To expect an addict to give up her drug is like asking the average person to imagine living without all his social skills, support networks, emotional stability, and sense of physical and psychological comfort. Those are the qualities that drugs, in their illusory and evanescent way, give the addict. People like Serena and Celia and the others whose portraits have appeared in this book perceive their drugs as their “rock and salvation.” Thus, for all the valid reasons we have for wanting the addict to “just say no,” we first need to offer her something to which she can say “yes.”
