For a time I practiced law at a firm in San Francisco - some years ago - shortly after the departure of a partner who was on drugs. It fell to me, in the course of my own work, to review many of the files worked on by the drug-addicted former partner.
I'm puzzled by Peres's status at his death as a million dollar partner at a San Diego law firm. In my review of the files of the departed druggie at my old firm, I found a wide disparity. In some files, a few, his talent as an attorney was obvious. More files disclosed some very serious lapses in thinking, and some were close to gibberish. Depending, I guess, on his drug status on any particular day. Finally he made a major mistake, and the firm was sued for malpractice. At this point he was invited to leave.
This firm in San Diego must have been asleep at the switch. There are hundreds of indicators when an attorney is going off the rails. People notice, unless they are writing gibberish themselves I guess.
4
@Susan i think you're mixing up the two stories. Peres was the editor at Details; Eilene Zimmerman's husband was the attorney.
If Peres did in fact take 60 Vicodin a day that would mean he consumed 19,500mg of acetaminophen. At 325mg per tablet it would be almost 5 times the daily maximum, which is 4000mg, the FDA allows. He must not have taken that much for too long or he would have surely gone into liver failure.
6
"although he describes himself as barely functioning — missing meetings, nodding out at work, spending hours in the offices of five different pain-management doctors to feed his habit. "
Welcome to America. Productivity in the service sector, whether it be from drugs, alcohol or just laziness, is abysmal. He had the job for 15 years. Why was this lack of performance tolerated? Where was his boss? Yet another level of incompetence keeping watch over the incompetent.
3
We see what we want to see. The mind overlooks what it doesn’t want to acknowledge and we drive without seeing the blinking red lights
We live in a country that looks the other way instead of reaching out to assist citizens who are in need of assistance
Maybe we should look in the mirror and provide a helping hand of support to those in need because we all need help in our lives.
4
I am a retired commercial real estate lawyer. I spent twenty years at two firms whose names you would recognize if you were a lawyer. I read the earlier article Ms. Zimmerman wrote about her Ex. While Jay’s review was excellent, it left a lot of unanswered questions, many of which commentators also raised.
Zimmerman was not married to him when he started on drugs. How much involvement she had with him when he was doing drugs? Not much apparently. All of the sign of drug abuse were there to see, in his house. Obviously, she had not been in his house while he was heavily doing drugs. This is why her narrative sounds so false. You really have to wonder about her motives in writing a book like this.
It is impossible to tell from the article when he started doing drugs.
Before he died, of a massive infection caused by using dirty needles, his law firm was complaining that he was working from home too much. This tells me that he may have been padding his time sheets, I.e. billing clients for work he didn’t do. Sounds like his firm was on to him. They wanted him in the office so they could monitor him.
He worked for a huge intellectual property law firm in Silicon Valley, which has a very good reputation. I know from my own experience that law firms do not tolerate behavior which could generate bad publicity for the firm or which is illegal or constitutes malpractice. Charging clients for work you don’t do is a form of theft.
8
These narcissists and their publishers are making it impossible for patients to get pain medications. I hope they are happy with themselves -- I mean besides how proud they are that they can swallow 60 vicodin in a day and not even miss work!
Well I guess that means I could swallow a hundred in one day and maybe just have to call in sick. Or take an Uber to work instead of driving?
I've known plenty of addicts and it's always the same story -- they just have a really hard time getting over what great addicts they were.
They could take more drugs than anyone, they could hurt more people, they could hurt themselves more, they could come up with more ways to play victim, they could blame more people, they had the worst mothers, they had the worst glamorous jobs (no one cares about factory worker addicts or cab driver addicts), they were the toughest gang bangers . . .it's just endless garbage from garbage recycling it's own garbage. I'd rather poke my own eyes out than read this narcissistic garbage.
And thanks Dan Peres for making it impossible for patients in pain to get Vicodin. Or wait, is that your doctor's fault?
20
I'm so lucky. For whatever reason I've been scared to death since childhood of losing my soul to drugs thus I've never used them. I do recall a TV show in the late 1950s or early 1960s that told the horrors of addiction to heroin and that (at that time) there was but one federal hospital in KY that offered some potential treatment.
I've sipped 2 beers a night, or 3 glasses of wine a night, for a long time but that's the extent of it, and that's over too as I grapple with my weight as I turn 72 on Monday.
I don't know what to make of why so many people take the risk to dabble in dangerously addictive substances; the horrors are well known but they do it anyway.
I grew up poor in west Baltimore; every dollar is dear to me and always will be. I don't go to casinos like so many other folks. My wife of 46 years and I are nicely comfortable, secure, aim to stay that way and I know I'm one of the lucky ones.
12
@Mike For many addicts who, as you put it, "take the risk to dabble," they have inherited addiction. Addiction to any substance is a disease, often hereditary. I know many people whose parents, grandparents, great-grands, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, or cousins struggle with addiction simply because it is in their family. You are blessed to (at least to your knowledge) not have addiction in your genes.
@Mike
It would be wonderful if we had a medical community that wasn’t a drive thru gas station. Where they paid attention to the medical needs of there patients worked on pain killers for back issues that are chronic beside telling you to get a wheelchair
The major corporations make plenty of money off of chronic illnesses and pain
Let’s address how we can help the normal individual not self destructive individuals. Normal people have interesting stories
1
And Marijuana is STILL a Class 1 felony. What should be a Class 1 felony are the makers of the opioids we received like candy for 15 years or in this case, Vicodin and a large number of other addictive products Big Pharma sells. These drugs are highly addictive, like legal cigarettes and alcohol and our government, right and far right and left and far left ALL seem very happy with the status quo. Pot is more like a candy than a drug when compared to these know killers. Just look at the annual deaths from ALL these legal and socially accepted lethal drugs. Then tell me how BAD the terrible Marijuana is. When the Left or Right politicians are telling you how much they care about the "people" you will know they are vicious liars and are addicted to the money these poisonous substances put in their pockets. Shame on Congress for ignoring this for many decades. There is NOBODY in Congress who cares about this and for that they should ALL be replaced!
10
@Bill Virginia Pleade read up on CHS, a syndrome that is causing more emergency room visits for heavy pot smokers and which can, if ignored, lead to death. Doctors are just now beginning to ask the right questions about symptoms. The uptick in cases is due to pot being more readily available and (relatively) legal. Does pot cause more deaths than alcohol? No. At least not yet. I had a friend who used to joke at NA meetings that he wasn't addicted to pot for twenty years. When he got clean, he got all the way clean. I also have a family friend who has CHS. It has warped this young man's life for years, and we are at a loss on how to help him. He started smoking pot because he felt so much anxiety when growing up, and now it's hard to give up his friend despite the symptoms and dangers associated with CHS. We can't put the genie back into the bottle, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking pot is like candy.
