Dreamland

As he delves deeper into research for Dreamland, Quinones realizes that he’s talked mostly to government workers, such as local cops, prosecutors, and federal agents. He decides to shift his focus toward the families of addicts. In general, he observes that very few families are going public to address the epidemic. 

Quinones speaks to a woman from Portsmouth, Jo Anna Krohn, whose son Ian Wesley became addicted to prescription painkillers around 2008. Wes shot himself in the head as a joke while he was high one night and died shortly after. Wes’s death wasn’t unusual, but Jo Anna reveals that many families were too ashamed to admit it: she cites one couple who insisted that their son died of a heart attack, “when everyone knew his drug used caused the heart attack.” Jo Anna Krohn decided she had to be honest about her son’s death. She began speaking at high schools in 2009.

Jo Anna Krohn starts a trend of parents coming forth about their children’s drug addiction. She forms a support group called SOLACE, and the media takes notice. Krohn’s decision to speak up is important to Quinones because he “couldn’t remember any drug scourge so ably abetted by silence.” In comparison to the opiate epidemic, the cocaine and meth outbreaks of years prior were quite visible in the media. Because the opiate epidemic began in Appalachia and rural America, a region unused to and unprepared for drug overdoses, abuse and deaths were underreported. It happened to “the children of America’s white middle classes,” and their parents were in turn ashamed to admit the truth.

Ed Hughes, who runs Portsmouth’s Counseling Center, concedes that silence and denial perpetuated the opiate epidemic. He saw many adolescent addicts arrive at his clinic who he believed were casualties of “Spoiled rich kid syndrome,” wherein America’s affluent shield their kids from discomfort and hardship. When their children became addicts, parents would cover for their mistakes again and again: they’d bail them out and worry excessively when the more effective solution would have been “to say no.”

Quinones sees these parents as products of a generation who learned that heroin was a disgusting, vile drug, consumed by lowlifes in back alleys. Influenced by these stigmas, they were unable to accept the truth when their children began using. Opiates might’ve been destigmatized in the medical world, but there was much work to be done to destigmatize the heroin epidemic these drugs caused. It falls to individuals “with a flair for guerilla political action” to destigmatize the epidemic, and Quinones believes Brad Belcher of Marion, Ohio, is one of these people.

Belcher, a recovering addict, was frustrated by Marion’s inaction toward its drug problem and placed signs with the message “HEROIN IS MARION’S ECONOMY” around town. Authorities removed the signs, but not before their message spread across the community. Belcher’s action didn’t solve the problem, but he felt it was a start.

Another person to speak out was Wayne Campbell, the father of a football player for the University of Akron Zips. Campbell’s son, Tyler, was prescribed painkillers after suffering a sports injury. Campbell soon learned that this was common practice: athletes would get injured, and doctors would prescribe them large amounts of pills so they could return to the playing field. Tyler eventually died of an overdose. The Campbell family chose to finally be honest about their son’s addiction, and Wayne Campbell went on to found a nonprofit called Tyler’s Light.

Quinones recalls the Schoonovers of Columbus, Ohio, who were some of the first parents he spoke with. At his son Matt’s funeral, Paul Schoonover came clean about how Matt’s addiction to OxyContin and later, heroin, had caused his death. He emphasized how “normal” Matt had been, and how blind the Schoonovers had been to his struggles. After Matt’s death, the Schoonovers became more educated about addiction in an effort to share Matt’s story and help other families of addicts.