Weekly Review 11/28/12

As the book starts out, Alice is just your average girl trying to cope with a lonely high school life. When she tries acid at a party her whole life begins to change for the worse. So why does she give up everything that she has: a loving family, a best friend, and her school life, all for drugs? I think there’s more than one thing to blame here. I think that one reason could be the loneliness. Alice talks about how the drugs make her feel and how the drugs brought her the friends she never really had. Maybe with the drug life, it brought her an instant group of friends, one who didn’t care about her faults, especially when she was on drugs. Which brings me to the next reason. She always felt like her family was constantly judging her. The drugs made her feel perfect. For someone who’s always felt like they’ve never measured up, that sense of peace and strength that comes from the drugs could be the one thing that makes them feel special. Even if she could only feel like that for a short matter of time, it was worth it. There was finally something in her life to make her feel like she was special. When her family life and school life wasn’t bringing her that kind of relief, it’s no wonder she turned to drugs as an outlet to finally feel free. I’m not saying that feeling lonely or judged is an excuse to do drugs; I just can understand why she would choose the high of drugs over a life of pain. Once she states, “Once you’ve tried drugs, there isn’t a life without them.” So maybe the real problem here is the addictiveness of the drugs, because in the end there’s no escaping them.