1
Nothing new here. We all (every last one of us) live in an insanely uncivil, cruel society (the origins of which are documented in the recent NYT 1619 series) and the only insulation available is distance. Distance from each other, distance through drugs, distance from life. Faux identity whether it be through Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, Jesus Christ, or Kobe Bryant is fleeting indeed. My antidote? A search for the truth even if it be a disappointment at times. Better to seek the truth and possibly even the light at the end of the tunnel then live the fantasy. Living the fantasy is a little like skydiving without a parachute. It can be thrilling at the start and then... not.
9
I’m wondering now about “American Psycho” as a text.
I read Zimmerman's NY Times essay and listened to her Fresh Air interview.
She came across as a simpleton, completely unaware of how abusive her husband was to her. She is yet another of the seemingly thousands of women financially dependent upon narcissitic, mentally unstable men who repeatedly bullied them with financial ruin. She "fell in line" to remain subserviant to her cruel husband because of money. And that is what she modeled to her children.
Women need to smarten up and stop being financially dependent upon men while saddled with caring for their husband and children while earning no money for it.
20
Reading this, you have to wonder whose addiction was more powerful? Ms. Zimmerman's addiction to her fantasy and denial or her ex husband's? What a tragedy on so many levels. Her book seems to have been written in a trance.
13
@Lillies Totally!! Reaching back to radio interview with Terry Gross, b/c haven't read the book. But her denial endangered her children repeatedly. Yet there seems to be a yawning lack of self-reflection about that denial, and a lack on the part of reviewers of questions or insight pointing this out. Maybe when she has more fully processed the experience, a more nuanced and self-aware account will be possible.
2
"It remains a bit of a mystery how the 28-year-old Peres, who was working as a correspondent in Paris, got the head job at a major Condé Nast title, and an even bigger mystery how he kept that job for 15 years."
One wonders the same about McInerney's career as a novelist.
14
@Laurence Bachmann - Several online sources indicate that Peres worked his way up from Assistant Editor to European Editor, overseeing W’s bureaus in Paris, London, and Milan during his time with W. If accurate, that makes his getting the job at Details rather less of a mystery. Also, when Peres took over, it was a relaunch of Details with a new design and focus, a likely time for a new, younger face to take over running things. That doesn't mean Peres in the end did a good job but it does make the reviewer's comment you quoted unnecessarily snarky.
4
The tragedy is that as with alcohol, because Vicodin and Oxycontin are initially prescribed and over prescribed by a BioMedicine establishment that willfully ignores, in the main, effective non-drug methods of treating pain, Vicodin abusers like Rush Limbaugh and the rest Are Not Made to feel, so long as they are white and middle class or above, that they are law violators or even drug addicts. No. Stigma. At. All.
How many hard core alcoholics do you know who drive drunk and are in denial.
But the real tragedy is Doctor Denial Syndrome. Egoscue Method, Feldenkrais, Active Release, Pilates even. Deep Tissue Massage, Acupuncture, Cupping, Scraping Tons of physical modalities out there. And the mental remedies: Mindfulness, Tai Qi..etc etc
11
@Sara Soltes Though I likely disagree with you, I do want to point out: It is not solely the problem of doctor denial. Rather: insurers rarely cover any of the above mentioned treatments. Even Physical therapy is limited. At $50-150 per session, this becomes an expensive regimen, even for white privileged suburbanites.
And, 'patients' will often argue who has the time? Busy worlds filled with commuters, overbooked parents, and demands of work/home balance often leave little time for the better option: manual therapies, meditation, nutrition and exercise.
5
For all of those comments regarding dosage: you can remove the acetaminophen (APAP) by using cold water extraction methods. Using cold water, you separate the opiate from the Tylenol.
This will explain him taking 60 pills a day and not going into liver failure.
12
Yawn...the trials and tribulations of the undeserving...SO New York glitterati
11
@Wally Greenwell It might be that we need such people to be shown as susceptible.
Our society has dehumanized people who become addicted. We think of them as 'other.' Although it is tragic that anyone becomes addicted, it might be a blessing that rich successful white people can show us that anyone can experience such a tragedy.
7
@Wally Greenwell I appreciate the sentiment. But, addiction knows no racial, cultural or economic barriers. Perhaps showing someone who apparently has it all is just as susceptible as someone who has nothing to lose, we will be more aware of this tragedy among us?
1
Vicodin contains hydrocodone and acetaminophen. The pills that offer 5 milligrams of hydrocodone include 500 milligrams of acetaminophen. Harvard’s Men’s Health Watch newsletter warns that “the generally recommended maximum daily dose [of acetaminophen] is no more than 4,000 milligrams (mg) from all sources.” (April, 2014, updated in 2018). Exceeding the recommended daily limit can lead to serious liver toxicity. Acetaminophen is the destroyer of livers behind 20% of liver transplants. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4913076/ )
It’s hard to believe that Dan Peres consumed as much Vicodin as stated in the article without destroying his liver.
16
@CLC
It's hard to believe she didn't know he was addicted to opioids if only because they are notorious for causing impotence and destroying male sex drive.
3
@CLC The liver will adapt to repeat dosing of acetaminophen over time. Through induction of antioxidants and drug transport proteins among other mechanisms. Many addicts consume well beyond the toxic dose on a daily basis because of this. Acute acetaminophen toxicity does account for around half of all cases of liver failure.
5
@mike L I'm too tired from working. I'm not in the mood. I have to be up early. I have a headache...there are countless excuses available really. If you've never been or known an addict, it's baffling. If you have, it's not.
2
Dan Peres is the personification of the NYC literati: all surface. no substance. No discernable talent or work ethic. A nobody handed a big job and then propped up by the magazine publishing machine and some dedicated staff working several rings below him. This seemed to be the fate of most Conde Nast publications. Too much money thrown around, too many parties, too little talent. Other than about 100 New Yorkers, who is going to read this book?
34
@Suzanne Was he a prep school boy, or in a prestigious fraternity.
1
@Suzanne I loved Details Magazine, even here in the Midwest. But I think I'm going to check out the book at the library, rather than buy it and line Mr. Peres' pockets even more.
