I've read a lot of
addiction and recovery books, with a range of focuses: medical,
neuroscientific, historical, social, treatment approach (such as AA), well as memoir. Memoirs make up a good chunk of my readings and they also vary, from authors
who are merely “sober curious” to those who eventually
climb back up from the lowest bottom (or don’t make it back, as their lowest
bottom is death). As per one of my past posts, Drinking: A Love Story is still my top pick in the addiction memoir genre.
But such books were not always as commonplace, and I was recently reminded of one of the first I read: Go Ask Alice (Anonymous author). This memoir, based on diary entries, felt like a pretty risqué read at the time. It was published in 1971—when I was 10—so I suspect I read it a few years after initial publication. It was also made into a TV movie in 1973, featuring the multi-talented William Shatner, as well as Mackenzie Phillips, who would later write a memoir about her own addiction struggles.
The author of Go Ask Alice is a teenaged girl from an upper middle-class American family. In her first diary entry, when she is 15, she writes about dealing with an upsetting, awkward first boyfriend break-up. Given this, she is happy when her family decides to relocate for her father’s academic career. While her younger brother and sister seem to fit into the new town and schools seamlessly, she struggles, as many teenagers do, with low confidence and trying to find her place.
By the end of the
school year though, she has made a few friends, including best friend Beth. But
Beth is off to camp for the summer, and the author is slated to stay with her grandparents
in her old town. Initially bored, she’s invited by an old school friend to a
party, where she unwittingly ingests LSD in a bottle of Coke.
She has a positive LSD experience and, despite her fearful thoughts that taking it makes her a drug addict, her experimentation with drugs continues. She also starts using prescribed tranquillizers/sleeping pills. Coming back home after the summer away, she finds her best friend changed, and becomes friends with another girl who gets her a job and connects her with a drug-taking crowd. Drug use escalates pretty quickly, she begins dealing, runs away, comes back, runs away again, comes back.
Home again, the author tries to live the “straight” life, but is harassed by her former drug-using friends. She must also deal with the death of both her grandparents in quick succession. Then one night while babysitting, someone slips her a drug, and she ends up in a mental health facility after a bad trip leaves her physically and psychologically injured. Once released, she takes a trip with family, then is back in school where the harassment and stigma have died down; she also has new supportive friends and a developing relationship. All seems good in her world, and she bids farewell to her diary (“her dearest friend”), deciding instead to share her thoughts with those around her.
Sadly, an epilogue lets the reader know that the author died of an overdose three weeks after this sign-off. The particulars aren’t shared, only that “she was only one of thousands of drug deaths that year.”
Over fifty years later, amidst a continuing toxic drug crisis in many jurisdictions, it’s tempting to see the 1960s/early 70s drug scene as pretty benign—dare I say even groovy—in comparison. That said, clearly deadly drug overdoses did happen in the 60s/70s era as well, and were just as tragic as they are today.
The book is also dated in other respects. Gelatin salads and homemade dresses were a thing, and film was processed and picked up. As well, drug use stigma was somewhat worse at that time (if that’s possible): the book had a scare-tactic vibe; there was a clear divide between “squares” and those who used drugs in any capacity (and those who did were quick to be labelled “addicts”), and the author was Anonymous. Today, many, including public figures, confidently put their name to, and proudly promote, their pretty gnarly addiction/drug use memoirs.
But the book is also full of themes and topics that transcend time: longing for acceptance, feeling like a misfit in school/in the family, dieting and body image, clothes, hairstyles, mother-daughter struggles, coping with death and grief, peer pressure, bullying, dating, young love, sex, fear of pregnancy, and the depth, complexity, and importance of female friendships.
Despite the dark ending to the book, it still made me nostalgic for less fraught times. When I heard of this book in the early 70s I was very curious, but ultimately its story felt foreign and irrelevant in my world. And, despite there always being some risk, occasional recreational drug use rarely ended in death (not that I was/am a proponent in any era). Today, young people are (of necessity) much more drug aware and educated, including issues surrounding the toxic drug crisis and its risks. Ultimately, we can’t go back, but the book did remind me of an era when many aspects of life seemed simpler.
End note: Another drug-themed book I read in my youth was Nicky Cruz’s Run Baby Run. It was grittier and even less relatable to my life than Go Ask Alice (and The Outsiders), but definitely expanded my awareness, which of course is a key benefit of reading.
