"No other writer has captured the essential truths about illness with as much clarity." -Annie Dillard

'The Addict' Excerpt

Lucy was college educated, seemingly good-natured, girlish with a broad smile; the daughter of upper-middle-class professionals, she had thick hair and wrists that were pale and thin. Her addiction involved Vicodin, which in the strangely hierarchical thinking of opiate addicts is considered less serious than Oxycontin or heroin. "There are worse drugs out there," reported one of my opiate-dependent patients. But maybe not for Lucy. Her intent, starting at age fourteen, was to be a drug user, not an addict. Like any addict, she probably still believed she could use Vicodin for just one more day and then she could stop. Eleven million Americans take opiates for nonmedical, recreational purposes. Some start with a doctor's prescription, others first try an opiate as a party drug--nothing any more scandalous than marijuana. Most partyers use it once or twice and decide it isn't for them. Others get high and enjoy the euphoric escape. They look for Vicodin the following Saturday night as a reward for working hard, a treat at the end of the week. There is a spectrum of use (as there is with drinking alcohol), but the ones who make it to my program have been through a definable process: enjoying the Vicodin, having a little fun with it; using it more often, spacing their doses evenly across a weekend day, then evenly across an entire week; then doing anything to get it, having some physical need for it and finding themselves in search of an ever-increasing pile of pills, or moving on to heroin for a bigger, faster feeling. Then gradually they enjoy it less, realizing they can't function without it, but are unable to stop, living with only memories of good times; then with problems mounting, wanting to stop more than anything on earth, disbelieving they ever liked using."