You'd Be Home Now

As one of the most pressing public health issues in contemporary America, the opioid crisis affects individuals across all age groups and transcends socioeconomic status. However, the impact on teenagers is particularly daunting, as they are at a vulnerable stage of development and face difficult challenges in navigating a world permeated by opioid availability. In You’d Be Home Now, author Kathleen Glasgow examines the effects of the opioid crisis on one town and one family through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl named Emory Ward. Glasgow’s novel not only explores Emory’s struggle to help her brother, Joey, manage his opioid addiction but also, through her visits to the treatment clinic, Emory sees firsthand the impact of the opioid crisis on her entire community. When her family’s historic, vacant textile mill becomes a temporary shelter for Mill Haven’s exiles with drug addictions—people who look just like Joey—Emory’s entire family must decide if they will respond in judgment like the rest of the community or with kindness.

The opioid crisis originated in the late 1990s when pharmaceutical companies began aggressively marketing prescription opioids as a safe solution for pain management. Targeting specific communities like the Appalachian region, rife with people suffering through chronic pain from long hours in coal mines, the companies encouraged doctors to offer the medications as a miraculous solution. This led doctors to overprescribe pain pills, often providing patients with more potent medications than necessary with unlimited refills. Facilities known as “pill mills” sprung up, where individuals now addicted to the medications could receive refills without an examination by a doctor. As addictions spiraled and more pills were widely available both legally and illegally, the risk for teenagers to be exposed to opioids grew. Often driven by curiosity and lack of impulse control, teens are more susceptible to high-risk behavior including drug experimentation. Coupled with the pressures of social acceptance and rising rates of depression among teenagers, many have turned to opioids, and it only takes one use to develop a long-term addiction. The consequences of teenage opioid abuse are widespread and catastrophic for families, schools, and communities, with hazards including respiratory depression, potential for overdose, and a transition to abusing even more dangerous substances like injectable heroin. Prolonged opioid use can induce liver damage, compromise immune function, and engender hormonal imbalances. Like Joey, opioid use deleteriously affects relationships, academic performance, and mental health, leading to a cycle of underachievement, shame, and loss of self-worth (Feldscher, Karen. “What Led to the Opioid Crisis—and How to Fix It.” Harvard School of Public Health, 24 February 2022). 

Tackling the opioid crisis among teenagers requires intervention efforts both within schools and at home by providing teenagers with accurate information about the risks associated with opioid abuse. Access to effective and affordable support systems including medication-assisted treatment like Suboxone, clean needle swaps, and counseling is essential. As Glasgow illustrates in her novel, the most important step in helping teenagers with substance abuse is destigmatizing addiction and mental illness by encouraging teenagers to seek help without fear of judgment and for parents, teachers, and school administrators to resist the temptation to shame or shun teenagers who self-harm with substances.