Gone to the Crazies - A Memoir (Paperback)

As a child, Alison Weaver's life shone with surface-level perfection-full of nannies, private schools, and ballet lessons. She had all the luxuries of a wealthy Manhattan upbringing. But her childhood memories were laced with darker undertones: Her father was emotionally absent and her mother was a beautiful, aloof alcoholic. Neither parent approved of their daughter's outbursts and emotions - and in the midst of her parents' own flaws, Weaver was constantly reminded that she was a mess that needed fixing. By the time she was a teenager, Weaver had found escape in alcohol, marijuana, and late night abandon. But when her exasperated parents had her shipped away - in handcuffs - to the cultish Cascade School, everything changed. Within the surreal isolation of the school's mountain campus, she left her old self behind, warping into a brainwashed model of Cascade's mottos and ideals. Graduation two years later left her unprepared for the harshness of the real world - and she soon fell back into a mind-numbing wash of drugs. Stumbling into freefall in New York's East Village in the 1990s, Weaver's life began a downward spiral marked by needles and late-night parties, mingled with fears of HIV and death. Ultimately, faced with the reality of her rapidly escalating self-destruction, Weaver was forced to face her inner darkness head on.