1
@Suzanne Dedicated staff? Yes, one suspects a very competent and probably very underpaid PA.
2
60 Vicodins per day? Really? That is a toxic dose. The acetaminophen content would cause liver failure.
11
The trials and tribulations of being fortunate, having privilege and taking advantage of it in an industry virtually unattainable to people of other sexes and races.
I think i'm a hard pass.
18
@Kevin Addiction does not respect income, class, race, sex. The individuals concerned became addicts just like every other kind of person can. It has nothing to do with privilege.
3
When I had some orthopedic surgery recently and also when I had my throat cut open to remove a tumor medical staff insisted that I should take Oxycontin right away when I woke up. In both instances the nerve block had been quite effective and nothing hurt. I said so. " It does not hurt a bit. I don't think I need that. And isn't it a bad idea for lots of people?" They were just insistent and persistent. They have absurd reasons : " Take it now before it hurts. if you wait until it hurts you'll regret it ". No, if I waited until it hurt I might be a momentary nuisance. You are less of a nuisance if you are promptly knocked out again the moment you wake up from surgery. They also say : " oxycodone and oxycontin are 2 different things. This one is not addictive." I'm pretty sure that is not true. I just thought that now that we know what a problem all of this has become that they would try not to put you on it. But they try very hard to put you on it. And then, I presume, after a week or 10 days when a dependency has started, they torture you with withholding it. It's crazy-so crazy that someone must be profiting-even now when we should know better.
30
@Consuelo The nurses' reasoning was far from "absurd." They were likely expecting your nerve block to wear off soon, and wanted to keep you relatively pain-free. Pain relief is much, much easier to achieve when the pain is mild to moderate. If you wait until the pain is severe to take the pain medication, it's significantly more difficult to achieve any relief. Acute, untreated post-operative pain is detrimental to a patient's recovery, and is completely unnecessary.
Don't believe everything you read or hear about the perils of opioids. There is a lot of inaccurate information out there. Bottom line: If you take the medication as prescribed, and you stop taking it when your acute post-operative pain resolves, the odds of you becoming addicted are quite slim. And with today's attitudes towards opioids, that first 10- or 20-pill post-surgical prescription will be the only one you'll get.
I'm curious: Did you experience pain when the nerve block wore off? How bad was it? Did you eventually take the pill(s) the nurses were offering you?
26
@Samantha I've wondered about this. I was given many opiates in the past for different surgeries. Except for percocet, which gave me insomnia, these very strong pills I was prescribed only made me fall asleep. I appreciated the deep restive sleep when recovering from surgery. I took them every day for a few weeks. Then I stopped taking them. I had no withdrawal. The pain was gone, so I forgot to take them since the pain did not remind me to take them.
My guess is that the danger occurs when chronic pain sets in. But now--because of the epidemic--we don't have this option for surgery.
I suppose I could tough it out. However, they are a godsend for cancer patients. Are they also being deprived of opiates? Opiates make it possible for people to die at home in hospice with much less suffering. I hope that is still true.
It also seems strange that there is not more understanding of how to prescribe them safely. People were always being prescribed these, but the epidemic only occurred recently. Was it because it was too easy to renew the prescriptions? How could it be they were prescribed so liberally in the past but there was no epidemic?
6
@McQueen
My understanding is the danger occurs when those who are genetically susceptible to addiction are given the pills. These are people who experience euphoria where the rest of us feel pleasant pain relief. Thus they have a heightened drive to repeat the experience.
There's nothing bad or immoral about addicts. They are wired differently; that's no one's fault. They develop a tolerance and need more and more drugs to achieve the desired effect until, eventually, no amount will make them feel that euphoria. How maddening that must be, to lose the shape and dignity of your life to drug seeking. Other pain patients continue to get the same pain relief as they did with their initial doses. That doesn't make them superior. Maybe just lucky.
Rates of addiction and overdose also track with levels of economic despair, suggesting people who aren't necessarily physiologically susceptible to addiction to begin with can have a psychological vulnerability if their circumstances become unbearable.
The bottom line is addiction is a misfortune that befalls people, not some flaky glittery way to avoid life's problems and live in a permanent state of carefree bliss. I wish we could view the people affected by it with more compassion and less judgment. Shame never helped anyone get better.
17
Peres is rewarded with a fat book deal and 3,500 breathless words in the NYTimes. And people wonder why, oh why, writers of color are infuriated by the broken publishing industry.
35
@e.s.
You realize that the poor are harmed by these poisons in greater numbers than the rich. I agree. Kentucky was "targeted" by Perdue because it was full of people on disability and hooking these folks was easy. One of many places millions of these pills were peddled. I read about a robbery of a pharmacy in a small eastern KY town 20 years ago. The criminal wanted ONLY oxytocin and stopped to take some before leaving. Now that is addiction!
4
@e.s., hee. Great mystery, right?
1
@Bill Virginia Did not think anyone desired oxytocin that badly. Vicodin and oxycontin yes. Must have been very anxious to deliver her baby.
1
Indeed, Dan Peres wasn't chosen for the Details job because of his experience, or insights. I think he knew that.
I don't feel sorry for him. His memoir sounds as dull and self-indulgent as the man himself.
34
@NR My thoughts precisely!
4
60 Vicodins a day? I'm not a medical professional but I doubt one survives 60 Vicodins a day. Who fact checked his book?
34
@Sara G2 Its not as many as you think. You develop a tolerance so that it takes much more to get the same feeling the longer you are on them. The question is how did he survive the horrible constipation.
10
@Happy in NC Tylenol will kill your liver in no time flat. That dosage is a daily overdose.
4
@Sara G2
Limbaugh was doing 40 plus Oxycontin per day when he was found to be an addict and his first pills were from a doctor, of course. This is a very non-partisan drug; addicting most who play with it. Another great money maker from Big Pharma and their willful accomplice our Congress. Many in both should be in jail as they were the largest illicit drug dealers in history. I hope they are proud!
Sounds like the management of Cone Nast was also running Sarah Lawrence College.
22
I was redirected to your review after reading Katherine Rosman's scathing piece on Dan Peres. Did you both read the same book? You've cut Peres too much slack in my opinion.
I do not want to read a book written by yet another "bad boy" privileged white male. Peres took gross advantage of his position, his colleagues, his company, and capped it all by printing manufactured stories. It's grotesque.
What is the value in publishing his small, scabrous story? I hope his publisher did not pay a large advance. I predict this book will be remaindered rather quickly. At least I hope so.
