Author’s Note:

Higher and Higher and Higher

Despite the story’s title, I’ve never actually tried alcohol or nonprescription drugs. Partially, this was due to some excellent parenting that neither encouraged nor prohibited them, and therefore, effectively stripped away any appeal they might’ve had to a feisty adolescent. Now, though, it’s mostly due to momentum. Especially since I’ve had plenty of truly excellent highs throughout my life without them. My first kiss, for example. Better yet, my first literary publication. Visiting the Sacred Family Cathedral in Barcelona, hiking in Norway, and watching the sunset over the Australian savanna. Graduating college, stepping off campus, and knowing that I’d never have to go back to what’d turned into a kind of personal hell—starting counseling for an eating disorder, and realizing that I might not have to spend all of my life in that personal hell that I’d made for myself all on my own.

I’ve also had some crippling withdrawals. A handful of overdoses. A few truly crippling addictions 

Those are much less fun to discuss.

Those are what this story is about.