I grew up in Winnetka, an affluent suburb on the north shore of Chicago. Surely, a majority of us grew up well-to-do, but it goes without saying that kids in my neighborhood had to live up to a lot. The pressure worked both ways: some used it as an incentive to work hard and enroll into a solid university while others turned to drugs and alcohol to drown out the social pressure of being successful.

Well, I chose both. Aimless as I was ambitious, I was driven by the idea of having it all.