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special, fueling my overblown fourteen-year-old ego and adding another layer to my already thick sense of entitlement. I knew I could manipulate my parents and that nothing would come of this incident. As usual, there would be no consequences. They loved me too much to watch me suffer. No one was shipping me off to military school or abandoning me, and I knew there was a safety net in place, no matter what, to catch my fall. At the Parkland Police Department headquarters, my hands were cuffed to the back of a cold gray office chair. It was my first arrest: possession of a controlled substance.
    My dad didn’t impose any limits on me, but he was still a powerful force in my life. I admired my dad and looked up to him. He got angry whenever I fell short of his high expectations of me, which happened all the time. Deep down I didn’t think I would ever live up to his standards, so I didn’t even try. The look of disgust and anger on his face when he came into the station that night was far more difficult for me to deal with than any arrest. The drive from the Parkland police station to our house took only a few minutes, but on that night it seemed like an eternity. It was eerily silent, with none of the usual banter about music or sports. I don’t think my dad knew what to say or what to do with me. Parkland is a small town, and my dad was active in the community. My behavior made him look like a failure, and he must’ve felt ashamed, vulnerable, and defenseless.
    As soon as we got home I launched into all of my usual bullshit. I played the victim, cried some well-timed tears, and threw in a touch of remorse to top it off. This was the best, most fail-safe recipe I had created to date, and it worked like a charm. “It’s just a phase,” I heard my dad say to my mother later that night. As soon as I heard that I knew for sure that there would be no consequences. I lay in bed that night with a single thought dominating my consciousness. I didn’t think about getting arrested. I didn’t worry about parental repercussions, public scorn, or even what anyone thought about my behavior. All I could think about was getting high again.
    My parents sent me to a psychologist for an evaluation after that first arrest. To me, this was a small price to pay. The therapist’s name was Alan Braunstein, and his office smelled like patchouli oil and eucalyptus. Pictures of Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia lined the walls. I grew up listening to that music and felt right at home. At my first appointment Alan gave me all these tests to take, the kind where I had to tell him what I saw in a picture. He liked me, I could tell, and I was honest with Alan. I didn’t feel the need to lie to him or manipulate him, at least not yet. I vividly described the way pot made me feel and what it did for me. He didn’t judge; he just listened. Afterward he told my parents that I was intelligent and had real talent, but that I needed long-term rehab. He believed that the way I responded to the drug was a warning sign and a harbinger of bad things to come but my parents brushed it off. They didn’t want to believe that I had a real problem, so they told themselves, “He’s just experimenting. It’s normal.”
    Just a few months later I boarded the school bus feeling giddy. I had about half an ounce of some really good shit in my pocket and plans to meet up with some kids after school to get wasted. But suddenly I realized that walking into school with a wad of pot in my pocket wasn’t such a great idea. Weed fucking reeks, especially the good stuff, and the teachers would be able to smell me coming from down the hallway. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a cassette tape of Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies —the perfect place to store weed. I quickly scanned the busybodies in the hallway and then carefully pulled a sandwich-sized bag out of my right front pocket, took out the cassette,