27
@Denna Jones totally agree, so, what did I come away with, apathy.
1
And McInerney was a good choice to write this!
8
The Condé Nast colleague’s comment , “that explains a lot” is chilling. How much had to have been ignored for this to go on? How many subordinates doing the work?
If you’re Rush Limbaugh, you get a Presidential Medal of Honor. If you’re a person of color, or poor, incarceration.
79
@Jennifer And if you're a woman, you get fired.
51
I'm reminded of Bill Clegg's PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN. Hoping Mr Peres' is more autobiographical and less fictional liberties (shall we say).
I can't imagine how horribly constipated he must have been.
25
@John Mardinly Given oxycodone's tendency to reduce appetite, he probably wasn'teating much anyway. His digestive tract must have been just about as unnecessary as this book.
15
Zimmerman: "Everything suddenly makes sense. And no sense. Peter was a drug addict. _Of course_ Peter was a drug addict. ..." (p. 117)
Comparing the intellectual processes of a bereaved ex-spouse and scientists or fictional detectives may seem crass, but that quote perfectly illustrates the "Gestalt switch" that occurs when one mental model replaces another.
For more about the Gestalt switch in science and literature, see:
"Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions: Thomas S. Kuhn's Philosophy of Science" by Paul Hoyningen-Huene (1993).
"Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Stories" by Michael J. Crowe (2018).
2
The second title should be:
"The Gestalt Shift in Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes Stories" by Michael J. Crowe (2018).
Crowe considers "shift" and "switch" to mean the same thing in this context, but he chose "shift" based on a web search.
1
And yet no mention of the white male privilege that allows/condones/enables all of this.
23
If so many lawyers are addicts, why don't state attorney regulators change their procedures and make the complaint process public? I can't understand why the complaints are secret. It would be easy to require that complaints about attorneys be verified under penalty of perjury. When someone complains that an attorney threw out the only copy of a will, tried to seduce a distraught divorce client, lied in court, affixed a scan of someone's signature to a so called affidavit without their permission or knowledge, retaliated against a person for filing documents in court, sent threatening messages, failed to do what a statute requires, advised a litigant that the judge will rule on their motions but not on the other side's motions, sent emails to pro se litigants misrepresenting the rules of procedure, etc., why should their complaints be secret?
11
As someone who suffers from chronic pain--low back pain from 20+ years of general duty nursing in the late 60s and upper back pain from fibromyalgia, I long for a nonaddictive pain medication. I use topical treatments, went to PT, decide what household tasks I can and cannot do and try to meditate. But the pain rules my life. I've been prescribed Tramadol and use it sparingly because I'm afraid of feeling too good. I also have Clinical Depression--which came first--pain or the Depression. I can no longer do what I once did--age and pain whack me everyday to remind me I'm no longer the person I once was. I understand a person with chronic pain becoming addicted to opioids. It's way passed time we developed new treatments for it and stop blaming the addict in physical and emotional pain or thinking they are less of a person.
25
"... upper back pain from fibromyalgia, I long for a nonaddictive pain medication."
The problem is that pain medication does not treat the underlying cause of the pain.
In this case, what is really needed is an actual treatment for fibromyalgia.
6
@Mitzi Reinbold I hear you about the fear of addiction. Years ago I was prescribed a muscle relaxant (Flexeral?). It felt so good that I decided that I could only take half a pill when absolutely necessary and only when I knew that I could stay in the house and not have to drive.
I probably took about five pills total and ended up getting rid of the rest.
1
@Mitzi Reinbold similar problems plus drug induced tendinitis and neuropathic pain. did all the usual Tx but no help. Been on turmeric (500 mg x 2 a day) for 3 weeks and doing so much better. Recommendations came from an NYU conference last year for older adults and several panel members (surgeons, physicians, etc.) disclosed they were on turmeric too. Still did not believe but finally tried 3 weeks ago. 80% decrease in pain. Let's see if it continues. On collagen too for 2 months.
5
The book's claim is Peres was taking 60 pills containing 18,000 mg./day APAP*. This could be a glaring error. That has enough "Tylenol" to cause acute liver failure. Also it's very roughly two-thirds the one-dose quantity of APAP needed for a possibly successful suicide attempt for someone weighing about 180 lbs.
* If the scrip label reads 5/325 it means 5 mg. codeine/325 mg. APAP, or generic Tylenol. 4,000 mg. APAP/day for 3 days is upper limit for "safe" adult dose.
12
@Think Of One That is correct, his liver would have failed after one or two days if he was taking 60 per day.
1
@M Andrew Are you people doctors who know your facts about opioid related deaths? Because I'm pretty sure that I've heard recovery stories from living people who were taking that much Vicodin in 12 step meetings and lived to recover and tell the tale.
4
This was one of the more boring book reviews I have read for a long while. It barely qualifies as a review, it reads more like a report. I know Mr. McInerey has a following, but as a former addict myself I've always found him to provide only the shallowest, most self-aggrandizing, comments on white collar/upper class addiction. I hope the books reviewed here are less boring than he makes them sound, but I won't be bothering to check after reading this meh synopsis.
PS if you love addiction reads, try "Homeboy" and "Basketball Diaries."
12
@Slimer I'm addicted to addiction reads.
1
@Slimer
Yes, Basketball Diaries is an excellent book as is Permanent Midnight.
2
Fascinating and insightful book on addiction:
'In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction'
Author is Dr. Gabor Mate.
13
Serious, ongoing, unrelieved pain will make you want to die. Opiates deserve the bad rap for addiction; but using them for relief of chronic pain can be lifesaving.
32
@Kay Tee No one should be forced to suffer with chronic intractable pain, especially when oxycodone is cheap and effective. I get more pain relief from one Percocet tablet than I ever did from all of the injections and rhizotomies that my former pain management doctor insisted I have done.
8
@Kay Tee
I would have committed suicide or died of a stroke/cancer a long time ago if not for opioids.
2
In college 50 years ago, I saw a book on the shelf in the bookstore entitled "It's so good, don't even try it once." I never touched the book but just reading the title had a profound effect on me. I never tried anything remotely dangerous and am glad of it.
4
'... a book on the shelf in the bookstore entitled "It's so good, don't even try it once."'
The secondary title is "Heroin in perspective", and the authors are David E Smith and George R Gay.
Worldcat lists libraries that have it, and a web search will find copies for sale.
