Go Ask Alice

Yesterday I read the book Go Ask Alice which I thought was a pretty good book. I've never done drugs and to be honest someone could roll a joint in front of me and I might not know what they're doing. Anyways, I finished the book and was left with half a million questions that the book did not answer, so around midnight last night I had to go online and do some research. My first choice was Wikipedia. So here are some of the things I found out

• The diary does not belong to anyone. Speculations are made that a psychologist wrote the book based on a few journal entires from a variety of her patients.
• Despite the fact that the book was authored by "Anonymous" 'Beatrice Sparks, a psychologist and Mormon youth counsellor, began making media appearances promoting herself as the book's editor.'
• "Searches at the U.S. Copyright Office show that Sparks is the sole copyright holder for Go Ask Alice. Furthermore, she is listed on the copyright record as the book's author — not as the editor, compiler, or executor, which would be more usual for someone publishing the diary of a deceased person."
• "Go Ask Alice had been based on the diary of one of her patients, but that she had added various fictional incidents based on her experiences working with other troubled teens. She said the real 'Alice' had not died of a drug overdose, but in a way that could have been either an accident or suicide. She also stated that she could not produce the original diary, because she had destroyed part of it after transcribing it and the rest was locked away in the publisher's vault."
• No one has ever come forward claiming to be 'Alice' or any of the other characters from the book.
• Even though the person writing the journal never mentioned her name, she is commonly called 'Alice' for convience of research, historians etc.
• In the book the writer refers to herself as 'Alice in Wonderland' and a brief encounter with another junkie named Alice is mentioned but the writer's name is never given
• Over the decades this book had banned from several schools and libraries because of the many references to drugs and sex

So overall I enjoyed the book.

I thought it was really sad because this started when she was only 15 years old. There were two parts in the book that really upset me. The first incident was at Sheila's party where Sheila (Sheila is Chris's boss) and her boyfriend took turns raping 'Alice' and her friend Chris.

The second incident is when 'Alice' is drugged by someone and she ends up in the mental hospital. It was really sad because everyone knows she doesn't need to be in there. And history has shown that people with addictions would end up in there because in the 60's and 70's because there were no detox centres or places to help those with drug addictions.

I thought it was incredible that she would just keep running away and there were no repercusions for her actions. All I could think was "My parents would kill me if I ran away" and yet she did that twice.

I also thought that she was brave. She willingly tried drugs even the scary ones i.e. Heroin, Speed. Ok, I think all drugs are scary but those are the ones to really be afraid of ...the needles. I don't want people to think that doing drugs is an act of bravery it's just the things that you do for that hit no matter how dangerous make you somewhat brave, it's like you have no limitations when it comes to getting what you want. Imagine if people put that much effort into other things, good things?

When I read that she died after three weeks of deciding to stop writing I was so disappointed. I really thought that she was going to make it, that things would be better for her. It never specified whether she took the drugs willingly or if she was drugged, they were more concerned that another teen died of drugs. And I suppose that's the real issue but I like to believe that she was drugged. I believe that because of the way her life was going and the changes she had made. She was so happy, she was excited about life and things were the way she wanted them. She was free of the drugs, free of the other potheads, free to do what she wanted.

So, if you're looking for a quick read, something you can read in a day like I did than I reccommend "Go Ask Alice" it gives you an inside look at the world of drugs in the 60's. And well the 60's are interesting enough.

*All information regarding "Go Ask Alice" is from the Wikipedia website. Here's the link if you'd like to read more about 'Alice' including a small criticism of the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice