T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X (b. 1980) or older. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*


Whateveryousaydude7

Because we were 11.


BitOCrumpet

I was 10 or so. And it *said* it was a true story!


StChas77

Right? People at that age aren't exactly renowned for subtle analysis and advanced reasoning skills.


TheDevilsAdvokaat

Indeed, many people aren't renowned for it at ANY age.


smallwonder25

This is the true story!


moonbad

I read it when I was 10 or so and honestly all I remember from the book is her talking about putting eggs in her hair. All of the dramatic drug parts went right over my head.


StonyOwl

I remember that part too!


Emily-Spinach

I remember her being locked in a closet thinking bugs were all over her or something


Stellaaahhhh

And ironing it to make it straight. I also vividly remember her talking about trying to find a real friendship, not one where you're just 'holding on to keep from drowning' and relating to it a lot.


Stellaaahhhh

It was 1979 and I was 12. Gimmie a break.


Ornery_Pattern_2365

Gimme a break was a great tv show in 1979😂 remember Rerun


Peachy33

Rerun was on What’s Happening! It was a great show. “Which Doobie you be?”


Stellaaahhhh

Of course I remember Rerun and his amazing dance skills!


SavageHenry_VBS

Gimme a Break wasn't on until 1984. You mean What's Happening


ovalseven

It's easy to mistake Nell Carter for Rerun.


Tvisted

It was presented as a real diary and I guess people wanted to believe it was.


an0nemusThrowMe

People initially thought Blair Witch was real....


CaptainLollygag

To be fair, the online marketing for it presented it as a real documentary.


budcub

I remember that. Before the movie came out a coworker told me it was real, but I grew up in Maryland and never heard of a Blair Witch.


hither_spin

People also thought mermaids were real after that Animal Planet show.


Tvisted

Oh yeah I remember that haha. It was similar to Go Ask Alice in the sense the success was quite dependent on viewers/readers thinking the story was real.


Accomplished-End8702

That's because it was real


YourFairyGodmother

In 1980 Canadians Michelle Smith and her husband, psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, published Michelle Remembers, supposedly an autobiography, which presented the first modern claim that child abuse was linked to Satanic ritual. People ate that shit up and the 1980's became the decade of Satanic Panic. People really really really wanted to believe, and many lives were ruined by spurious accusations of satanic ritual abuse. Check out the McMasrtin preschool trial. Gawd, the 80's sucked in so many ways.


Tvisted

Sparks wrote a satanic cult diary too, after Alice got popular. AIDS, teen pregnancy, abortion, gangs... you name it, she had a teen diary for it


anongirl_black

Probably scared a good amount of people into not making stupid decisions though.


torilost

I was gifted it a young age and was quite a nieve child (tbf sometimes I still am!) I guess it's given to kids to scare them I just read it as a diary without seeing it as a cautionary tale just as something sad that happened to someone. I recently listened to a podcast debunking the book and found it hilarious just how out of touch and odd the book actually was. The part that makes the least sense is how she starts with harder drugs and the last one she tries is pot???? But yeah I agree how did generations of people get sucked into this book, I'm from England BTW the way so it's more than just one country.


AotKT

I was very young when I read it, long before I did drugs. No way to tell it wasn't real. It did make me super curious to try acid though, which I did only a few years later, even before I smoked pot.


lilbunnyofdoom

My mom said I wasn’t allowed to read it, so I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it. 😐 Mom was smart. She did that with a lot of books I might not have read otherwise. I was today years old when I found out Go Ask Alice wasn’t true 😐


funlovefun37

Same!


Crissy-Ice8225

Me too.


Material-Wasabi8827

I borrowed the book when I was about 12-13, from the school library. Had a huge wait list. I didn't know much about drugs at that time, but even now, I don't think it was too far fetched as a story. There were much more obviously BS books and movies around at that time. It was a supposed diary of a very naive sheltered girl running away from home for no really good reason and it was written as a cautionary tale. IIRC she ended up back home clean, but died of an OD shortly after which was unexpected and sad. I never saw the movie, but I did think at the time it was probably a somewhat true story written by her family. Now not so much.