4
Just a quick sidebar- ALL medications that aren't needed, out of date, etc. should be disposed of properly- the toilet or trash can are not appropriate. These drugs can then wind up in our ground water or waterways, with negative results. If you have a local prescription drug collection program you can dispose of them in a secure container at the local police station, pharmacy, etc. Yes, a small hassle, but think of your kids and grand kids.
30
@John E. our local PD has a locked collection spot - many do. I agree do not discard improperly!!!
2
@John E. Most pharmacies won’t touch opioids for destruction. There’s too much chance of diversion.
don't do drugs kids... full stop.
8
That Jay McInerey made his first big splash with "Bright Lights, Big City", a wannabee "Catcher in the Rye" with Bolivian marching powder, is no surprise.
It was the 80s and discos, cocaine, and beautiful people high on drugs and priviledge in NYC was the order of the day. If you moved in those circles. The only good thing about the film version was Michael J. Fox and Steely Dan's theme song.
Frankly, the coming-of-age story with drugs, success and money (and a smidgen of artist angst) was dead boring then and it's dead boring now.
17
@cynthia
Comments re McInerney and his career seem a lot of snarky envy. He is a working writer who earned his success.
@cynthia, correction: Kiefer Sutherland and Bryan Ferry’s “Kiss And Tell” song were the best things in the movie. ;)
1
"and take long drives into the wilderness." By definition, legal definition, wilderness areas are roadless. Do your homework, City Boy.
13
@Mary Sojourner But surely he may have some literary liberty as maybe the intent was one of getting away to the wondrous wild wiles of wilderness?
1
"Do your homework ..."
That's sound advice, but Zimmerman actually says:
"... we often drove in the car together for long stretches to get out into the wilderness ..." (p. 33)
And then Zimmerman explicitly mentions "the Alaska Highway" and "the Arctic Circle".
So here is more advice:
Never Trust a Paraphrase.
6
@GB Nope. And, I'd never trust advice from someone who revels in alliteration...wait, that should be, "adores alliteration..."
1
Can we talk about how privileged one has to be to keep a high paying job like that while being a complete drug addict??
.
Millions Americans are not so lucky. From inner city families that lost everything when the father became addicted to crack twenty years ago; to rural families who have fallen prey to Opiates.
75
@ZAW
It's more a reflection of the type of environment these people work in. Uncaring, soulless, greedy. People he worked with for a decade must have seen these changes, the weight loss, the absence from the office, the change in disposition, but they were too busy billing hours to care. In the article that came out a few years ago about Zimmerman, the author noted that even at his funeral, the associates and partners were checking their phones every 5 minutes. That isn't really privilege from my perspective.
10
@ZAW
The fact that this guy was able to pull in this amount of money says two things, either : 1) the man is pulling in big clients and is not actually practicing law. There are many heavy hitters/name partners at law firms who just schmooze; or 2) the woman doesn’t understand how law firms operate and her ex is in fact performing well.
These stories are the tip of the iceberg. The medical, financial and legal professions are full of high functioning addicts. From adderall to booze to oxycontin to xanax.
38
What makes you think they are functioning?
13
@Bill
Two thoughts: One, humans have from the beginning of time found ways to alter their consciousness; life is hard; and
How sad that the professions have become so miserable that everyone is on drugs to tolerate their jobs. I don't think anyone goes to medical school or fashion school or business school thinking their work life will be unbearable, but we've somehow allowed capitalism (read: unchecked greed) to warp our lives until they hurt.
And no, life in the "olden days" (before the industrial revolution) wasn't unrelenting hardship. Work weeks were shorter, and leisure was the organizing principle in many societies. Despite all our luxuries and labor-saving inventions, we've managed to elevate overworking to a virtue. It's almost as if a tiny group of people benefits from us internalizing that message.
8
I'm sorry to be so suspicious - but taking 60 meds a day is A LOT of tablets. It brings severe withdrawls. How did the people around these people (or person) not notice this guy was taking medication so heavy. As someone that takes medication on a daily basis for depression, hiding my meds in my Apt is an art - and if I take one late, the person around me will notice.
I don't believe this person was taking 60 every day. Sorry people. That means 20 x 3 times a day... seriously! Also, in Europe these kinds of medications are heavily monitored. Government monitors the person and the pharmacies. I can think this guy would get a supply here and there, but not this much. The Government wouldn't allow for that to happen.
Seems fishy!
And for the guy that made a $1M and his wife didn't know... such lies. She just looked the other way. She knew... they just wanted to retire early... and he was miserable at his job, so this was their way to make it work. Its not the first time I see this...
The publishers do irresponsible thing to publish such books making people believe its possible to take 60 tablets and stay alive!
Sorry - but I think its just a way to sell books!
20
@Stephanie seriously! how could someone be awake with that much vicodin in their system?
6
@Stephanie
I worked with a plastic surgeon who would take breaks from operating (while the pt was still intubated on the OR table)and run to the bathroom then come back yelling and hyped up with a runny red nose cocaine of course. he would constantly try to grab my behind and make lewd comments. I would just hand the instruments to him and not respond. so yes a person can take 60 pills a day and survive.
in w. virginia a town with only four thousand people the town was getting over one million pills a yr. who took all of those. well the people of course.
15
@jennifer t. schultz Cocaine is a stimulant (where over doses manifest as cardiac or stroke) and Vicodin is hydrocodone and acetaminophen. As previous comments have said you could certainly take many single ingredient opioids and not die/ habituate as functional but because of the acetaminophen anything more than 12 tablets puts your liver at risk and add alcohol and the max before damage is 6 tablets. So perhaps he meant oxycodone, morphine, or hydromorphone. 60 tablets x325mg is certainly in the acute liver failure zone and an emergency visit to receive n-acetylcystine.
9
Eilene Zimmerman didn't even know her husband was an addict until after he died. That says a lot.
Opiates are not like the most popular drug - alcohol, which when fully involved in a person, there is no mystery they are stumbling drunk, etc.
I point this out because obviously a lot of people are able to work successfully while on them.
Portugal has successfully decriminalized opiates and with heavy oversight, counseling, and other services, gone from being an overdose capital to a huge success story - deaths have plummeted to almost zero.
26
@Paul Shindler He was her ex husband.
Excellent Fresh Air interview with her, by the way.
1
Twenty-eight years of my life were an alcohol- and cocaine-fuelled nightmare. I wrote a 330-page memoir in Hebrew of my life, but it's my business and nobody else’s. I keep it in an impenetrable security box; never again shall it be taken out. If people knew all I had done, then I would be friendless. I am 55 years old and have been clean for eight. I now have a wonderful identify that doesn't involve anything in that box.
