Hillbilly Elegy

she’d sown with Lindsay and me.
When Mom came home a few months
later, she brought a new vocabulary
along with her. She regularly recited the
Serenity Prayer, a staple of addiction
circles in which the faithful ask God for
the “serenity to accept the things [they]
cannot change.” Drug addiction was a
disease, and just as I wouldn’t judge a
cancer patient for a tumor, so I shouldn’t
judge a narcotics addict for her
behavior. At thirteen, I found this
patently absurd, and Mom and I often
argued over whether her newfound
wisdom was scientific truth or an excuse
for people whose decisions destroyed a
family. Oddly enough, it’s probably