DAVID SHEFF

When he was on the streets, I was consumed with Nic. I was obsessed with him to the point that I could barely function.

Kids love the 'Mario Brothers' games, which are whimsical, inventive and lots of fun.

I chose a rehab center for Nic that was recommended by a friend who had sent her son there. The program lasted 28 days, after which he relapsed. Over the next six years, he was admitted to six residential treatment programs and four outpatient programs. He would do better for a while, but then relapse. Each relapse was crushing.

Certain people are more likely to use drugs because of whatever it is: They've suffered some trauma in their life. They have risk factors like mental illness, people with learning disabilities, with attention problems.

At some point, parents may become inured to a child's self-destruction, but I never did.

Reading Bukowski and Burroughs and Henry Miller doesn't necessarily mean that a kid is going to try to emulate their debauchery to the point that Nic did, but he really was fascinated by it.

This idea that some kids have now in some communities that if they haven't filled out their college resumes by the time they're 12, they are going to fail in life, it's a lot of stress on kids.

When change takes place gradually, it's difficult to comprehend its meaning.

There are many things I wish I could redo as a parent.

So often we have this image of what drug addiction looks like, and it's not fun. Our loved ones who go down that path are in pain.

I have my limited skills as a journalist and a father, and the journalist part is really part of my mindset, to use my skills to try to solve problems.

Everybody tells you over and over again that addiction is a disease. But when I read Nic's book I understood not just that this is a disease, but what the disease means.

I came to understand that Nic on drugs was not the Nic I knew and trusted. Nic on drugs was somebody else. We were afraid of him.

Nick spent his first years on walks in his stroller and Snugli, playing in Berkeley parks and baby gyms and visiting zoos and aquariums. His mother and I divorced when he was 4. No child benefits from the bitterness and savagery of a divorce like ours.

That's the difference between even the best video game and what's going on in books. Video games can inspire a reaction, but not the emotions.

Like so many of us, I'm brokenhearted about the death of the remarkably talented actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The motivations for using drugs, often it's pretty obvious and common: you know, peer pressure. You know, kids are struggling growing up.

Though addiction is a disease - a brain disease that's often progressive - addicts who relapse are often blamed.

If you love someone who's an addict and their use is life-threatening, you don't wait until they hit bottom because that can mean that they're going to die. You have to do everything you can to get them in treatment.

The rest of the world may devour Japanese hardware - from Honda Civics to Sony Walkmans - but Japanese software, such as books, movies and recordings, has had little impact outside Japan. The exception is video games.

But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.

You know, we think about addiction as a morally reprehensible choice, but addicts act crazy because, in a way, that they are.

Relapse is very dangerous. However, relapse can be a symptom of the disease. Sometimes there are multiple relapses before you get sober and stay sober.

So many times in the middle of an interview I've had people say, 'Can we go off the record?'

After a hellish decade, my son got and stayed sober.