# Go Ask Alice **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 12, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976 "2016-02-12T22:07:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/61 "2016-02-14T20:25:12Z")
> [@BeeGee](#): > > I remember the late 60s being a time off extreme drug paranoia. Yep, lots of “educational” movies showing clean-cut teens going from taking a hit off a reefer :o to shooting smack within a few weeks. :smack: Some people seem to think that heroin is a first-line drug of abuse nowadays. No, it’s not. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/62 "2016-02-14T20:28:31Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret”. I finally read this last summer! :eek: Took about 2 hours. Many of the things in it were dated by the time I was part of that book’s target audience, but there are some things in it that are timeless, which is why kids still read it and adults still recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/63 "2016-02-14T20:47:35Z")
54, read it in the ’ 70’s, thought it was legit. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/64 "2016-02-15T00:02:21Z")
41, read it when it was passed around in high school. We were on the sheltered side and we still found it hilariously fake. It took me some convincing to believe that it was actually supposed to be taken as non-fiction. What did it for me wasn’t the hokey descriptions of drugs and addiction (like I said, sheltered: I had very little clue about hard drugs, all that stuff could have been true for all I knew). It was the fact that it was \*obviously \*written by an adult preaching to teenagers. An adult who had completely forgotten what teenagers are actually like. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/65 "2016-02-15T00:31:10Z")
Yeah, definitely not used in the 90s. The closest I can remember is a book that Google reveales is called [Tangerine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_%28novel%29), which is all sorts of fucked up. I guess the lesson about how psychopaths can really exist and how adults will lie to cover up for them is accurate, though. We also read [The Chocolate War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War), but even Wikipedia seems to ignore what made that one controversial–the fact that it talked about masturbation and cum–stuff that isn’t really essential to the plot and seems to have been included to create the controversy in case the story itself didn’t. For some reason, our Civics teacher read these books to us every Friday while we worked on our homework. She never did spell it out, but I guess is was a freedom of speech issue for her. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/66 "2016-02-15T01:39:20Z")
I read it. By the time I heard that it was a fake…it was long enough ago that I didn’t really care much. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/67 "2016-02-15T02:08:49Z")
I’m 44 and I think I read it either in middle school or early high school, but I did read it. I was also pretty sheltered, but I recognized the story as bullshit adults think will scare teenagers into not doing something. It’s insulting to the intelligence of your average teenager. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/68 "2016-02-15T03:35:17Z")
Mid fifties age wise. Knew of it, had some idea of what it was about. Never had any interest in reading it at the time…subject matter didn’t appeal and it sounded like a book aimed at girls. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/69 "2016-02-15T09:03:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > We also read [The Chocolate War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War), The Chocolate War was the best thing I ever read as a teen. I still think it’s a wonderful book (the sequel is quite good as well). Even though some of the sex stuff didn’t precisely resonate with me as a female, the loneliness and struggle for a sense of self - when the main character didn’t feel inclined to be a rebel, it was a role he took on almost by accident - really struck a chord. I still love that book and re-read it from time to time. Somehow, I find it enormously comforting. Also, the painting on the book jacket is exquisite (I think it is entitled “Boy Running”). I would pay a lot to own that painting. ---
**Author:** ![Mommabear430](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mommabear430](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mommabear430)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/70 "2016-03-26T21:38:21Z")
I guess I live in some sort of bubble. I read Alice in middle school and bought in, hook, line, and sinker. I’m actually sort of devastated to find out it’s a fake. To be fair, I grew up in a drug heavy household and found all of it to be completely believable. I had seen strange parties full of adults so blitzed they were passing me whatever they were passing around. I don’t mean to imply it was _always_ that way, but there were enough incidents that they have a strong, solid, dark place in my memory. Alice was a … safe place… for me to see what it’s like to be a teenager experimenting with the crap I saw around me. It scared the hell out of me, and to this day, I credit it as one very large reason that I made a choice to go a different way than my parents and my brother. Since then, my parents have seriously gotten their act together (happened right about the time I finished high school,) and my brother has done prison time. I was depressed, developed an anxierty disorder, and was suicidal when I found the book. I’m grateful for this fake. It probably saved my life. I bought the book for my daughter at 13. She loved it and had basically the same response I did, minus the traumatic upbringing. She has since passed it on to another friend with instructions to pass it forward. She bought another copy for herself. Beatrice may have been a fake, but I think the book probably served it’s purpose for a lot of kids at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/71 "2016-03-27T00:37:30Z")
45, male, read it during my junior year of high school, not assigned. Read it because a friend read it and suggested it. We were into odd things then. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/72 "2016-03-31T20:17:02Z")
I read Go Ask Alice as a young adult, was deeply moved by it, p!ssed off decades later when I found out it was a fake. For all that, it captures the 60s-early 70s zeitgeist brilliantly, is true to life as to the inner workings of the mind of a sensitive teen of that time,–and no, I wasn’t like that at all–but I knew many who were. Many of them are dead. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/73 "2016-03-31T21:09:32Z")
It was assigned reading in my Honors English class in 1970. There was quite a bit of pushback from parents, as I recall, and it was dropped from the syllabus the following year. I had no idea it had been debunked. Still thought it was true. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/74 "2016-03-31T21:12:39Z")
Saw the movie in middle school in the late 1970’s. Then had to see it again when I switched to a different group of students. We were told it was true. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/75 "2016-03-31T21:31:37Z")
My mom read it in the 70s, and gave it to me to read in the 90s. I figured it was fiction while reading it, didn’t need to be told. It was silly propaganda, but engaging nevertheless. I heard the woman who wrote it wrote several more in the same vein about the pitfalls of promiscuity, etc. Basic paranoid 1960s parent stuff. Probably too early for a cautionary tale about devil worship. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/76 "2016-03-31T22:03:29Z")
It was assigned in our gifted and talented class in 7th grade in 1984. Our teacher was determined to scare us out of Drugs. I bought it hook line and sinker, but in retrospect it was clear that some of my class mates thought it was laughable. ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/77 "2016-04-01T04:21:43Z")
I’m a librarian who sometimes staffs a desk shift in the Young Adult area, and we definitely have copies of it on the shelf. I’ve never read it. I believe it’s often on some of the summer reading lists for area (Denver/Boulder) schools, perhaps 8th or 9th grade. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/78 "2016-04-01T05:15:15Z")
I’ve heard of it but never read it. It’s something old people read in the dark ages (the 70s) ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/79 "2016-04-01T05:43:07Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > 45, never heard of it. And I thought this was about Jefferson Airplane. :shrugs: Same on all counts: 45, never heard of it, thought this was about the song. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976/80 "2016-04-01T06:52:21Z")
I think it was the late 90’s when I first heard of the book, on [Snopes.com](http://Snopes.com), so I never had a chance to get bamboozled by it. Just to clarify the issue with the title, let me connect the dots in one place. The book was named for the refrain from the song [White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbPv1BibcQo): “Go ask Alice…” which in context is clearly referring to Alice from Alice in Wonderland and contains imagery from that book and unsubtle references to drug use. And [chequez vous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBxT53r2AlU), the whole movie is apparently on YouTube as well. I don’t think I’ll be watching it, though. Possibly if I had occasion to take some drugs I’d try it, but I’ve been promising myself I’d get drunk and watch both versions of Footloose back to back, and I just never get around to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/go-ask-alice/745976.md?page=5)