MovieChat Forums > Go Ask Alice (1973) Discussion > The book and the movie are both garbage

The book and the movie are both garbage

posted 10 years ago by Fresh615
4 replies | jump to latest

Filled with lies and sensationalism.

TRUTH: At 16 I smoked marijuana almost every day, took LSD, used speed, smoked hashish on occasion. I even tried cocaine and angel dust. Today I am a well-adjusted husband and father of two adult children who don't even smoke. I told them about my past and was honest with them. I didn't lie. The truth about pot is it does seem to put a damper on your thinking abilities, but there are no lasting effects. As for ambition, I don't think I ever had much ambition other than to be a writer, so you couldn't say drugs messed up my life. I never became addicted to anything, not even alcohol.

Picking up GO ASK ALICE and trying to read it and take it seriously, I'm sorry. Pure fiction. Pure lies. Pure garbage.

[–] signlady 9 years ago

Your take is interesting bc I enjoy people sharing their experiences - but it's also based on a lot of inexperience - you did'nt mention dropping any acid . . . or doin' any lines, etc.

I read the book several times as a teen - and saw the movie years ago - both versions scared me as a kid - yet I still left home at 16 and engaged in many hard drug activities - although I did acid several times, and fortunately never had a bad trip, I saw other people who did, and I saw heinous things happen to people who were massed up - and I saw people tripping badly do crazy stuff - so I totally disagree with your cut-and-dried statement which was obviously made out of little experience ...

Btw, I have been clean since 1982 - living a very decent life as well . . . the drugs out there today (crack, meth, etc) are just as bad or worse as they were then and making people just as crazy.

Don't ever feel like, just because you personally are
totally removed from an activity, that it is not still going on even in escalated ways that you may have not experience.

[–] Fresh615 9 years ago

You must have skimmed over my post. Because I very clearly said that I took LSD (acid) and I sniffed cocaine (did lines), as well as angel dust and taking speed, right there in the first paragraph.

I underwent the entire experience.

You want a horror story? My wife's experience with alcohol and drugs and mental illness, and my experience with that, those are real life stories. But nobody makes a conscious decision to do anything, not the way the story depicts, nor does one drug or one substance lead to another, the way the story implies. You are simply open to these things or you are not. You have an addictive personality or you don't. A person can try something once or twice and toss it aside. But then there are other people who try something once and it is a part of them, it hits their spot, and they know they will never be the same.

[–] signlady 9 years ago

. . . I MUST have skimmed over that . . . you did'nt edit to add that, did'ja? ;)

My apologies - too many years of drugs . . . residuals?

lol

I guess what really bugged me (eek-bugs) was how adamant your statement was - seeming to leave out all objectivity or possibilities

[–] Wuchak (8857) 7 years ago

Filled with lies and sensationalism.

Wrong, it effectively tells the awful truth of SOME youths who got addicted to drugs in the late 60s and 70s; and is still relevant in many ways to this day (e.g. the meth and heroin epidemics). The movie never suggests that EVERYONE who experiences the drug culture becomes addicted and dies. For instance, Alice's druggie ex-friends were still alive and well at the end.

I did all the alcohol/drugs shown in the movie and overdosed a few times, but never became addicted and easily quit in my late teens, but I know friends who became addicts (including addicted to narcotics, as illustrated in the movie), died after an overdose, committed suicide, ran away or ended up in prison.

You say that dealing with your wife's experience with alcohol & drugs and mental illness is the true horror story, but the movie addresses those very issues: Alcohol (a little bit), drugs (especially) and the corresponding mental illness struggles. What do you think Alice's breakdown/blackout while babysitting was all about, not to mention her eventual relapse and death?

The movie condenses heavy real-life issues into 74 minutes and reveals numerous truths: peer pressure to drink & do drugs, being stoned while the parents are oblivious (but the kid KNOWS something's not right), the social divide between druggies and non-druggies, peddling, mental illness, getting clean, going straight, relapses, running away, homelessness, prostitution and the desperation to get help.