Get on the Same Page

Students, teacher, parents, faculty, "even the janitors," said Erin Badala, Co-Chair of the Drake Fund, are all reading the same book right now.

And, no, it's not the secret eighth Harry Potter book.

Drake is getting on the same page with The Lost Years, by Kristina Wandzilak and her mother, Constance Curry. 

The book documents Wandzilak's lost years growing up in Marin, after she began drinking and doing drugs at 13. For eight years, she was an addict, even robbing 22 homes in Kentfield at one point to pay for that addiction. At 21, she had a near-death experience at a homeless shelter that set her on the path towards recovery. The Lost Years is told through both Wandzilak's eyes and through the first-hand account of her mother during that time.

"We hope everybody gets excited about the book," said Badala, who with Drake teacher Kendra Galli co-chairs the Drake on the Same Page program.

This is the third year the Drake Fund has sponsored Drake on the Same Page, urging everyone in the community to read the same book and discuss it, even buying books to stock the libraries, before culminating in a group discussion event. Tomorrow, March 8, the small group discussions about the book and addiction will begin at the Drake Library at 6 p.m., followed by refreshments, before Wandzilak and Curry speak at 7:30.

The subject of addiction and how it tears through families is not new for the program. The inaugural Drake on the Same Page event in 2009 brought 500 people to a talk focused on Nic and David Sheff's companion books, Tweak and Beautiful Boy, about Nic's battle with addiction.

"Certainly, this is a needed conversation," said Badala.

Though last year's selection -- Joan Ryan's The Water Giver -- took a step away from alcohol and drug addiction issues, the goal is to give kids something they want to read, but will also allow them to learn about topical issues.

"This is a high school. We try to teach things," joked Badala, who read The Lost Years and whose own 13-year-old daughter also read this year's book.

The discussion and talk by the authors is open to all members of the community and a particular effort has been made to reach out to middle school students and their families as well. The small discussion groups that take place before the talk by Wandzilak and Curry will also be led by mother-daughter pairs in different stages of recovery and by former Drake students who are now sober.

Wandzilak and her mother have come a long way from the lost years and now run Full Circle Intervention based in Mill Valley, which is known for a full-family intervention. Additionally, Wandzilak works on the TLC show Addicted, where she performs an intervention over the hour-long show with an individual struggling with addiction.

Her lost years are now a starting point for families to find a common ground on a subject that, in Marin, continues to be a problem for teenagers and their parents.