James Frey Timeline & Summary

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• James wakes up on an airplane with no idea how he got there or where he's going. His parents pick him and take him to rehab.
• After being put on detox drugs, and after puking a lot (and we mean a lot), James has to undergo painful dental surgery without anesthesia.
• James's toughness impresses Leonard, a mobster undergoing rehab at the clinic.
• James is told that if he does drugs again, he'll die. He considers suicide, but Leonard talks him out of it.
• James pukes some more.
• When he isn't vomiting, James starts seeing Lilly in the woods, even though he's not supposed to associate with anyone of the opposite sex. The two eventually fall in love and decide to move in with each other post-rehab.
• An attorney helps lessen James's criminal charges to the point where he'll only have to serve three months in jail.
• James's parents attend family counseling, and James eventually apologizes to them for being such a bad son.
• James finally stops puking. He seems to be recovering, more out of sheer stubbornness than anything else. He is determined to prove that he can get better without the Twelve Steps.
• Lilly runs away after being caught with James, and James goes to rescue her from a nearby crack house.
• He manages to not do crack on the way (something we say on our commute every morning) and gets released from rehab.
• Before James leaves, he confesses to a priest that he may have beaten a man to death. The priest apologizes to James.
• James's brother picks him up and takes him to a bar upon his request. There, James stares down a giant glass of whiskey and proves that he can be sober through sheer hard-headedness.
• The epilogue tells us that James has never relapsed.
• (Years later, James is shamed by Oprah on national television because almost everything in this book is fabricated, but he manages to still go on and have a successful screenwriting career, proving... well, we're not sure what.)