FIrst, folks, don't bash the letter writer. S/he's 19, and for that age, given his/her experience, has written a very thoughtful letter on a subject that ought to interest us all, and has done so with an eloquence (if not quite a wisdom, but that takes time) far beyond his/her years. She has asked a very important question earnestly. It wasn't a mean or judgmental letter, just an honest one; it doesn't behoove us to be mean in response.

I don't want to repeat what others have said (and my experiences, reasons for using, etc. sound like a lot of yours), so I'll cut to the chase. I thought that addiction (a) wouldn't happen to me, and (b) if it did, would result in an unmitigated shameful catastrophe, a pox on my life. But I used many drugs successfully for many years, so successfully in fact -- insert my bona fides as successful person here -- that I came to believe that addiction happened to other people. Then it happened to me.

Five years. Heroin, mainly. Lots of failed attempts to quit, multiple detoxes, multiple relapses, much useful and kind (if ultimately inadequate) support from NA and AA meeting rooms along the way. Much handwringing of family and friends. Lost jobs. Lost things. Lost friends, and damaged relationships, and a severely (though not fatally, thank God) damaged marriage. And then...

And then, the final kick. It happened to coincide with a move to another place, to find different work, different people, a different way of living life. And it worked. I got clean, stayed clean, and -- more important -- rediscovered happiness. Rediscovered some version of myself I had been 10 years earlier, long before a lot of things (that long preceded addiction) clouded my vision of who I was, who I wanted to me.

I am grateful now. I don't subscribe to any religion -- not even the 12 steps -- but I feel blessed by an experience that I can't help but compare to being born again. I suspect that most recovered/recovering addicts come to feel something like this. The years of addiction -- the shame, the isolation, and above all, the scourge of lying to everyone who cared about me -- was a misery I would never wish on anyone. But the life I gained as a result of that ordeal is a life I think many people would be lucky to achieve. And that's not just because I'm part of some narrow fraction of those who recovered and ultimately thrived DESPITE addiction. It's because of the addiction that I was forced to take honest stock of all that dissatisfied me, that had been expected of me, that I had wanted for or expected of myself, and throw it away, start with a clean slate, and discover again who I was. Who I am. And so I would not trade those years of misery, nor the somewhat less miserable slide towards bottom that got me there, for anything. Addiction forced me into an honest, thorough, absolutely unyielding accounting of my entire existence on this planet that I don't think many people my age (I'm in my mid-30s) have much reason nor much opportunity to go through by this point in life. And I look around and see a lot of people getting by because they can, when all they're doing is getting by. Life can go on a long time that way if some trauma or loss (it doesn't have to be addiction, but addiction can serve rather effectively) knocks you off your horse, and knocks the horse down too, and leaves you to figure out how to move on, how to get your ass back out of that desert and find water, then food, then shelter.

All of you still in its grip, I salute you; keep battling, have faith, and most of you (though not all, but you know that) will prevail. All of you who came through it like I did, I salute you; you form my closest brotherhood. And all of you who will never know what it is to battle the bottle or the needle, well, I am happy for you. But I do hope you find your own non-substance-related Dark Night of the Soul, and survive its tribulations, and grow to be a better human being because of it. Every soul must find its own crucible if it is to become fully formed.

Just want to add my appreciation of this elegant paean to fatherhood, to parenting. Life on the road with kids does sometimes seem like the crucible for, and the distillation of, the entire maddening, wondrous, redeeming experience. We'll leave the carbon issues aside, except to note that when the time comes (as it surely will and must) that such single-family, single-car journeys are less common, when transportation is eventually more centralized, whenever that time comes, some precious part of what it means to be a family will be lost. But never fear: the road trip will live on in our collective memory forever, and new family rituals will never cease to take shape. I suspect travel, in whatever form and by whatever medium, will always make up a big part of what we will remember from childhood. So you are doing right to have made it a ritual your kids can form a deep and relatively happy association with.

I too used to travel with cloth diapers only, but now find trash cans in gas stations. Sigh.

Thank you, Andrew, for your revealing, honest account of all this.

By the way, whatever happened to the email from Rob Anderson that caused such a fuss? I understand if it may have crossed the "some inappropriate posts may be removed" line, but is there any password-protected, secret-handshake way we well-meaning voyeurs can see it? Just asking.