34
Eileen Zimmerman’s stance that she knew nothing — even to the point of not recognizing the tracks on her husband’s arm — strikes me as disingenuous. Or just outright dishonest. I read her article, and I have spent a lot of time among high-earner lawyers like her husband. I have seen plenty of functioning junkies, in the legal field. The signs of addiction were there, in her husband, for all to see. Plain as day. But we often see only what we want to see. I think that she may have not wanted to deal with his demons.
23
@Passion for Peaches I agree. I don't believe it either.
5
@Passion for Peaches Read the book please before so harshly judging Zimmerman. I found the memoir to be genuine, eye opening, and beautifully written.
It should be noted, the author and the drug addict had been divorced for five years at the time of his death.
9
@Passion for Peaches They were divorced.
Listen to the Fresh Air interview if you can’t be bothered to read the book.
2
60 a day? How does anyone do this much Vicodin and still be able to breathe? Seems like that much would stop your respiratory system completely.
7
@Steve Dumford
Bodies are amazing. They acclimate to all sorts of toxins. They're not static systems; something that might kill an opiate-naive person might go unremarked in the same person once they've built up a tolerance.
1
Medical science has not yet developed a non-addictive effective safe treatment for chronic pain, a disorder affecting millions of Americans. While many people benefit from cannabis more research is needed. To date the tool box for treating the epidemic of chronic pain is inadequate.
12
Interesting. Just last week, I visited a relative who has had many surgeries over the years. The topic of opioids arose. He said he avoids them whenever possible, adding that they're a "cruel mistress". He went on to explain about "rebound pain": the more you need them, the worse the pain is once they wear off. According to him, this can lead to a viscious cycle, where one takes more of them, and on a more frequent basis, than prescribed, until suddenly, one is hooked. I had no idea but can now see why it's so hard to quit.
9
I believe anti-histamines have a rebound effect, so why not opioids too?
1
When I broke my wrist, they gave me a bottle of pills. Forget the pain of my wrist. Those things removed the pain of life. How wonderful that was.
But on the 4th day, my morning dose wore off an hour early and all the pain of life crashed down on me in a bitter freezing crushing wave. I really really wanted to increase my dose to five a day. But I knew where that would lead -- partly thanks to addiction memoirs.
So I figured out how to roll a joint with one hand, put away the pills, and weed worked fine.
I think, or hope, these memoirs help us accrue social wisdom about how to avoid these traps.
40
I am a woman who struggled to be taken seriously in the heavily male professional world of the 1980s and 1990s. I remember working in an office where several of the top people (men, of course) would come back from lunch every day sniffling and wild eyed. Clearly high on coke. Yet they thrived in their jobs, sailing along with little effort, while women had to run twice a fast and be twice as smart as they, just to be seen. So when I read about a male addict who held a responsible, well-paid position while wasted, all I can think of is how many capable women could have held that job.
164
@Passion for Peaches
Or how many capable women were actually doing his job for him.....
50
I wonder why we seem so fascinated by people who go down this dark path? Whether or not they find their way back does not seem to matter. We want to read the accounts of broken families, aborted careers, betrayal of friends and all manner of damages wrought. Why is that?
Why not celebrate those who navigate the same challenges but manage to do so without destroying their lives, careers and families?
Surely doing so requires more courage than taking sixty Vicodin each day.
11
Where's the mention of the doctors' involvement. These drugs don't grow on trees. The AMA and medical profession have conveniently removed themselves from the discussion, with few exceptions. Also, the nursing homes, where pain medications are routinely stolen from elderly residents to subsidize slave wages , get a free pass.
11
MD's never seem to have time for patients. 15 minutes and they are gone.
4
@AH Yes, the downward pressures on doctors are immense. They are ruled by bureaucrats cracking the whip.
2
I'm going to admit here that I've always been drawn to opioids/opiates. I don't know how unusual this is, but I found years ago that, rather than putting me into a stupor, they wake me up, clear the fog and cobwebs from my brain, and make it possible to focus (I believe I've had relatively mild depression all my life, as well as some kind of attention-deficit issue). I wrote my college (one of the best schools in the US) thesis while doing heroin...got an A+. I never became addicted, thank God.
Now I'm thinking that maybe the "high-functioning" addicts start with brain chemistry similar to mine--at first they find that the drugs actually help them function BETTER, but end up taking it too far (maybe successful execs get used to feeling that they are invincible). It does take some commitment, for lack of a better word, to actually get addicted. I also think about nurses who siphon off pain meds from their patients (I know they do it from personal experience). Those long, exhausting shifts, the stress, the sad things they see..and an inexhaustible supply of drugs...disaster waiting to happen.
I am in NO way endorsing opioid use by the above, nor am I saying that most people would be as fortunate/blessed as I was in not becoming physically addicted. But I can understand how the author of Smacked might not have realized what was happening. No one other than a serious addict would have been able to tell when I was on heroin.
22
@NGB I suspect you're correct. Remember Steve Howe, a pitcher for the Dodgers (and other teams) whose career was "destroyed" by drugs and alcohol? I recall that, during an interview once, he explain that if he tried to pitch without cocaine on board, he couldn't do it very well at all. It was the feeling of invincibility that the coke imparted that made him as good a pitcher as he was--at least that's what he felt to be the case.
1
Please, can Mr. McInerney write more book reviews for NYT? About anything under the sun? Speaking of people who can write.
So good! Thanks.
38
I believe the correct subtitle is: "A Memoir of Addiction, Ching Ching".
15
I'm two weeks out from my third shoulder surgery, for which I was prescribed Oxycodone. They only prescribed enough to last for the first five days post-op. But I stopped early and still had four pills rattling around in the bottle.
Just yesterday I threw away those four pills. I had told my physical therapist that I didn't want the Oxy because I felt like I might use them to self-medicate my anxiety or insomnia. But what I think I was embarrassed to admit was that the Oxy just made me feel good and safe.
Dan Peres' "pivotal epiphanic moment" of "pharmacological love," albeit undramatic for Eilene Zimmerman, was utterly relatable for me.
I really hope fewer doctors are prescribing these meds. I don't want to judge anybody's pain. But I think the road to addiction can be very short and anybody can find themselves there.
53
@ShoulderSurgeryVeteran Hope you didn't just dump them---all extra med should be recycled--or it ends up in our water, etc.
7
Save them for a "rainy day".
