When Nic is young, Sheff is “proud of his confidence and individuality” (29) and his ability to “detect, before most kids, upcoming waves of popular culture” (30). As Nic grows older, this transforms into a tendency to be “into the edgiest music and then [grow] bored with it” (54). Sheff sees his son as an individual, unwilling to follow the crowd. As such, he grows concerned when teenage Nic begins to succumb to peer pressure (43). Sheff believes external influences are a key factor in Nic’s descent into drug addiction. Nic’s move away from individuality is symbolic of the powerful lure of drugs. 

There is also another aspect to the symbolism of Nic’s restless search for newer, edgier things. In many ways, his childhood searching foreshadows his later desire for an experience or an intoxicant to provide him with psychological relief. Having left Paris and its “abundance of easily accessible liquor” (179), Nic begins smoking marijuana every day but reflects that “it wasn’t the same” (180). He soon progresses to harder drugs, taking “whatever I could find—E, LSD, mushrooms” until he eventually finds meth and feels “better than ever before in my life” (180).