Book of Sheen

 

I watched the Netflix documentary a few weeks ago (which was good). This book was honestly almost exactly the same. There were a few things in the documentary that weren't in the book, and a few things in the book that weren't in the documentary, but for the most part they were so similar I don't think I would have missed much if I'd skipped one. 

This was a hard one to read. While I survived (mostly) unscathed from my childhood, I definitely have some bad memories and one of those was when my father tried to tell me that the only person he hurt by doing drugs was himself. I told him nothing could be further from the truth, he hurt *all of us*. Everyone who cared about him. Drug addicts are inherently selfish human beings. They have to be (at least when they're doing drugs). Otherwise if they paused and had the wherewithal to realize how badly they were hurting their loved ones they might stop for a minute and think about it. I saw that a lot in Charlie. His dad was ready to throw himself bodily in front of anything that would hurt his son (and good for him). His wives, girlfriends, kids, brothers and sister, parents, and friends all watched helplessly as he threw away a life thousands of others would have dreamed to have. I'm glad he's sober now and I hope it sticks. I hope he's able to enjoy what's left of his life and have a good relationship with everyone who tried to help him. But most of all, I hope his story is a warning to others.