2
@ShoulderSurgeryVeteran Great that they only prescribed four days and that you made the responsible decision to stop even before that. I know so many doctors feel pressured by patients who don't seem to be able to tolerate any pain at all or to understand that yeah--recovery is going to hurt (duh).
2
"At the time of his death Peter was making more than a million dollars a year as a partner in a San Diego law firm."
Reminds me of that TV show "House" with the genius doctor who was addicted to Vicodin, but still could do amazing diagnosis's, etc.
I have been prescribed percocet and other opiate pain killers numerous times over the years for real pain - the last being a kidney stone problem. They work great, pain is usually gone and I feel almost normal and able to work. I have never had the desire to use leftover pills for recreational use, ever. I'm a recreational pot smoker, and that is my drug of choice - non addictive, not deadly, life enhancing.
The current demonetization of opiates is causing a lot of unnecessary pain and anguish for people who need them and are now denied them. As with alcohol a century ago, and pot more recently, we are over reacting. Some people, obviously, have addictive personalities, genes, whatever. Most people do not and they should not suffer, and in some cases be driven to suicide, because of a minority.
91
@Paul Shindler - Everyone has an addictive personality. Some are addicted to career, some to the gym, others to reading, others to gaming, etc. But all humans get hooked on something if not several things at one time. Sometimes, the "addiction" gets the best of us and we spend too much time at work and the family suffers or we spend too many hours with a game. But, we are all addicted to something.
11
@Paul Shindler Totally agree. I have had to use Percocet during an extremely painful smashed knee and the surgery and physio-therapy that followed. I also had to use it for a broken vertebrae and after major abdominal surgery. Each time I had to go to the doctor once a week and explain why I needed it, when I could often barely walk. I was made to feel like a junkie, begging for pain killers. When I was better I stopped taking them, sometimes I would have kind of flu like withdrawal symptoms, but even if I had them left over, I just never took them again. I feel for people who need them and cannot get them now. I hope that I never sustain a painful injury again, because I know the doctor will say, take a Tylenol. Can you imagine taking a Tylenol for a kidney stone?
21
@thewriterstuff
We can multiply your terrible experience by millions across America, and it is a total outrage. The unnecessary, massive forced pain suffering going on right now(by denying pain medication) is in my mind, close to, or is, criminal medical negligence.
17
At least in the second memoir the powerful partner- addict didn't physically maim anyone else, as happened in front of a grocery store to Girl Scouts selling cookies in Burlingame, California in 2009.
2
We read these books for the fun of it. Mr. M. should know. His was fun. These sound boring. Salud!
A prescribed week's worth of Vicodin will NOT addict a person. This fellow was mentally ill from before the onset of his addiction.
He was able to continue his addiction because of his resilient charms and manners (not uncommon in addicts and alcoholics) and, most especially, by moving and living in an preciously isolated world of money, influence, and nodding acceptance of such behavior among their ilk.
The true criminals/villains are the people from whom he continued to get the opioids early on.
22
A week of Vicodin can certainly addict someone if biologically vulnerable. It is a myth that addiction is a result of “underlying mental illness” in most cases. Addiction is a primary disorder all by itself, a genetically influenced confluence of dependence, tolerance and loss of control.
14
@Bob - I was only on my fourth day of opiod medication when my morning pill stopped working an hour before my next pill was due.
This was not yet addiction. But it scared me. I need five pills a day now instead of four? I saw increasing tolerance in my future and that looked like a pathway that would lead me towards addiction.
9
I guess the titles of the memoir could be: White privileged male continues to receive unearned advantages despite being “zonked” out on drugs.
Addiction is addiction is addiction. The difference is that for a small elite percentage of the population it often results in no real consequences (unless it kills you first) whereas for a large disenfranchised percentage of the population it often results in jail, homelessness, unemployment etc.
256
@Jason Alexander You beat me to it!!! A big part of Privilege is the ability to get away with crimes, or other bad behavior that those who aren’t privileged would be punished for.
38
@Jason Alexander Well said!
7
@Jason Alexander and described here with sly irony and finesse by one of America's finest authors.
1
I guess that is why Details was so bad. I don't think his addiction was as bad as his affinity for David Copperfield.
19
@GB i wonder if Peres' addiction was a product of his feeling inadequate for the job he was so quickly promoted to, and unable for obvious reasons to confide that feeling to anyone in his industry -- the impostor syndrome -- leads many people to depression. which can lead some to addiction. Having not read the book I'm just speculating. I don't recall reading Details more than once or twice, ever.
5
There seems to be some narrative that everyone who ever takes or becomes addicted to pain medication or any opiates is either criminal, completely out of control or is most certainly destined to die and somehow in cahoots with drug cartels. It's an easy sell after all and even easier to belittle anyone in need of substances to stop pain as if to tell us that pain really isn't real and anyone in pain should just suck it up for the good of everyone's bad conscious. Problematic to be sure, but pain is completely subjective. Most of us who endure long periods of pain over any number of conditions know that pain can and does make many of our lives unbearable.
I became addicted to heroin many years ago as a result of not only injuries and infections, but from the refusal of the medical community at large to even believe I was in pain much less in need of treatment for it. It did lead to several bad things in my life, but at the same time allowed me to function and work and feed my family. Many of us are left with a lousy choice. Either suck it up and endure long lasting pain or become a criminal just to be able to function in society. Because of my history with addiction when I am in pain and in need of pain medication nearly every doctor I come into contact with refuses to prescribe any medication to help which of course leads me to the black market for relief. I know for absolute fact I am not alone in these problems.
133
@Martino Great and important story. I unfortunately hear it from friends who are in constant pain. They don't want to take opioids but what are the options? None.
23
@Martino The narrative you speak of is the one the "War on Drugs" created. Progressive professionals have abandoned this stigma, and see addiction for what it is, a mental health problem. Not placing any blame on you, but I would encourage you to seek out more progressive health professionals who can help guide your recovery. While we must never forget personal choice and responsibility, avoid any doctor who claims "this is all your fault".
I wish you the best in your recovery.
24
@just Thanks. I long ago stopped using heroin and was successful in treatment that lasted far longer than I expected. But still, the stigma of my past follows me years after the fact.
8
Both books illustrate the consequences of not diagnosing high functioning hypomania or bipolar disease.
And the consequences of stigmatizing mental health care, and not making it part of the mainstream in healthcare.
Just collateral damage in the race for dollars.
The epidemic of despair affects people earning a million dollars a year as well as the unemployed. We're all just collateral damage.
This is the result of right wing politics-a colder, crueler, meaner, poorer world.
