Go Ask Alice Essay

Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, alcohol, opium, tobacco, hypnotics, just to name a few. Addiction is a chronic disease that affects the chemicals in the brain. It dysfunctions the circuits in the brain that deal with memory, reward, sex, motivation, behavior, relationships and emotions all mostly resulting in substance use or other behaviors to fulfill those circuit rewards. This world is in a current addiction epidemic on drugs. Let’s try to understand addiction to make it a little clearer.

I find the theme in this book to be something that an anyday person or child would experience in a day or much longer piece of time. Any person can experience times of confusion and emotional instability, but if that person sticks it out; they will find an answer to their problems or they will answer answer it for themselves. This pertains to a lifelong conflict, but it does not just pertain to that. It relates to a situation in a day, week, or even, an

Alice has now passed through her by trail by fire, and she feels like an adult from the way others treat her as an individual. She declares “I am somebody: but her real maturation is not from how others respond to her, but from wise reflections on what it means to survivors the troubled times of adolescence.

message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to perform the same job.

Alice could feel her pulse pounding in her temples. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her stomach as she constantly fiddled with her knuckles. She walked down the street yelling as her eyes were narrowed to rigid, cold fire. Alice felt surrounded as they threw rocks and spit on her. She lead a protest for women’s rights that caught the attention of many reporters. “ Women need rights, just like men!” They yelled over and over. A police officer ran over to them and told them to stop and threatened them if they did not stop. As they shackled her, the sadness flowed through her veins and deadened her mind. It was a poison to her spirit, as if a black mist had settled upon her and refused to shift. She felt defeated.

It is believed that certain individuals are predisposed or vulnerable to addiction based on biological, psychological and social influences. The euphoric high produced by many addictive substances is the result of overstimulation of the “pleasure center” of the brain. This is the same area that controls emotions, fear, self-control and overall feelings of wellness. The presence of these foreign chemicals creates a response that the brain will crave as soon as it fades. The brain’s chemistry works against its own health, as it rewires its decision making faculties around the primary goal of finding and taking more of the drug” (1). Many people mistakenly believe that psychological addiction is somehow less serious or real than physical addiction. The psychological aspects of addiction are much more challenging to repair and recover from than the physical addiction. Psychological addiction can last for years or even a lifetime.

Addiction is a disease that I will battle for the rest of my life. After being sexually assaulted at the age of twelve, I started to self-destruct. Lack of parental support, less than pristine living conditions, and an addictive personality paved an expressway to a life of addiction. I chose to hang with undesirable people, and was introduced to Marijuana, LSD, Ecstasy, PCP, Cocaine, Heroin and eventually what became the love of my life, the prescription painkiller Morphine. Never did I think that trying pot would have a domino effect. It led me to try harder and more addictive substances ultimately turning my life upside down. Often publicly

This quote demonstrates the book’s theme of perseverance because of its powerful motivation to overcome the pain and give it your all.

Some individuals may dislike the term ‘addiction’ in relation to drugs or other substances, particularly as it infers that a person is powerless over their use of a particular drug or in some circumstances, a number of substances. Whilst others maintain it is this powerlessness that is the foundation of diagnosis and treatment – that treatment is not possible without recognition of addiction itself as the ‘problem’ being

In the book, Addiction & Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions, May explores how addiction develops and can be treated from a psychological, physiological, and spiritual standpoint. This theme is clearly shown through out the text as it shows addiction from a whole person view. The book covers the development of addiction from desire through the experience of addiction. The key focus on looking at the matter of addiction from multiple stand points in then broken down by explaining how addiction is an issue psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually. By focusing on these three areas the author is able to present the reader with a clear understanding of addiction from all sides of the problem. This is then

The third quote from The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue I selected was:

Imagine laying on the floor in your own pool of sweat—miserable, your mind bouncing off the walls while the cloud of your darkest thoughts looms over you. Teeth chattering anxiously, waiting to receive the next second, minute, hour of painless bliss. This—this is the life of an addict; does this horror appear to be a choice or more like a disease haunting the mind of the user? Despite the fact a choice was needed to initiate the result, addiction itself is a debilitating disease NOT a choice due to initial influences and anatomical changes to the brain.

Teenagers of every race, religion, and clique relate deeply to the words of the anonymous teenager within the book Go Ask Alice, by an anonymous girl whose life enters a place where, as most teenagers, she has no idea who to turn to, or where to go. "Oh dear god, help me adjust, help me be accepted, help me belong, don't let me be an outcast and a drag on my family," (Anonymous, 13). With these words, we are accepted into the girl's life, and into her heart and mind. I chose this quote because it is one quote that I think relates to the theme. She writes in her diary about her life, and her diary is like a best friend. It is someone she can spill all of her secrets to and something to express her feelings. Everyone needs to

“Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a slowly progressive disease of the brain that is characterized by impairment of memory and eventually by disturbances in reasoning, planning, language, and perception.” (Howard Crystal) In Health 1000 we were asked to read the book Still Alice. I have never dealt with or have done any study on Alzheimer’s disease before reading this book. After finishing this book it has really opened my eyes to how bad of a disease and how it cripples the mind. I never imagined the effect of this disease on a patient and the patient family. This book is about a upper middle aged lady named Alice who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and how she and her family learn how to deal with disease. One of the things this book

     Alice’s drug addiction drives her along with her family insane. She has to fight a