“Nothing’s more powerful than the morphine molecule, and once it has its hooks in you, nothing matters more. Not love. Not family. Not sex. Not shelter.” – Dopesick
Alright, my friends. It’s time to get real here—literally. Here’s a non-fiction must-read coming your way. Before diving in, I do want to sound the warning horn for those who may have sensitivities towards illicit drugs and/or drug abuse.
It’s estimated that 128 people die every day from an opioid overdose (thanks, CDC), which amounts to over 67,000 people needlessly dying each year. Opioid addictions are no respecter of persons. That’s what makes them so deadly – take the drug one time and you can be hooked for life.
Beth Macy’s stunning book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America exposes the shocking truth behind opioids and how the American epidemic unfolded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As an author and former investigative journalist, her work in the Appalachian areas of West Virginia and Virginia reveals appalling facts and stories, beginning with the creation and rise of opioids at the hands of Purdue Pharma (insert the collective boos the TV networks plug into sports games during COVID). Macy’s book encompasses accounts from hundreds of addicts, family members, doctors, rehabilitation specialists and more as she unravels the details behind this modern-day plague and how victims and their families have struggled for years to overcome the damages caused by the company’s ignorance and greed.
For me, the brilliance of this book comes from the humanizing of an otherwise abstract concept. Macy’s work with the surviving family members is truly heart-wrenching as they recount their experience with the attempts and failures that come along the road to recovery. In addition to the emotional appeal of the story, many share their experience not only with the past, but their futures—some not only lost family members to death and drug cults, but incurred massive debts from legal costs, medical bills and failed rehab treatments. I give the book a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars.
I’m sure many of you know of or have heard the stories about someone being addicted to heroin or opioids, some being closer to home than others. I have a cousin who has been in and out of jail for the past 15 years, struggling to stay away from heroin. As someone who has never been interested in drugs—I chalk it up to good parenting and a high school soccer coach who threatened to kick us off the team if we were caught within a “sniff” of drugs—it’s hard for me to fathom how people can get so lured into opioids and illicit drugs. However, Macy’s book was the first time I was able to comprehend a smidgen of what these addicts go through and how hard it truly is to stay away from opioids. As one coal miner from Grundy, Virginia told his doctor, “It became my God.”
Bonus: For those who are devout to the docs, Macy has a long-form story on Audible about one of the addicts and her family’s journey to find her and bring her home called Dopesick: Finding Tess. If you’re left craving more (like me), this may be a good place to start.