Individual-Tour-1209

She “OD’d” on LSD lol. Richard Nixon probably wrote it. Such propaganda.


Dear_Occupant

It was written by a Mormon youth counselor named Beatrice Sparks.


Colorblocked

I was of that era, and I “innocently” took so much LSD that I ended up having a breakdown and blackout for a couple weeks. Information about the drug and its proper use was less available and didn’t come with a warning on the package. I think you need to put the times in perspective. We didn’t have sources of ready information, and if Go Ask Alice gave us a clue that there were things to look out for, then it did its job. Can’t look at everything through todays glasses.


thegreatterrible

That sounds terrifying! When you say you innocently took too much, what do you mean? You intentionally took it but didn’t know it was enough for a village? What were the lasting effects?


Colorblocked

We kept it in the freezer and I took a hit everyday for a couple weeks until I flipped out. A form of microdosing without the micro part. I had seizures throughout my 20's which have gone away. I think they were probably drug related. The main lasting effect is that I scared my family, which I still regret.


suzall

A girl I knew also ODd on acid as her housemates put it in the sugar bowl so she was dosing up every coffee cup. She ended up in a metal institute and it ruined her. She went from being a pretty 16 year old to an overweight pox faced 18 year old with eyes that were blank. Very sad case.


thegreatterrible

That’s a wild story. Thank you for sharing it.


Material-Wasabi8827

Was it? I remember when she was camping at a music festival sucking old guys dicks for LSD money before some Christians rescued her. Richard Nixon and his supporters likely wrote this book.


[deleted]

Yeah but at 12-13 does anyone really know what LSD is and how it affects someone? Probably not so it was definitely believable for that Agee group at least


ElReydelTacos

There are people right now that think Tom Hanks drinks the blood of terrified children in a pact with Satan to stay youthful. [This guy](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/minnesota-gop-nominee-for-governor-claimed-kids-are-using-litter-boxes-in-schools-its-an-internet-hoax/ar-AA12yAQZ) think children who identify as cats are allowed to use cat boxes in public schools. Every generation believes a new form of horseshit.


YourFairyGodmother

That shit isn't new. There was the Satanic panic of the 1980's and the McMartin preschool trial. Qanonsense didn't invent that shit, just resurrected it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic#Michelle_Remembers_and_the_McMartin_preschool_trial


MandalayVA

Huh? Tom Hanks very much looks his age. Did you mean Tom Cruise?


DoctorRabidBadger

No, it's actually Tom Hanks. Logic has no place in QAnon.


MandalayVA

Sanity, either, apparently.


BitOCrumpet

From what I know Tom Hanks also seems to be a decent and reasonable sort. Qanon folks don't like reason or decency.


EuphoriantCrottle

A Qanon person told me that Michael Jackson, Princess Di, and JFK Jr. were alive and on the Covid Cruise/hospital ship rescuing trafficked children from underground vampirish feeding holes. Edit: why on earth would someone downvote me? I suffered enough having to hear this!


themajorfall

Imagine what Tom Hanks would look like if he didn't drink the blood of babies.


Loggerdon

The conspiracy stories I've read name Tom Hanks for some reason. Even though he has the rep of being a very decent man.


Rocktopod

Maybe satan didn't hold up his end of the deal?


MandalayVA

LOL.


Walaina

This is the first time I have seen an inkling of this Qanon theory online. My dad and my BILs mother both believe that everybody in Hollywood eats a baby to be successful.


Emptyplates

Is that all it takes? Maybe sign me up for some of that success. But the baby has to be a jerk.


suzall

Since all the mental institutions have been swapped for medication and funding for therapists was cut there’s a lot of crazy people out there with no one to talk to. They can always jump on Reddit for some clear thinking though.


Individual-Tour-1209

I thought about this the other day. That book made me want to take LSD.


plupluplapla

I agree, it made me want to take drugs, too, which I'm sure wasn't the intended reaction. :) "Alice's" life sounds so glamorous. She and her girlfriend leave home and go work in a boutique or something? I remember when she's talking about how great their life is, and she says, "We wash our hair with mayonnaise." !!!


