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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
Dreamland may have been good when it came out but it has no real value anymore. Disappointing and terribly structured. The amount of time spend on the Mexican drug town seemed really overblown. I understand he is writing what he knows and loves, but it felt a little like a bait and switch.
The storytelling of all the factors that led to the opiate epidemic in America was truly fascinating. At times, I felt like the book was repetitive, but overall it offered me insights into an epidemic that I don't understand, but is truly all around us. At times, it was maddening to think how the medical field contributed to opiate addiction through belief in faulty/thin research.
A lot of great information, but needlessly repetitive in a lot of cases.
An excellent account of how opiates have been used through the years and how we now find ourselves in an opiate epidemic across the country. Well written, readable and informative although sometimes repetitive this book is worth the read.
Woof.
I had to take two book breaks while reading this book because of the heavy subject matter.
It wasn't just the heaviness of addiction and the decimation of the towns, it was the complete frustration of the medical system mechanisms that kept something like opiate use so strong in the first place. It's amazing to me that one policy change or how something is weighted (in this example, pain being considered a 5th vital sign) can completely transform people, cities, etc. It really was a perfect storm of this change, the insurance companies paying for pills but not holistic treatment, and then low level drug cells capitalizing on opiate abuse to sell their heroin that made such a devastating scourge on our country.
I think too that people are a bit wiser when it comes to prescription drugs. There was, and maybe still is, a mentality that doctors know best so you should do exactly what they say and not argue. I think that might be changing a bit or maybe that's just me. Let's hope we are getting a little wiser still with fentanyl and other extremely dangerous drugs.
I know that not everything is solved but Quinones leaves us with some hope at the end with the focus on Portsmouth, Ohio. It's funny: I had a meeting today with a lady who was in Columbus and she showed a pictured with the Scioto River. I almost said "OH! I know about that. That's where all the drug use is". Yep....glad I was on mute.
As for the actual book: Quinones repeats himself, it's easy to get lost with all the names but it's a super deep dive and fascinating if not also terrible because of the subject matter. Glad I read it.
I had to take two book breaks while reading this book because of the heavy subject matter.
It wasn't just the heaviness of addiction and the decimation of the towns, it was the complete frustration of the medical system mechanisms that kept something like opiate use so strong in the first place. It's amazing to me that one policy change or how something is weighted (in this example, pain being considered a 5th vital sign) can completely transform people, cities, etc. It really was a perfect storm of this change, the insurance companies paying for pills but not holistic treatment, and then low level drug cells capitalizing on opiate abuse to sell their heroin that made such a devastating scourge on our country.
I think too that people are a bit wiser when it comes to prescription drugs. There was, and maybe still is, a mentality that doctors know best so you should do exactly what they say and not argue. I think that might be changing a bit or maybe that's just me. Let's hope we are getting a little wiser still with fentanyl and other extremely dangerous drugs.
I know that not everything is solved but Quinones leaves us with some hope at the end with the focus on Portsmouth, Ohio. It's funny: I had a meeting today with a lady who was in Columbus and she showed a pictured with the Scioto River. I almost said "OH! I know about that. That's where all the drug use is". Yep....glad I was on mute.
As for the actual book: Quinones repeats himself, it's easy to get lost with all the names but it's a super deep dive and fascinating if not also terrible because of the subject matter. Glad I read it.
Honest constructivist account of opiate addiction within the United States. Compelling exploration into socio-political underpinnings and narratives of the relationship between pharmaceuticals and heroin addiction. Individual micro accounts make up for the large macro thesis of the book: How pharmaceutical opiates can to be widely accepted within American society and thus translated easily to heroin addiction within young adults.
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I wasn't fond of all the short stories to start, seemed awfully repetitive. This book has gotten rave reviews so maybe I'll come back to it when I'm more in the mood for a serious nonfiction.
Probably more like 4.5 stars. The only negative being the author’s repetitive (at times) writing. But overall, this is an important and fascinating book. I have followed the Purdue court cases in the news, but I didn’t know the extent of their culpability, nor did I know about how the black tar heroin from Mexico coincided with the opioid epidemic and exploited a burgeoning generation of addicts.
Quinones is a good storyteller and an excellent journalist, especially in terms of fact-finding and getting people to tell their stories. He shows the personal and national costs of the addiction epidemic. I liked how he highlighted the behind-the-scenes, unsung heroes who noticed odd numbers of deaths, sometimes wrongly classified. These were the data crunchers and family doctors who smelled something really wrong and started sounding the alarm, though it would take awhile for others to pay attention. The outright lies of pharmaceutical companies and the new distribution network of heroin dealers have made fighting this problem difficult. It was good to read that groups such as doctors, researchers, courts, law enforcement, and families are figuring out how to work together to fight these problems.
The book also shows how difficult recovery is for addicts. It takes up to 90 days for addicts to get their decision-making abilities back after rehab, and it takes up to 2 years for dopamine receptors to get back to normal! We expect people to be better immediately after rehab, but so many people relapse and die because proper post-rehab support isn’t in place.
Again, this was an incredibly enlightening read. I highly recommend it.
Quinones is a good storyteller and an excellent journalist, especially in terms of fact-finding and getting people to tell their stories. He shows the personal and national costs of the addiction epidemic. I liked how he highlighted the behind-the-scenes, unsung heroes who noticed odd numbers of deaths, sometimes wrongly classified. These were the data crunchers and family doctors who smelled something really wrong and started sounding the alarm, though it would take awhile for others to pay attention. The outright lies of pharmaceutical companies and the new distribution network of heroin dealers have made fighting this problem difficult. It was good to read that groups such as doctors, researchers, courts, law enforcement, and families are figuring out how to work together to fight these problems.
The book also shows how difficult recovery is for addicts. It takes up to 90 days for addicts to get their decision-making abilities back after rehab, and it takes up to 2 years for dopamine receptors to get back to normal! We expect people to be better immediately after rehab, but so many people relapse and die because proper post-rehab support isn’t in place.
Again, this was an incredibly enlightening read. I highly recommend it.
informative
slow-paced
I was surprised by how much I learned about the opioid epidemic from this book and I appreciated the number of perspectives the author included. However, I wish the author chose to use person-first language when talking about substance use and addiction, and I felt like this book was too long.