My memoir Pill Head, published by Hyperion in 2009, doubled as a research dive into prescription painkiller abuse in America post 9/11. It was featured on Good Morning America, NPR, and numerous other media outlets. It was also named one of Mother Jones magazine's top books of the year.

 

In many ways the book now functions as a period piece—it takes place in the mid-2000s, makes a lot of references to MySpace, and my thoughts on several of the policies I wrote about have changed.

 

Fentanyl was hard to come by back then, and the role that drug manufacturers played had yet to be uncovered. The book focuses on the human toll of opioid addiction, and ends with a warning that we were about to see a massive rise in overdoses in the next decade. I hate that the prediction came true.

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