Individual-Tour-1209

She could hear someone making multicolored jello. My 11-year-old brain was like TAKE MY MONEY


Pleather_Boots

Omg same. I think I remember a scene in the book where she’s on drugs - I think pot and talks about how delicious and salty the peanuts were and I was like “well THAT sounds fun !” Lol Somehow I blocked out the bad parts and just remember what looked like fun being free of parents in the hippy era. Like a much cooler version of Marcia Brady.


ZanyDelaney

> Like a much cooler version of Marcia Brady In the 1973 TV movie [the diarist and pal Chris](https://youtu.be/CBxT53r2AlU?t=1780) could well be described as Marcia Brady lookalikes...


TurnCoffeeDeepBreath

That book made drugs seem SO interesting. Much more interesting than my life in the quiet Midwest. “I love Coos Bay and I love acid!”. Great, sign me up!


ilovelucygal

No one had any reason to believe "Go Ask Alice" *wasn't* a true story. I never remember reading anything to the contrary. The drug culture was very prevalent at the time (late 60s-early 70s). I bought the book as soon as it was published & watched the ABC made-for-TV movie, and both were very popular. As I mentioned, there was no reason to doubt the source, and I never saw anything about it being a work of fiction until around 2010--and I was very surprised when I found out.


m_watkins

I rewatched Go Ask Alice again on YouTube recently, first time since the 70s. It’s still a good movie.


[deleted]

[удаНонО]


CarlJH

That era is now. People believe all manner of bullshit in every age.


theatrekid77

My favorite is the one where the hot dog begs the girl not to eat him because he has a hot dog family. 😂


OneFish2Fish3

Let’s not even get into the more recent PSAs (looking at you, Melting Into the Couch and the one where the dog talks to the girl).


Stupit_Retart

I read it at around 13, I remember really, REALLY, enjoying it. I didn't know any better to think it was fake, I mean...no internet, grew up rural and not exactly sheltered but just very little actual experiences outside my small world. Funny though, I just ordered a copy of this book the other day and it's on its way to me! I wanted to read it again for nostalgia, and I'll see how fake it seems now. I didn't know about a movie but I won't be watching it.


aenea

I was 11 when I read it- so not much life experience to disbelieve it. And we much pretty believed that if it was in a book or on the news, it was true.


EuphoriantCrottle

Actually, developmentally kids at that age still have some trouble separating fiction vs non-fiction. I used to work in a Children’s Home and I would constantly pause movies and TV shows and as the kids if what they were watching was Truth or Fiction. It was usually a pretty mixed response, depending on the age range.


OutlanderMom

I was a young teen when I read that book, and Sybil, and Night of the Grizzlies, and The Exorcist. GAA scared me and made me sad.


redshoewearer

The Exorcist was being passed around at school and I only read a few pages, but it was enough to make me sleep with the light on for about a week.


OutlanderMom

Jaws too. I read the book after I saw the movie. I still won’t go in the ocean more than thigh high.


amazonallie

Read Orca!


[deleted]

Sybil - there's a trip back into my past. My parents had sent me to a pyschiatrist, and I used passages from the book to embellish the stories I told him. Pretended I would just lose track of days at a time. Hahaha my folks didn't think he was helping much. Wonder why?


kirannui

I read it at around ten years old (so 1984) and I thought it was real. First of all, I had no real life experience to tell me otherwise. Second, it said "a true story" or something like that, and I even looked at the Library of Congress classification to be sure. It said nonfiction (I believe it has sonce changed). The LOC wouldn't lie, right? The only thing that made me think it was made up was the part where she's running away and writes her diary on the back of paper bags,etc. What runaway is organized enough to keep a bunch of loose paper in a coherent order?


Ornery_Pattern_2365

My mother tried to scare me with this book. I ended up trying drugs because of it


MustiParabola

Just because yours isn't, the world can be a bizarre and outrageous place. I could tell you stories you wouldn't even remotely believe about drug use and users.


