Dopesick

People find out about the opioid epidemic in waves, often after shocking media stories like the deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Prince. One of the biggest signs of the growing awareness is when the Cincinnati Enquirer becomes the first newspaper in the country to have a reporter dedicated solely to the heroin beat.

In Roanoke, Virginia in February 2006, the local TV meteorologists Jamey Singleton and Marc Lamarre stun viewers when news breaks that they are both heavy opioid users (and that Lamarre has suffered a near-fatal overdose). The addicted weathermen are a wake-up call to Roanoke (where author Beth Macy lives), although the case of the weathermen is far from an anomaly. Previously, heroin use in Roanoke had been more or less limited to its Black residents, but increasingly, the epidemic crosses racial lines. People suffering from addiction neglect all their other relationships to focus on getting their next fix.

In 2006, Clifton “Lite” Lee is a dealer originally from Philadelphia who helps popularize heroin in Roanoke. When he is sentenced to jail in 2008, prosecutors show how, at the height of his business, he had profits of 600 percent. At the time, his story doesn’t reach Macy, even though she works at a newspaper.

Scott Roth is a young man in Roanoke who dies of a heroin overdose. Spencer Mumpower goes to prison in 2012 for selling Scott Roth the heroin that killed him.

Robin Roth, mother of Scott, recalls how her son had been on and off drugs since he was 17, in 2006. Though he tried to claim he’d only done weed, he had, in fact, smoked heroin. Despite her efforts to help her son with rehab, she wasn’t able to stop him from taking the heroin that would cause his fatal overdose.

In Roanoke, 2012 is the end of the opioid epidemic’s stealth phase. Jesse Bolstridge is a high school student who trades his Adderall to classmates in exchange for painkillers. His mother, Kristi Fernandez, knows something is wrong but can’t pinpoint the exact moment that her son’s life shifts and he becomes completely addicted to the pills.

Kristi is a local businesswoman, and she doesn’t believe it the first time someone tells her that her son might have a pill problem.

In 2010, news breaks that a local heroin user named Brandon Perullo has tried to rob a bank. He is sentenced to prison in 2011. His mother, Laura Hadden, tries to get the local newspaper to draw attention to the issue, but they ignore her, finding the bank robbery itself more notable than the motivation behind it. She begins to do drug-prevention advocacy but attracts little attention at first.

Years later, Brandon is released from prison. Laura Hadden begins a new round of advocacy. Though Brandon seems to be adjusting well to life outside at first, his felony record makes it hard to find a job. Seven months after getting out of prison, he relapses, and two weeks after that, he dies of an overdose. Hadden believes the death may have been a suicide, in order to avoid dopesickness.

Kristi faces a similar situation to Hadden, but she didn’t encounter Hadden’s advocacy. Kristi knows her son has a serious problem, and so she reluctantly installs a lock on her bedroom door (so that he won’t be able to steal valuables). Robin Roth also feels like a failure because of the death of her son Scott, not realizing how many parents out there are in similar situations (since internet support groups around the issue aren’t prevalent yet).

At court in 2012, Spencer is convicted of selling Scott Roth the heroin he overdosed on. The judge suggests that it might be helpful for Robin to meet with Spencer, but she says she isn’t ready.

In summer 2012, Macy follows Robin and Spencer as Spencer prepares for prison. Spencer opens up to Macy about his past, giving tips about how parents can stop children from accessing their drugs (for example, by removing any medicine from their cabinet that ends in “codone”).

Spencer recalls the night he sold Scott the heroin that led to Scott’s death and Spencer’s imprisonment. The two hadn’t seen each other since high school, three years earlier. When Scott showed up to buy from Spencer, Scott looked like a full-blown junkie, weighing just 135 pounds. Later, in jail, Spencer has a hard time at first before finally hitting rock bottom and deciding to change.

In jail, after Spencer decides to turn his life around, he writes an apology letter to Robin Roth (which her therapist keeps until she’s ready). By 2012, he is drug-free for two years and has replaced his drug addiction with a new focus on karate.

Robin begins to soften toward Spencer, and she learns from other newspaper stories that she is not alone. A drug-use survey at the local high school reveals that 6.4 percent of students have tried heroin and almost 10 percent have used prescription drugs illegally. While family members of victims go to Families Anonymous meetings, most keep quiet, either out of grief or out of shame.