I had “dressed” myself before driving drunk to my mother’s home. I had taken a shower thinking that water would take away the smell; that putting on leggings instead of leggings-that-I-slept-and-drank-in, would make me look like I was wearing clothes; that if I put on mascara I’d look like I had slept through the night and not spent the whole day drinking.

“As soon as we met Tara and Tony, our lives morphed to make room for them. Instead of drinking Carol’s parents’ liquor on Friday nights, we went to their apartment in Hillcrest to smoke pot from a bong filled with Midori and play with Tara’s snake.”