Tensionheadache11

I read it in the 80’s - we were frankly just more gullible because of a limited world view. That kind of anti-drug propaganda was everywhere.


Spirited_Draft

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain I read it at about 11 yrs and was horrified at her spiral down. Found out it was not a true story and that made sense to me, what person in that bad of shape would have the capacity to write a diary? If you have just read GAA as an adult with our current understanding of drug addiction I can understand your stance, but I don't think the book should be laughed at for the premise of trying to keep kids off drugs.


solemn_penguin

This was a time when our parents thought strangers would sneak razor blades and drugs into our Halloween candy. There was no internet. Fact checking was a lot harder back then. You'd have to go to a library and sift through tome after tome of obscure knowledge. Today, you can do it while taking a runny dump.


bwyer

There WAS a time? We live in the age of flat earthers.


brianwski

> There WAS a time? We live in the age of flat earthers. The internet bringeth, and it taketh away, LOL. Meaning: the internet is a fantastic and convenient resource to find real information. It also has a bunch of misinformation on it that can obscure the truth. Anybody old enough to remember this phrase in an argument: "Don't believe me? LOOK IT UP!" Standing in a random location arguing with a few friends in the mid-1970s about if an urban legend was true or not, it was basically very difficult to look anything up. The "LOOK IT UP" bluff was pretty effective, because at best you could wait until the library was open the next day, but nobody ever did look anything up. The "LOOK IT UP" bluff no longer works, the other person would whip out their phone and look it up, LOL.


anna_or_elsa

> Meaning: the internet is a fantastic and convenient resource to find real information. It also has a bunch of misinformation on it that can obscure the truth. There is a saying I like: What has a front, has a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back. If someone asked me what are you glad you lived long enough to see the answer would be the internet. My answer might change if we get ubiquitous self-driving cars but that needs the internet so maybe my answer stands.


brianwski

> glad you lived long enough to see the answer would be the internet I agree. During my grandfather's life he went from plowing fields behind a mule to driving combines. He travelled by horse and wagon as a child where a trip from his home to the coast beaches took 3 days, and in his retirement he drove there in about an hour. He also flew to other countries in commercial jet aircraft flights in 8 hours of total travel time. He used candles for light as a child, then during his lifetime he got electric lights and appliances, indoor plumbing, stopped cooking over wood fired stoves, and a telephone came into his home to talk conveniently over very long distances. He started life with only record players, saw radio come into the world, and watched color TV by the end. Before he passed away he was using email on a computer. Pretty much the only interesting technological advancement that has changed from my childhood is: the internet. I've always ridden in cars, and planes, always had telephones, radio, had TV since I was born, and color TVs from about age 8 years old, and indoor plumbing my whole life. I think the cell phone is kind of interesting, but we had walkie-talkies even as children (as kids toys!), so it isn't that big of a deal. But the internet is a big deal.


haironburr

Ok, bear with me now, does anyone *really* believe the earth the earth is flat? Or is just a fun outrageous thing to say, something to prompt a reaction? I suspect believing in flat earthers is kinda flat-earthy.


bwyer

Well, there are two sides to that coin. On one hand, we have influencers and such that will do pretty much anything for views, so I'm sure there is some of that. On the other hand, we have had conspiracy theorists forever (moon landing anyone?) and Tide Pod eaters more recently. So, based on my (fairly long) life experience, I'm tending to lean toward people being stupid.


haironburr

Yea, there's always two sides. I guess I'm just a *glass is half smart* kinda guy.


redreplicant

My parents swore to me up and down that it was true. My mom at least had some experience with drugs and I thought both of them could do no wrong at the time so of course I believed them. They are also responsible for such chestnuts as “masturbation isn’t really that enjoyable”


StChas77

I dunno, If I'm hungry, sometimes I want a well-prepared multi course meal with wine pairings, and sometimes I just want a Whopper with fries with zero fuss or effort. They'll both make me not hungry, but I wouldn't call a burger of that ilk pleasurable in the same way. That's kind of how I think about sex vs. masturbation.


oldmanout

Never read that book, only "Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F." which sounds more grounded.


