Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America

By Beth Macy

Chronicles America's more than twenty-year struggle with opioid addiction, from the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, through the spread of addiction in distressed communities in Central Appalachia, to the current national crisis.

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Book Information

Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publish Date: 08/07/2018
Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9780316551243
ISBN-10: 0316551244
Language: English

What We're Saying

December 19, 2018

Company owner and CEO Rebecca Schwartz looks inside the covers of the top five Narrative & Biography books of 2018. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

August 13, 2018

Beth Macy's new book on the modern opioid epidemic is an intimate and unapologetic portrayal of the modern opioid epidemic, and those responsible for it. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

Full Description

An instant New York Times and indie bestseller, Dopesick is the only book to fully chart the devastating opioid crisis in America: "a harrowing, deeply compassionate dispatch from the heart of a national emergency" (New York Times) from a bestselling author and journalist who has lived through it
In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.
Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.
Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.
"An impressive feat of journalism, monumental in scope and urgent in its implications."--Jennifer Latson, The Boston Globe

About the Author

Beth Macy is the author of the widely acclaimed and bestselling books Truevine and Factory Man. Based in Roanoke, Virginia for three decades, her reporting has won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard.

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