There are some things that you would think wouldn’t follow you into adulthood. Fear of the dark, a love for Disneyland, jelly sandals. One of the more annoying ones: acne. Seriously, isn’t that supposed to be one of those things that just scars your high school experience? Waking up to see new pimples when you’re in your 20s? Gah!

If you’re like me, you’ve been plagued with acne since a teenager, and while it’s not as severe as say, those scary Proactive commercials, it’s an issue that’s persisted into your adult years despite your attempts to solve the problem. Considering Accutane? Read on to find out about my experience.

I vividly remember walking into the interview. I was a junior in college and had scored a meeting with Joshua Lyon, an editor at Jane Magazine, the publication I’d been dreaming of working for since the first issue had appeared on newsstands and I skipped school to read it cover-to-cover. The interview went well, and an hour later, I got the phone call that he had picked me to be his intern. I was elated.

Josh and I worked together for the next four years. Turns out that, for two of them, he was almost always high on prescription pain killers.

Josh has written a fascinating book, Pill Head, about the whole ordeal. It’s part memoir, and part sociological exploration of why so many people in the United States—48 million of them to be exact—have used prescription pills for non-medical purposes. After the jump, Josh tells us everything from how he got his hands on his first Vicodin to why prescription pain killers are especially popular with the ladies. Oh, and why you owe it to grandma not to try them.