每日英语听力

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一个家庭的地狱之旅(3)

I don't remember when I first became aware that my dad wasn't like other fathers. I saw him on screen but at home he was a regular guy: he read the newspaper, watched sports, was someone I wanted to impress.

Sometimes he let me smoke cigarettes around the house; other times, he'd remind me, I'm your father, not your friend. He was away working for months at a time.

Mostly it was just me and Mom, who was 19 when she married Dad and 20 when she had me. She liked to say we grew up together; I saw myself as her rescuing knight.

From a young age, I was more mischievous than the average kid. Once, my friend Sean and I called a sex hotline and racked up a $400 phone bill.

When my parents had parties, I'd creep around and take it all in: beautiful grown-ups doing the things that beautiful grown-ups living lives of excess do.

By the time I was 13, I was buying weed in Central Park and experimenting with mushrooms and acid.

As my parents' marriage fell apart, I bounced between schools, then to a hardcore wilderness program, and eventually in and out of juvenile detention facilities.

For a while, I became a ward of the state of California. It's sad to think back on, but when my parents told me they were getting divorced, I actually welcomed it.

I loved them both, but mainly they weren't happy. I wondered if it was normal that I was so relieved. Now I think that I was sitting on a lot of unacknowledged rage.

At 17, I had my first experience with heroin. I threw up, but still felt warm all over, relaxed and content. The ups and downs of drug addiction are entirely predictable.

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