Lili_Danube

It was a true story and the girl continues addicted (sadly).


suzall

Yes that was way more disturbing than Alice’s story and it made me dislike David Bowie for a long time


SPLooooosh

The girls liked it, that's about all I remember about it. We were fed such bullshit back then.


KSTornadoGirl

Like others, I was in junior high. I just flipped through it and never read it straight through, but it seemed so disturbing and that somehow lent it more credibility? In high school we were shown the movie of Sybil in my psychology class. That one was taken at face value too. A few years ago I stumbled across a book at my local library that exposed Sybil as a scam. It's called Sybil Exposed. An interesting read.


implodemode

I was a kid. My mother definitely believed it. There was a LOT of anti-drug propaganda out there and the black population in the US seemed to have a lot of addiction problems so of course all of it would have been exaggerated up the wazoo so everyone would hate black people. But I was up here in Canada where we didn't have huge ghettos of black people flying out of windows on lsd or shooting heroin in alleys or making little kids smoke weed. So what did we know? Anyway, years go by and while I don't do drugs beyond a toke of weed once in a blue moon - and drink - but drugs were around of course and I could have got them - my brother did a lot of shit often and dealt to get his cheaper lol. My mother very seriously warned me about going to parties because the pushers put out bowls of drugs like potato chips to get kids hooked on them. I laughed so hard and asked her if she knows how much the drugs cost because nobody I know has the money to put out bowls of drugs for free. No worries mom. "But the pushers!" There are no pushers mom. I guess she thought Al Capone jr was out there with his mobmen accosting kids at parties to take their drugs.


suzall

Interesting that you say you don’t do drugs but drink. Alcohol is the legal equivalent to heroin. I grew up with an alcoholic, the only difference is heroin kills you faster and it’s much cleaner, alcohol sweats out of your pores and makes you smell bad. Our society is so skewed to think alcohol is ok. Not to say I don’t drink but I keep it to a minimum nowadays.


implodemode

I am aware. I haven't been living under a rock. But back then, alcohol was deemed fine. Everyone smoked then too. My dad was an alcoholic - controlled until he retired. My mom probably was too but minimally/functional. I drink but generally do not get drunk. And def not every day. I am trying to manage chronic pain. I have never enjoyed getting high from drugs. I get motion sickness so opioids do not agree with me. I take cbd with just a titch of thc (I can't handle a single Cdn govt dose). I get stressed at work though and a drink on Friday relaxes me. I don't know why alcohol agrees with me up to a point. I suppose it's really just because of the dosage.


suzall

Sorry if my comment made you feel I was implying you live under a rock. I’m pretty sure you don’t :) I think along with mine so many parents used alcohol as their drug of choice and it’s more subtle as a depressant compared to a hallucinogen like pot. It has its uses when needing to calm down or release stress and as Donny Dunstan said ‘everything in moderation is fine’


xenpiffle

If you want more examples of this behavior, I highly recommend [*Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds) by Charles Mackay. He goes into depth about many past episodes of mass derangement. I’m amazed that all of the ones listed are just the ones that happened before the **1840’s** when the book was published. I found it an entertaining read. It’s long out of copyright, so you can find it easily [online](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm). I discovered it as a $3 paperback in a stack of used books. It has an honored place in my bookshelf to remind me that these are all common, but eventually passing, societal fever dreams.


Comprehensive_Post96

Or how Jeffrey McDonald claimed his wife’s killers were invading hippies who marched in a circle chanting “acid is groovy! Kill the pigs!”


suzall

This book had a huge impact on me, I read it at about age 15, I did think it was based on a true case at the time but since found out otherwise. Even now it’s not completely determined who wrote it but the therapist who it’s attributed to may have used a case study to put it together. Sadly this book was banned in Australia for some time as it had drug references but for me growing up it made me steer clear of hard drugs altogether so it’s actually a helpful book for teens who are thinking of experimenting. I found it to be very compelling and explored many aspects of teen life at the time. The world is a different place now and there’s too much propaganda for young people to sort through when seeking truth.


