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American Overdose
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,175
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Three out of four people addicted to heroin probably started on a prescription opioid, according to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States alone, 16,000 people die each year as a result of prescription opioid overdose. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the prescription drug epidemic is that it's built on well-meaning doctors treating patients with real problems.
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Heroin is a Beast, and that Beast has infiltrated every town and city in America. The Beast has come for your sons and daughters. The Beast is hunting for your fathers and mothers. And that Beast has only one mission, to bury as many Americans as possible. I Am a Heroin Addict is the story of how Ritchie Farrell survived a ten-bag-a-day heroin habit to become a best-selling author, WGA screenwriter, and recipient of the prestigious du-Pont-Columbia Award for excellence in journalism.
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My name is Brett. I'm a college-educated man who was once a husband of 26 years with two children, three businesses, and a large home with an actual white picket fence. I'm also a drug addict. And I have a tale to tell. It's about the despair of addiction and the absolute certainty that it can be overcome. Recovery is not simply abstinence, but a process of growing up. I spent my entire life searching for the key to long-term sobriety. I would like to share with you what I have learned.
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honest as you can get
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare pause-resisting work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction. Judith Grisel was a daily drug user and college dropout when she began to consider that her addiction might have a cure, one that she herself could perhaps discover by studying the brain. Now, after 25 years as a neuroscientist, she shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The author ruined her own book with her narration
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 54
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When Rick Van Warner found himself searching abandoned buildings and dangerous streets looking for his missing son, he had no idea that the synthetic, pill-form heroin that had snared his teen was already killing so many. In the years of pain and heartache that followed, as he tried to save his son from opioid addiction, Van Warner discovered what the American public is just now becoming aware of: Opioids prescribed for even minor pain relief are so addictive that even a few days of use can create dependency.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What is more dramatic the codependency and enabling of the father or the son’s addiction?
- By Jeffrey Olsen on 03-19-18
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The Mastermind
- Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.
- By: Evan Ratliff
- Narrated by: Evan Ratliff
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 735
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 646
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 648
The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux - the creator of a frighteningly powerful Internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Being too reliant on consensus backfires occasiona
- By El Alamein on 07-17-19
Publisher's Summary
A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic - devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions
The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers.
Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.
The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats".
A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's co-opting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers - resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.
Critic Reviews
"A deftly researched account of America's opioid epidemic. McGreal's book is authoritative in tone and vernacular in style.... [A] powerful narrative." (Kirkus Reviews)
"[A] powerful encapsulation of that epidemic....a timely examination of hard-won lessons." (Nature)
"Staggering... Zola-esque in its dark twists and turns." (Literary Review)
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- Macmom4
- 02-18-19
An important read
This book will make you angry, will make you scream at the greed , the laziness, the weakness, the indifference of all involved in the current opioid crisis. I am a physician- I went to many lectures and had drug reps tell me that patients in pain could not become addicted to prescription pain medicine. This flew in the face of my experience as an ER doctor. We are trained in medicine to not trust anecdotal evidence. What is the answer when the “scientific studies “ are misrepresented, poorly conducted or fraudulent.
This book is important for anyone dealing with the opioid crisis. It is well written and well researched. The reader has a wonderful voice. The book is easily understood by listeners without a scientific background
2 of 2 people found this review helpful