved on to methamphetamine and heroin.

As I went deeper into the book, I discovered that at some point he had to go through withdrawals on his own. 

“I am so weak and shaking-throwing up-not able to sleep. I try renting some movies, but I can’t focus on the screen. All I can do is shiver in bed, staring at the ceiling struggling not to pull my skin off,” Sheff wrote in the book. “These are the worst withdrawals I’ve ever had.”

I appreciate what I have a lot more now ever since I read this book because of all those people that take this path. Who knows where they are now, and what’s become of them?

If you want to read more about the life of Nic Sheff and the struggles that he went through using methamphetamine, then the book should be available in your local library, or if you have a smartphone, then it should be available on the “Books” app.

If you’re interested in these types of thrilling stories or peoples’ experiences with addiction, then I highly recommend this book. Also, if you’ve experienced some sort of addiction this book can be very relatable as he goes into great detail about his own experience.