Literary Analysis Essay on Dopesick

Introduction

Beth Macy, in her book Dopesick, provides insight into the opioid crisis across the United States. The book offers a lot of useful information concerning the use of opioids that I did not know before reading it. In my family, no one has an addiction to opioids. The book provides a full review of the opioid crisis that takes one right to the heart of America's struggle with opioid addiction for more than 20years.

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According to Macy, the epidemic of opioid addiction is created by profit-driven doctors, dealers, and drug companies. In the book, Macy shows how Purdue Pharma, a drug company, advocated for the use of Oxycontin as a pain killer (Macy, 2018). The cycle then led to the use of heroin after it became harder for users to access opioid prescriptions. People who have suffered from opioid addiction describe it to be more than the worst flu by a hundred times. The drugs are addictive to the extent that people do not use them to get high but to enable them to survive through something that is not their fault. The opioid crisis may also have been caused by the greed of corporates and the indifference in regulations.

Macy aims Perdue Pharma because of its role in advocating for the sale of oxycontin through aggressive marketing. The company used speaker training conferences to train physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, where they perdue influenced the prescribing habits of the doctors to prescribing oxycontin. The company mostly targeted the doctors who tended to prescribe opioids to their patients by compiling the prescription profile of the physicians through information obtained from data mining companies (Macy, 2018). The more likely a physician would prescribe opioids, the more the company targeted them. The company also used representatives to identify the prescription behaviors of doctors. Bonuses were given to representatives who attracted more doctors to prescribing oxycontin, keeping them highly motivated.

Opioid Recovery

Before reading the book, I thought that it was easy for one to recover from the use of opioids by just choosing to stop because physicians prescribed most of them. I felt that by reducing the use of opioids, the addiction would eventually stop, and one would fully recover. The recovery from opioids can be made by setting a goal on how much to use.

After reading the book, I realized that the recovery from opioid addiction does not happen overnight. The approach used by people matters a lot as the recovery process is challenging, and many relapses occur along the way. The book offers a treatment method called the medication-assisted method that can be used when treating opioid-addicted patients. I also discovered that one should seek the help of a clinician to guide them in the recovery process. It is also advisable that one does not keep drugs in the house to limit their use.

Use of Online Groups During the Pandemic

The use of online groups can be useful in helping opioid addicts recover during the Coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has led to the banning of meetings, which can make addicts of opioids struggle with recovery (Hoffman, 2020). Group support is essential, and it can be done online through virtual meetings and counseling on various platforms, tracking of habits is possible using different apps that facilitate the finding of community peers (Hoffman, 2020). The substance abuse and mental health services have provided a hotline that can be used by drug addicts to obtain support and treatment services. Online meetings can also be held using Skype, Zoom, and other platforms. Free apps such as I am sober, sober grid, and connections can also be used for support and peer counseling.

References

Hoffman, J. (2020). Online Help to Stay Sober During a Pandemic. Retrieved 13 April 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-sobriety-online-help.html?searchResultPosition=3

Hoffman, J. (2020). With Meetings Banned, Millions Struggle to Stay Sober On Their Own. Retrieved 13 April 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-alcoholics-drugs-online.html?searchResultPosition=4

Macy, B. (2018). Dopesick: Dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted to America. Little, Brown.