Books that have helped me understand Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic
For many years, I saw short news segments and headlines about the ongoing addiction crisis in America. As the overdose death rate kept climbing, news companies would keep putting out short news segments.. The problem about the news segments or magazine articles is that they did not capture what it means to have an addiction. How did the addiction start? Why did the addiction start? The majority of the time, you would see B-roll of homeless camps and images of needles discarded on the street. These news segments and articles kept reinforcing the stigma of addiction.
After the death of my brother on Dec. 9, 2018, I wanted to educate myself on addiction. I had so many questions - What causes addiction? What is the treatment? Why did my brother die from fentanyl? What the hell was fentanyl? How did America let this addiction crisis spiral out of control? Who was the culprit? What did addiction really look like?
I began reading anything I could get my hands on about substance use disorder and I wanted to share a few of my favorite books.
