Pablo Ramos brings together all the ghosts from his past, which are also those of a society in which alcoholism and drug addiction form part of the fabric of daily life for its families and neighbourhoods. He brings them together and exposes them to show how it really is to live as an addict, the raw day-to-day behind the stigmatisation and complacency. He portrays addicts who are not stereotypes but human beings, with names like Lulu, Isabel, Willy, Rolando, Andrea....and the writer himself, who wrote these accounts with first-hand experience of his subject, living in the endless fluctuation of sober spells and relapses, and with a firm conviction that there is a way out: the 12-step programme.