This is the personal memoir of a paramedic with a special interest in the opioid crisis. Opiates and opiate derivatives are very prevalent on the street. They are in all neighborhoods. Chances are, everyone here reading my silly little book reviews knows, at minimum, one person who is struggling with some variant of addiction. Chances also are that that addiction has something to do with opiates. People are given pain medication, which is a wonderful and useful thing, and become addicted that way. People use opiates recreationally, developing an addiction that way. Some of us turn to them as a means to escape something. Opiate addiction is a difficult addiction to fight, and the effects of it in the aftermath are sometimes things that someone who hasn't struggled with this wouldn't imagine. The dangers of overdose aside, there are so many impurities in drugs on the street. They use all manner of things to cut with, which can kill you before the drugs do. Infections, diseases, homelessness, and other things are often byproducts of addiction. The author of this book relates many experiences he had on shifts, as well as the experiences of people he has treated.

This book is currently available on Audible Plus, which is the copy that I listened to. Listening time for this book was approximately 8 hours. The print copy is approximately 300 pages if you would prefer that version. I appreciated this book for several reasons. Struggling with heroin addiction is a very familiar conflict for me. It can happen to anyone, for a wide variety of reasons. People's journey's into addiction can be wide-ranging, but there are so many similarities in our stories. I appreciated that this author viewed those mentioned in the book as human beings, because, a lot of the time, that is not the case at all. Some of this book was tough to listen to for personal reasons, but this is such an important topic these days. I think this book did a great job about raising awareness for the issue of opioids and how to combat it.