Joshua Lawson's Face of Addiction: Stories of Loss and Recovery is perhaps the most difficult book I've ever read in order to provide an honest review. The message Lawson offers is one so deeply in need of being embraced by the many communities of which I am a part. Living as I do in Appalachia, the opioid epidemic has touched nearly every family I know -- including my own. Two of my sisters have died from addictions that began with opioids. They're numbers in the statistics we see on the nightly news. They're also but drops in the larger sea of humanity touched by the epidemic. Substance addictions are all too human. So it's difficult to read these "stories of loss and recovery" as anything more than tragic. That's what makes writing a review for this book so difficult. But this book is also a beautiful account of a collection of beautiful lives.
Lawson's own interest in the subject, and advocacy for those with substance addictions, stems from a deeply touching tale which he pens as the book's preface. Here, he tells the story of the two people who have had the greatest impact on his life, he tells us how they made their impact, he tells us why it meant so much to his own narrative, then he tells us that they are both in active recovery from substance use disorder. People who use, are close to Lawson; as he puts it, "how could I ever accept such stigma, having seen the incredible value that those two 'junkies' brought to my life?"
As the book progresses, we're told twelve stories of twelve people who either have or have had substance addictions. Frankly, it would be difficult to typecast his characters -- because the collection is actually rather diverse in lived experience. Mothers. Husbands. Children. Grandparents. Uncles. Cousins. Real, living people. And while that makes The Face of Addiction anecdotal by design, there are still some common themes. The cultural narrative of seeing people who use drugs as moral degenerates is wholly flawed because the root of the issue is deeper than any one 'type' of person who may most easily become a 'junkie'. Lawson says that the "source of addiction lies in the general fragmentation of society and its failure to provide for healthy human development. Every civilization is built on certain cultural narratives that inform how we understand and relate to one another, and frankly, our current story surrounding addiction is wholly inadequate to meet the needs of people engulfed in this crisis." This, for me, was the 'mic drop' moment in the book.
But discerning readers will see that what Lawson is really giving us is a far more subtle understanding of the opioid epidemic. He wants readers to recognize that addicts are not only members of our own communities. Addicts have lives filled with meaning. And so the anecdotes that make up Lawson's book are stories not only of loss -- these are stories that sometimes have recovery in their telling.
"Those who struggle with addiction have been
graced with a unique insight into the human condition that we would be
foolish to dismiss. Sure, they may have chosen unhealthy ways to cope
with their pain, but who hasn't?" The lived experience of these folks is no
less valuable than anyone else's -- and he makes this clear in saying that
he has lost patience for people who look down at folks who use drugs "just because their own poor coping mechanisms are more socially
acceptable." This was my second mic-drop moment of the book.
But this is precisely the point at which -- as a person whose life has been touched by the tragedy of addiction -- Lawson began to lose me as a reader. The content of The Face of Addiction is doubtless touching, moving, and even inspiring. But the overall telling of these twelve stories finally falls flat. The lives on the page become too two-dimensional. Lawson writes as an observer, a journalist of sorts. But his detached observations have so little grounding an a deep understanding of what drives these stories -- the quantitative facts of addiction that are well known and richly documented in the academic literature. In the long run, that lack of a deep understanding undermines so much of what Lawson aims to accomplish in writing the book.
But I have to end where Lawson ends. Because this is the third, and final, mic-drop of the book. And it deserves to be the last word for any who would pick up The Face of Addiction to read it: "There's not a single person out there with a needle in their arm right now whose life doesn't matter .... Their lives are bursting with potential. We don't even know what treasures they possess." Melisa and Sarah -- the sisters I mentioned in opening this review -- certainly did. And the world is less without their lights shining in it.
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I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review here.