Thank goodness the author acknowledged the criminal behavior of those who were supposed to be responsible adults, but who placed him in situations that no child or even young adult should have faced. In other words, he doesn't simply laugh off his unorthodox upbringing, he acknowledges the fact that the responsible adults got it wrong. Still, he doesn't wallow in it, and regardless of the back story, this is a tale of addiction, recovery and lots of what happens in between. Dry takes a slightly novel approach in that it doesn't spent lots of time in the spiral into the abyss. Instead you spend lots of time in the recovery process. For those who have experienced this process, early success is an ominous sign, and this is no exception. This was a funny, real, and an authentic story.