Review by Choice Review
Hampton, an addiction recovery advocate, provides a first-person account of addiction, homelessness, multiple attempts at recovery, a faithful mother, and long-term recovery. The book is a gripping and desperate narrative that follows the author from the intense life of a political consultant to doctor-shopping, abusing heroine, and desperately trying to find an available recovery program. Hampton's addiction took him to the very bottom. He lost friends to overdose, and lost more relationships to his own battles with addiction. His mother's love and support, however, were unconditional; he credits this support system for helping him strive toward recovery. Hampton's powerful personal narrative is accompanied by an informative assessment of the drug crisis in the US and the pervasive stigma that individuals suffering from addiction face, even when seeking treatment. Hampton offers a powerful examination of the state of our nation's opioid crisis and the solutions that exist to address it; he speaks through the lens of continued long-term recovery. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Harry Holt, West Chester University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
This sobering story by a recovering heroin addict makes a strong case for why tackling the opioid crisis must be a top priority for the country. Last year the number of Americans who died of drug overdoses, the leading cause of death for Americans under age 50, reportedly matched the number of Americans who died in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars. Hampton's addiction started in 2003, after a doctor gave him a prescription for ankle pain. He notes that his dealer was a doctor who had most likely seen a sales rep from a pharmaceutical company who had reassured her of the allegedly minimal addictive risk of opioids. To make matters worse, treatment centers charge as much as $24,000 a month. Hampton writes about ending the stigma of addiction and promoting recovery pride. He also argues for decriminalizing drug use and providing treatment instead of jail time, establishing sober-living housing, and holding pharmaceutical companies financially accountable for deaths. Hampton writes, I'm ready for action. Even readers whose lives have been untouched by addiction will feel motivated.--Karen Springen Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
The backbone of this book is Hampton's account of his ten-year addiction (he is now in his third year of recovery), from the initial prescription for pain medication for a sore ankle to panhandling for money for heroin to his experiences at treatment centers. Examples from other individuals, interlaced with facts and figures, round out this work to create a powerful treatise. Hampton advocates for changing the model of treating addiction as a result of an individual's weakness to offering supportive therapy for a disease. He especially targets rehab centers for a complete overhaul and is able to take a step back and analyze the thought processes around his actions at any given time. He is now working hard to help others, including policymakers, see the current system's pitfalls before it's too late. VERDICT Using both a dispassionate and passionate voice, Hampton's book is recommended as a powerful advocacy tool for anyone seeking change, health, and equality of service for all.-Elizabeth J. Eastwood, Los Alamos Cty. Lib. Syst., NM © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Inside view of the opioid crisis by former White House staffer Hampton, who was an opioid user for 10 years and is now a recovery advocate."If you do not have substance use disorder," writes the author, "you can be certain that at least one person you know does." The math is likely given the millions of people who are addicted to opioids or are related to those unfortunates. The story is common: Hampton suffered an ankle injury, was prescribed Dilaudid, and came back for second helpings on a prescription from one doctor, and then another, who was glad to help. This opens onto a tale involving a pharmaceutical industry that fudged numbers, sent out legions of salespeople to assure doctors that their prescriptions would be safe, and then reaped vast profits. Following Beth Macy and other observers, Hampton notes that the results have been devastating in small communities. Upon hitting his own bottom, he fell into the orbit of advocate/activist Greg Williams, founder of a recovery group called Facing Addiction that aimed to see that "people like me were treated like human beings, with equal opportunities and equal rights as everyone else." With a background in politics and time spent as a presidential staffer, Hampton has a political take on parts of FA's advocacy. He urges, for instance, that voters be sure that their elected representatives understand how addiction and recovery work, that they're not wholly implicated in what he calls the system of "medically sanctioned mass murder" promoted by drug manufacturers, and that they uphold Eighth Amendment rights so that prisons cannot withhold treatment from jailed addicts: "No more cages, solitary confinement, and zero recovery." Moreover, Hampton calls for a rethinking of recovery programs generally to step away from the 28-day model and instead focus on the long term, with a five-year plan of inpatient treatment, outpatient support, and adequate social and legal protections for addicted people.A solid contribution to the debate surrounding not just the facts of drug addiction, but also the larger implications, societal, political, and economic. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
