High On Arrival (2009)

Author: Mackenzie Phillips, Hilary Liftin | Page Count: 292

"Not now darling, Daddy's shooting up."

The controversial memoir of Mackenzie Phillips following her from childhood to the present. It is a story almost typical about how child stars can spiral out of control into self destruction with drugs, sex and daddy issues and how she overcame these problems. As to the more salacious revelations in the book, I'll say free loving hippies + lots of drugs = I believe it.

There is certainly plenty of stuff to work with in her story, it is just hampered a bit by the writing. It's clear Phillips wrote most of it herself with constant overuse of certain words and phrases and while it is mostly chronological she does tend to drift at points. I suspect Liftin was just hired to clean up the manuscript after Phillips wrote it all down, but there is an interesting story with some fascinating details like how before rehab was a regular thing, addicts were still allowed to drink alcohol as it was considered separate from drugs. How far we've come.

2½ I suppose other addicts could sympathize more out of 5