Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs.

Openness is the first step toward recovery... addiction remains a secret because of the overwhelming shame associated with it.

Wherever you be, wherever you may, seek the truth, strive for the beautiful, achieve the good.

Along with the joy of parenthood, with every child comes a piercing vulnerability. It is at once sublime and terrifying

I am becoming used to an overwhelming, grinding mixture of anger and worry.

We deny the severity of our loved one's problem not because we are naive, but because we can't know.

When I transformed my random and raw words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into chapters, a semblance of order and sanity appeared where there had been only chaos and insanity.