Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis

Written by Beth Macy

Narrated by Beth Macy

A “deeply reported, deeply moving” (Patrick Radden Keefe) account of everyday heroes fighting on the front lines of the overdose crisis, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick (inspiration for the Peabody Award-winning Hulu limited series) and Factory Man.

Nearly a decade into the second wave of America's overdose crisis, pharmaceutical companies have yet to answer for the harms they created. As pending court battles against opioid makers, distributors, and retailers drag on, addiction rates have soared to record-breaking levels during the COVID pandemic, illustrating the critical need for leadership, urgency, and change. Meanwhile, there is scant consensus between law enforcement and medical leaders, nor an understanding of how to truly scale the programs that are out there, working at the ragged edge of capacity and actually saving lives.

Distilling this massive, unprecedented national health crisis down to its character-driven emotional core as only she can, Beth Macy takes us into the country’s hardest hit places to witness the devastating personal costs that one-third of America's families are now being forced to shoulder. Here we meet the ordinary people fighting for the least of us with the fewest resources, from harm reductionists risking arrest to bring lifesaving care to the homeless and addicted to the activists and bereaved families pushing to hold Purdue and the Sackler family accountable. These heroes come from all walks of life; what they have in common is an up-close and personal understanding of addiction that refuses to stigmatize—and therefore abandon—people who use drugs, as big pharma execs and many politicians are all too ready to do. 

Like the treatment innovators she profiles, Beth Macy meets the opioid crisis where it is—not where we think it should be or wish it was. Bearing witness with clear eyes, intrepid curiosity, and unfailing empathy, she brings us the crucial next installment in the story of the defining disaster of our era, one that touches every single one of us, whether directly or indirectly. A complex story of public health, big pharma, dark money, politics, race, and class that is by turns harrowing and heartening, infuriating and inspiring, Raising Lazarus is a must-read for all Americans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: Aug 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781549103711

Beth Macy

Beth Macy writes about outsiders and underdogs, and she is the author of the New York Times bestseller Factory Man. Her work has appeared in national magazines and newspapers and The Roanoke Times, where her reporting has won more than a dozen national awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard and the Lukas Prize from the Columbia School of Journalism.

Reviews for Raising Lazarus

[deusvitae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beth Macy continued her advocacy, research, and investigative journalism after Dopesick in Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Opioid Crisis.

Throughout the book, we watch the Sackler family bankruptcy case play itself out through the court system: their attempt to pay a pittance to shield themselves from future and further liability, implicitly recognizing while officially denying their significant role in today’s opioid crisis.

By today, of course, very few are still on OxyContin. But many are still feeling the effects of the OxyContin pill mills of the past, and now are addicted to opioids. Throughout the book the author profiles the various people, particularly in parts of Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, who serve on the ground to try to do whatever they can in order to get people the help they need. Most of them have some kind of personal background with opioids or something similar. The story is one full of relapses, even, and sadly perhaps even especially, among these helpers.

There is hope and promise: there are ways forward for people. Bupe (Buprenorphine) can help those addicted to opioids to better manage their condition. Some people are able to find a way out through addiction recovery programs without such medication. Slowly but surely, many are coming around, moving away from the previous posture of incarceration and castigation and understanding how opioid addiction is not like many of the drugs of old, cannot be managed the way former forms of drug addiction were managed, and with appropriate medicine and care, those addicted to opioids can find a way forward.

But it is incredibly time-intensive and expensive, and it always seems easier to judge and condemn those addicted for perceived moral fault. The Sacklers relied on this kind of discrimination and prejudice to make their case. Plenty of citizens and their elected representatives manifest little patience with those addicted in their midst; and probably not a few find the whole thing quite embarrassing. Often the areas in which the situation is the worst are those areas in which there is the greatest resistance to change and management.

This book is a hard and emotional read. It’s gutting to read how most of the women on the streets of Charleston, West Virginia, had previously been faithfully married with children before whatever circumstances led to their addiction; one was even a pastor’s wife. Those of us who are not among the addicted want to find some justification or reason to consider those who are addicted as culpable, as the “other,” so that we might not imagine that we would ever suffer this “contagion.” Yet it is only by the grace of God that perhaps we did not suffer some injury, or go through some similar experience, for it is haunting and horrifying to imagine we could become as them very easily and ourselves be dopesick and on the streets.

If we, as a society, are best judged in how we treat the least of those among us, then our judgment will not go well for us, and those who have suffered greatly in the opioid crisis rightly condemn us. We can, and should, do much better.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This follow up to Dopesick tells the story of some of the recovered addicts, doctors, nurses and addiction counselors who work to help people recover their lives after addiction and often, after prison. I read this first, which dulled the impact of Dopesick for me although that book hit me like a ton of bricks. The lack of treatment of people with serious opioid addictions in this country is criminal. I wish May had written more forcefully about alternatives to incarceration but she is telling people stories and they are moving and may enlighten readers, especially in the political world, to the need for change. Alternatives are out there, and well documented.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I so desperately wanted to love it, but it pales in comparison to her first. Probably not worth the read unless this is really a passion area for you.

[brianinbuffalo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Macy’s exhaustively researched follow-up to “Dopesick” is an important and revealing work that continues to shine an ugly spotlight on the opioid crisis. The fact that I read “Empire of Pain only 11 months earlier made some sections in “Raising Lazarus” feel redundant, but that’s certainly no reflection on Macy’s talent as a researcher, interviewer and writer. As someone who comes from a family that was ravaged by drug addiction, it’s heartening to see a brilliant journalist dissect a tragedy of epic proportions – including an examination of a shameful and stunning activities of the Sackler family.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is Macy's follow up to Dopesick, the book used as the basis of the Hulu series.The two prongs of the book are one, the positive effect many people working on the streets (despite many difficuties) have had reforming opiod users and two, the efforts for years to hold the Sackler family accountable for the flood of opiods in America killing thousands each year.She is an advocate for the victims of this epidemic squarely placing the blame on the supliers rather than the users.Quite thought provoking.

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a continuation of Macy's previous book, Dopesick, which became a very successful Hulu series. The focus here is not on the Sackler family (though their trials are covered) but upon former addicted people who become direct harm reducers in their communities, with little or no local or national government support. Their mission is solely to save lives by encouraging the use of bupe (methadone), getting people transportation to treatment facilities, and providing them with clean needles and Narcon. It's set in rural white America, West Virginia and North Carolina. Macy balances the tragic personal stories with the positive conversion stories of local residents, police, and doctors to the employment of harm reduction rather than incarceration. It's totally vital. Today I read an article in the Boston Globe about mission-driven helpers trying to make sure that those with OUD (Opioid Use Disorder) and those recovered (which can sadly be a temporary state) are the primary drivers of the entities set up to spend the Sackler payoff money that flowed from the winning of the legal cases. There are very few signs of hope as covid makes difficult lives even worse.

Quotes: "Prohibition policies have this incredibly long history of being useful ways to increase the state's capacity to police a group that you're worried about." - David Herzberg

"Rural areas are descending into this really toxic groupthink that can lead to really bad decisions, and those who do disagree and afraid to even bring up different perspectives."

"They were afflicted more than they were addicted, experiencing suffering as physical pain, distress of soul, and social degradation all at once." - Simone Weil

"The flagrancy of Purdue's actions ensured that legitimate pain patients continue to be harmed today."

[bridgettes-104215 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Raising Lazarus is a POWERFUL book about the opioid crisis in America and how the drug companies continue to remain silent on the subject. It is well-written and thoroughly researched. Beth Macy knows her stuff! Highly recommend!