"Dirty"

Could you follow three drug-addicted teens through juvenile court, rehab, therapy, and AWOLs, then write a book on your discoveries? Well, that's exactly what author Meredith Maran does. Her latest book "Dirty: A Search for the Answers Inside America's Drug Epidemic," focuses on the lives of three erratic Bay Area teenagers who battle drug addictions and life issues. Maran shadows the adolescents for one year, discovering that teenage drug abuse entails much more than what's visible on the surface.

Mike, a 17-year-old crank user, grew up in the white working-class suburbs of Santa Rosa. After taking drugs and drinking excessively, Mike was turned in to the police by his father and was incarcerated in Center Point Adolescent, a residential rehab program.

Tristan, a 15-year-old pot, pill and mushroom user, lives in affluent Marin County, making evident that money proves insufficient to buy sobriety or love. After stealing prescription drugs from medicine cabinets, selling pot at school, driving drunk without a license in "borrowed" cars and tripping on mushrooms, Tristan landed headfirst in several therapy groups, a therapeutic boarding school in Utah, an Oregon wilderness program and finally Phoenix Academy, one of 25 such recovery schools nationwide.

Zalika, a 16-year-old middle-class African American girl from El Sobrante, ran away from home and began prostituting and dealing crack at age 12. Four years later, she finally agreed to enroll in the Richmond Juvenile Drug Court and its counseling program, Choices. She is AWOL once again, hiding from the law and spending her nights on the street.

In addition to telling the real stories of real life teens and their families, Maran peppers the book with meticulously researched facts, penetrates the stigmas and misconceptions of addiction and drug rehab programs, and unravels the truths of the families' ordeals. She reveals, for example, that those in drug rehab centers are there for more than just recovery from drugs.

In exploring the lives of these three adolescents -- as well as that of her own son who is a recovering addict -- Maran is able to speak to readers with sincere honesty about trying to help youth grow up to be responsible adults in a world that overlooks them. Though at times I felt stabs of anger and distress at the parents for not listening to their teenagers, and at the teenagers for continuing to rebel, I realized that this is what Maran intended. She hopes that we try to understand the problems they face and find solutions that would prove most effective. Her meditations force us to take a closer look at the drug reality of our country, and in doing so, help us to feel more compassion for those recovering from drugs.

After reading "Dirty," I couldn't help but wonder what this reporter was like away from her laptop computer and far from adolescent drug rehabilitation programs.

WireTap: Who did you intend the audience of this book to be, and what do you hope they get from it?

Meredith Maran: I guess when I was writing, the people I had in mind or in my heart, really, were parents who were going through similar situations to the ones that I went through with my son. You liked it?

WT: Yes, I did. It was really amazing.

MM: Oh, okay, well, that means a lot. See, I'm really into seeing teenagers liking it, too. So that's always my ultimate praise that if high school kids like it.

Anyway, the worst thing in my life was the eight years or so that my son was in so much trouble, Jesse, and during that time, I felt really isolated. I felt like there was nothing I could -- nothing I did seemed right and I didn't really know where to turn, even though I had a lot of support in my life... So I really, genuinely, wanted to look into the questions that I laid out in the book. Why do kids do drugs, and what are we doing for them now, when they do, and what could we be doing now that would be better?