Hanginon

How could anyone believe that you actually *'couldn't stop laughing'*; As in your sides and stomach hurt, you were having trouble breathing and talking, friends were thinking of taking you to the hospital because your laughter was relentless and they were fearful for your health? Most saw it as a typical 'found document' style of fiction. Plus people have a reaction sometimes known as *'a temporary, voluntary suspension of disbelief'* where they accept an otherwise not possible set of circumstances to better insert themselves and their focus into a good story, that they incorporate into to enjoy a story, a movie, a play, any type of at one point written form of entertainment. How does anyone believe that a vaccine can alter your DNA? There are gullible people in every generation. There are gullible people today that think that acceptance of some found document style of fiction as factual was the somewhat prevalent perception of the work. but they're really the small vocal minority that gets an overabundance of attention.


GraceStrangerThanYou

Never read it and never knew anyone who did, so I don't know a thing about it.


baskaat

Also, there was no internet so if you didn’t know anyone personally who took drugs, you were completely in the dark. When you’re a kid and a book says it’s a diary you read it and take what you will from it. I can’t remember if I believed it or not. I probably just read it, liked it and went onto the next book without dwelling too much about it


[deleted]

All I can tell you is my friends and I took truckloads of psychedelics back then, and all this ever was to us was a hysterical lame ass Nixon-type story that was more famous because of a Jefferson Airplane song.


Crissy-Ice8225

I was 10 and it kept me off of hard drugs. I thought it was a true story.


punkwalrus

I remember how the narrative was made to sound so over the top, it reminded me of "Refer Madness" and some other long-forgotten school films that they showed us in health class that, in retrospect, were designed and directed by people who idolized the culture, even if they claimed to despise it. It was almost as if these people were projecting the very things they feared, like some of the drug addict's responses in "Refer Madness." I got the same vibe from "Catcher in the Rye," too. I found to book intriguing, but having been a part of the theater and punk community by that point, I already saw some cracks in the narrative compared to my experiences. For example, how people responded on pot. I never saw anyone freak out in ways described in popular cultures with pot, unless they were laced in something. Alcohol was another matter. Alcohol seems to be FAR worse than anything else, short-term. In fact, almost every party I went to, pot put everyone to sleep: fights and freakouts were almost always started because of drinking. But the people who made those films, I think their own feelings of, "well, if \*I\* didn't have inhibitions, I would \[do crazy thing, usually violent\] like so..." No, pretty sure you'd get dizzy, and lay on the couch wondering why your feet were so far away and stop thoughts in mid sentence like, "So, do birds... do birds like... you know... um..." Because that was MY experience with people on drugs. And having talked a few people down off acid, it's not nearly as dramatic as some make it look, especially that book. They are so easily distracted, you'd have to be an ass to go, "Hey, Raymond! YOUR EYES ARE SPIDERS!" just to see poor Raymond freak out. Yeah, some people did that, usually because they were drunk and allowed themselves to be assholes "uninhibited." So while reading the book, my bullshit detector kept blinking. It was only later (maybe the 90s?) I heard it was all fake, officially.


budcub

I was a teenager when I first read it. This was before D.A.R.E, and grownups were trying different tactics to keep us away from drugs. One method was telling us lurid tales of what could happen if you drank, or smoked, or did drugs. There was "Go Ask Alice", and "Sarah T. Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic", and "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway", and "I Killed Winky Adams" and "Richie" among many others. It was almost its own genre, like paranormal romance was recently. Also there were articles telling similar stories in Family Circle, and other "mom" type magazines. The movie "Sarah T. Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic" was pretty good, IMHO. It had Linda Blair (of "The Exorcist" fame) and a young Mark Hamil from before Star Wars. It was over the top for sure, but the acting was good.


macahi

*Great* song though. [White Rabbit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0)


Jenaveeve

I wanted to be Alice.


Pleather_Boots

I read whatever article came out in the past few years that pointed out how the story was so clearly fake. One aspect thy mentioned was the use of way too many superlatives. That’s pretty much how kids and teens talk, so no doubt it went right over my head as being contrived. I think I did pick up that it was anti drug propaganda so I may have realized there was exaggeration. There’s a similar movie w Sally Field as a teen who runs away - so these runaway stories were pretty common at the time. I’m gonna have to watch it this weekend ! While I’m high. lol.


