No Single Path: Review of Amy Sullivan's Opioid Reckoning

Abstract

According to this framework, the pandemic is a two-part problem: one part virus, one part social resistance to the cure for the disease. [...]we hear that medical scientists have developed "gold standard" treatments for addiction, but that for reasons of bureaucratic lethargy, public skepticism, or sheer hopelessness among those suffering from addiction, the treatments are not adequately made available and sought out. The stories in the book are drawn from oral-history interviews that the author conducted with family members of people with addictions, doctors, community organizers, and treatment-center directors over a period of four years. Chapter Two reconstructs the life of a single man from the memories of his surviving family members, from the moment of his first exposure to opioids through fourteen separate rounds of addiction treatment and up to the moment of his fatal fentanyl overdose.