There's been a backlash against Elizabeth Wurtzel ever since her first book became a global hit in 1994. Many loved it, but a lot of others had problems with it. The photo on the cover of that book, Prozac Nation, ruthlessly exploited Wurtzel's pouting, grungy, Gen-X sexuality, which shifted copies but gave her credibility problems. Critics charged her with pushing depression as a lifestyle accessory. Even worse, her follow-up Bitch: In praise of difficult women, an extended essay written in the grip of Ritalin and cocaine addiction, was a confused effort, and universally savaged. It did little to add to her peace of mind or bank account. Now she's written a sequel to Prozac Nation, called More, Now, Again.

Wurtzel got none of the gratification she hoped for from her early success, and this plunged her further into depression. She was always an enthusiastic consumer of prescription medication - as well as illegal drugs - constantly rearranging anti-depressant combinations, but nothing worked. Eventually, suffering concentration problems, she was prescribed Ritalin - a controversial amphetamine frequently used to treat children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). "Though a triplicate form is required to fill a prescription for Ritalin," she writes, "my previous troubles with drug abuse were not a deterrent"In fact, my psychiatrist thought that taking Ritalin would curb my interest in doing other drugs, and she certainly got that right."

The first month she feels much better, taking Zoloft (an anti-depressant similar to Prozac) and Ritalin, but not good enough. She leaves Florida for New York. She phones her therapist a couple of times a week. She complains that she can feel the Ritalin wearing off, and wishes she could take five milligrams eight times a day instead of 10 milligrams in four doses. Her therapist suggests she cuts the pills in half. Wurtzel decides to chop them up and snort them like cocaine. It's not long before she's doing up to 24 pills a day.

"I am so thrilled to have discovered this new use for Ritalin. I am taking it completely legitimately, it has been prescribed for me by Dr Singer, so there is no possible harm I can do to myself. According to the literature, it is not addictive. If it were, they would not be giving it out to kids who are still in elementary school""

The specious argument that using prescription drugs, rather than illegal ones, guarantees immunity from addiction is explained by her psychiatrist:

"I ask Dr Singer what kind of deranged person would take Ritalin for non-medical purposes - it's okay and all, but you might as well just get cocaine or crystal meth if you want to get buzzed. She says something about Ritalin's being legal, that many people who are uncomfortable with street drugs would have no problem abusing prescribed pills."

Wurtzel begins to make up excuses for running out of her monthly prescription after two weeks. She gets her pills sent from New York because the US prescription laws are reasonably tight on Ritalin. She says her friend who forwards them is stealing from her, that the pharmacist miscounted, and when she runs out of excuses, she buys from Ray:

"It's no secret that, for his own perverse reasons, Ray has had three different psychiatrists convinced he has ADHD and prescribing medication for it, mainly because he thinks it's funny to see how gullible doctors are."

The first part of the book is a manual for acquiring medical drugs for abuse rather than treatment. Laws brought in to curb misuse can be got round by any clever and determined addict like Wurtzel, sometimes indefinitely and certainly for long enough. And when she exhausts her Ritalin sources she turns to cocaine, her previous semi-caution overridden by need. More, Now, Again provides raw insight into how drugs dispensed with the best intentions can become the problem if the doctor is not on top of their caseload.

The book itself is patchy, but Wurtzel does this kind of thing well. She says in the blurb that "many of my Prozac Nation fans have asked what happened next. This is it. This is my book about getting better. I wanted to write about love and hope and dreams".

She doesn't. She writes about bottoming out and relapses, about nosebleeds and casual sex. She knows this is what sells, misery charts higher than happiness in her market. Only the last 20 pages show any kind of optimism. But this doesn't make it a bad book. There are flashes of the talent that won her the 1986 Rolling Stone College Journalism award, and some powerful passages where her psychiatrist spells out why she is slowly killing herself. This hasn't got the power of her first book but it's enough to get Wurtzel back in the game until Prozac Nation hits the cinemas in 2003.