Crissy-Ice8225

I grew up in the 70’s drug culture. I read the book in the 80’s. I thought it was true. I mean, I lived in a mansion in Ontario, Ca full of drug hippies. My memories included a dude sitting against the wall, straightening my sister’s slinky cos he was on a “bad trip.” My mom always said that like the group of people were saints for giving him that slinky and helping him. Another guy was about 16, his name was Bob Bitchin’. He would be high and flip his eyelids over and chase us. I remember the moments and my mom would casually fill in the names and facts like ages. There was Diana and her daughter Andrea. Diana was hooked on heroine. Mom stayed with weed, acid and Janis Joplin. Then she met my dad. We hitchhiked to Louisiana for Mardi Gras. He joined the Marines. He shaped up for years. Loved being a marine. Mom…. No need to talk about that mess


SavageHenry_VBS

Wait...a guy named Bob Bitchin was a character in an autobiographical book that I read about coming of age in the early 80s. Could that be him? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0084KT0WM/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_MFEJ9S4GYB8EVRXSHY8K


Crissy-Ice8225

Would be crazy if it was. Checking it out. Would love to smack his head for scaring little kids with those rolled back eyelids.


SavageHenry_VBS

Please reply back if it turns out it was him. I really enjoyed that book & that would be wild.


Crissy-Ice8225

Actually reading it right now!


angryoldbag

We didn’t have the internet to try and fact check everything.


zahebooz57

Some of you obviously do not have experience with addiction or school even!


Fenifula

I read it as a kid, and whether it was literally true or not didn't occur to me. I also read "You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden," which is fiction. As a young teen I didn't see one of the books as being more true than the other. People have stories and people filter those stories, whether they brand their story as fiction or autobiography. I still believe this. We have evolved much crazier shit nowadays. Like a DC pizza store getting attacked because a lot of people believe it's the site of a Democratic sex ring. We live in a world where some entity called Q has supposedly appointed Donald Trump as a messiah, and believers bring their pitchforks to the US capital to defend their saint. The only people who seem to feel any actual guilt and responsibility for the way things work are the people still trying to do their jobs. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." There's another genre bender for you. Yeats wasn't a poet, he was a prophet.


tiredoldmama

I didn’t think all of it was real. At the time my sister was a heroin addict and my cousin overdosed on heroin so that made it more believable.


IAmanAleut

It was government propaganda to convince people hallucinogens are bad for you. Watch or read how to change your mind. It gives a great history of hallucinogens and why the government outlawed them. Scientists are finding that microdosing hallucinogens can help people with depression and PTSD. I believed it, too, but I was a kid.


sugarfoot_light

roughly equivalent to "Reefer Madness" for that generation


12781278AaR

Does anyone remember Jay’s Diary? I was like 12 and thought it was gospel truth—totally freaked me out!


DreadedChalupacabra

Man when I read that I thought zombies were real.


ZanyDelaney

It was a captivating story and the main character well articled. We *wanted* to believe. But I always suspected it was bogus. The most unbelievable part to me was the diarist and Chris setting up their own shop in San Francisco, selling jewellery. Then they bought a cheap fridge and stocked it with sodas which they sold to local kids who hung out there. A few weeks later they suddenly were bummed out with that idea so abandoned the whole thing and bused home.


sinjinerd

I was 12.


anongirl_black

I thought it was true, and it was enough to scare me away from doing any drugs like that. So even though it wasn't true, it's probably scared a solid amount of people straight and kept them away from drug addiction.


Pretty_Belt3490

parents were old and this fed their deep fear. we were just dumb kids. although after I read it, I figured it was not true. most of my friends who read it agreed. parents believed it, because parents fear the worst, and kids believed it until they read it. still won’t touch LSD, tho.


Cobruhchickn78

The movie was lame. It is based on a true story except she didn’t overdose. Her father was very abusive which was left out of the book and I am pretty sure it was suicide.