In Go Ask Alice, the young girl we refer to as Alice is committed to an insane asylum after hallucinating from drugs. She has a "bad trip" on acid and imagines worms oozing from her body.
In chapter 1 through five Allice's writing in her diary seems like any typical teen. She is moody and unimpressed with everything in her life. Her father's birthday comes and goes, as well as her own, but her diary entries show no excitement.
In chapter 6 her father accepts a new job in a different city and Alice is suddenly full of hope. She writes in her diary of her plans to lose weight and be more optimistic.
Alice's new healthy attitude continues and she loses 10 lbs. Her mom begins to complain although they had been getting along quite well. When even her Algebra grades improve and she gets asked out on a movie date things seem to be perfect in her life.
By chapter 12, however, we start to see a decline in Alice's mental state. Things have been going so well she is no longer sure a move is the best thing for her. She will miss her grandparents and school friends. Not to mention the new guy she's dating.
Alice's weight-loss and anxiety skyrocket and in a self-fulfilling prophecy the move is terrible. By chapter 44 she is so inundated with her emotional ups and downs she tries drugs for the first time and begins the chain of events that will lead her to the asylum.
Strictly speaking, the name of the book's protagonist isn't Alice, although that's how it's often given in publicity materials. The title is a reference to a 1960s song called "White Rabbit," in which the singer suggests going to Alice when she's "ten feet tall," the implication being that she's in a state of acute drug intoxication. This reference in turn relates to Alice in Wonderland where Alice eats mushrooms to make her bigger or smaller.
The protagonist of the story is actually unnamed, but does indeed get sent to a psychiatric hospital. This takes place after she appears to have abandoned her life of drug abuse and prostitution, and with the help of a priest, has managed to get back on her feet and return home to her family. Now that she's off drugs, she becomes the subject of abuse by her former friends, who still take narcotics on a regular basis. After a campaign of harassment and bullying at school, the author's former friends forcibly subject her to a dose of drugs. The ensuing bad trip leads to mental and physical damage, which causes her to be sent to a psychiatric facility.
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