37
@DataDrivenFP
It’s definitely the Trump machine behind all this. His fingerprints are all over it! Now it all makes sense.
5
@Joe
trump? The gop has been engendering unnecessary society-wide pain since its days as the Democratic party. Rightwing ideologies always feature sadism.
1
You forgot to mention Aleister Crowley's Diary of a Drug Fiend.
8
Whatever else this story may be, it is the certain death of the fraudulent conservative argument that we are a bias-free meritocracy.
These wealthy schlubs can pull off work at the highest levels, income at the highest levels, prestige, and power zonked out of their wee brains?
I think not. Its a good bet some team of loser minions covered for these idiots, did their work and let them claim the credit, managed their schedules, made their excuses, negotiated their politics, all for less than then an executive's Christmas bonus.
Its a good bet this is another nail in the Ivy League coffin, if any one cares, which they do not. A fact made obvious by the continued hero-worship and genuflection at the Temple of McKinsey, the Harvard-sourced epicenter of immoral self-dealing, deadly politics for profit, and vanishing morality.
This story, for all its bathos, is nothing less than an indictment of the American way of success and promotion, the mindless allegiance to old school class-and-race-ridden notions of personal quality and worth and, if we're lucky, a chance to reconsider all this and set ourselves back on what was supposed to be a positive course.
Like that's gonna happen.
188
@John surely demonizing people for having addiction problems because they are "Ivy League" and writing an unsubstantiated narrative about underlings propping them up is the solution here.
Mental Health issues are a problem that affects people of any creed or class. You being angry at rich people for existing and also having mental health problems isn't productive.
26
@John What a happy and cheery addition to this heart warming story!
10
Thank you for introducing me to the word “bathos”.
16
Um, Zimmerman was a lawyer at Wilson, Sonsini in Palo Alto, not a San Diego lawyer. . . .
9
He worked in the San Diego (North County) office and his name wasn’t Zimmerman.
4
And my wife who has a very degenerative form of MS has to take a “pee” test every month for the last 25 years to get her pain meds.
White collar crime really does “pay”.
208
@Mike Exactly... Somehow, the people who need pain medication are treated like addicts while addicts manage to get any meds they want in incredible quantities.
There's also a question here as to how these people are taking dozens of Vicodin or other pain meds that combine opioids with acetaminophen daily without sustaining liver damage quite quickly. More than 4g/day is considered dangerous, and 60 Vicodin would have at least 19.5g.
52
@Mike
They find weed in her pee and that will be the end of her pain meds, if you are not in a legal state.
Lucky for the legal profession individuals who have addiction issues, there is a support group specifically targeted to the profession with the hope of maintaining licensure. The health profession may not have this kind of necessary support, at least not at the lower levels. Thanks for the writings from folks with lived experience - it is more meaningful coming directly from these writers than from professional studies.
4
Zimmerman's tale is all too common. When an upper middle class addict o'd's we all search for answers, signs, indications of behavior that we may have missed. Her ex husband's arc reminds me of one of my former coworkers. Just a charismatic, empathetic, hilarious guy who worked hard and ...as we knew played hard. He would jump in the car pool car with us at 5:45 a.m. and proceed to pass out..sound asleep until we got to work 50 miles south. Late nights? Yes. But no one ever suspected drug dependency. Then he missed a dinner with us after multiple phone calls and planning. His mom called me, distraught. He had over dosed at a wedding reception the day before our planned dinner, with stolen fentanyl patches. He had his friends were drinking. He passed out and died. He was found on his back, in bed, in a tuxedo.
41
Why would McInerney feel the need to call out the Author's bosses in the memoir, "As Needed for Pain?"
How does this help the cause of those who fall into the pit of Opiod-addiction? One of the insidious problems of this addiction is the inability of loved ones to notice the problem until too late.
I found this very self-serving and possibly damaging.
3
@Ken Floyd "Why would McInerney feel the need to call out the Author's bosses in the memoir, "As Needed for Pain?" How does this help the cause of those who fall into the pit of Opiod-addiction?"
It doesn't. It does, perhaps, help those who were reading a book review though.
3
Am sick and tired of books about the addictions of high profile people in fancy environments. I worked in rehabs, detoxes, and inpatient psychiatry. Addiction is addiction. All these books revenues seem like cashing in on an epidemic, and that just seems sleazy to me.
69
@Darby Moore I couldn't disagree more. Illustrating that addiction can happen to anyone is extremely powerful as it denies people from saying "Oh it just happens to -those people-"
13
@Darby Moore I'm not sure but you seem to critiquing the American Way?
2
@Darby Moore: It is more interesting if a high case person becomes addicted rather than say a truck driver.
3
I respect the endless warning newspaper articles, books and TV babble. The danger of addiction is real. But there are a large number of people who need chronic pain relief to get out of bed. They find it more difficult to get treated properly by a good doctor who has become afraid of prescribing these medicines. I know someone treated like a criminal in a major drugstore when he came to get prescribed medicine. Some never get the slightest kick or pleasure from a large dose of opiates. The system has guidelines and rarely treats a patient as an individual. Only those who suffer from the pain can understand what it is like to see life diminished without cure and to then be told you are an addict and don't need the medicine.
65
@simon rosenthal there are many potential non-addictive non-opioid treatments that have much promise. Pharma is not interested in investing in them.
7
@just
I always suspect the magic non-addictive pain medications will fail clinical trials miserably because they lack the euphoric qualities of opiates which also wind up treating, if poorly, the psychic trials of chronic illness and pain.
Serious pain and illness is as much a mental health crisis as a physical ailment and it’s grossly under treated.
9
You have a point but don't grasp that many people get no euphoric result if their pain is serious. Non addictive pain killers don't work at all for them and even the addictive pain meds have limited benefit.
9
Regarding the topic of white-collar addiction translates to many sectors, including Medicine and Finance. The stress, unhealthy workload, long hours (many 24/7 days) and lack of autonomy lead many to the point of burnout in their chosen fields, which frequently leads to making unhealthy choices. Masking the pain in a feel-good substance in not an illogical choice, but one that can have severe repercussions. More research and treatment needs to be placed on both burnout and addiction in all segments of our society.
13
I understand that this book is about addiction, specifically to Vicodin. Addiction to anything, however , is paralyzing and sometimes life threatening. So, I fail to understand why NYU Langone Medical School ranked #9 in 2019, is still accepting support from the Sackler family , the Graduate School carries the Sackler name.
70
@Irene Cantu It's a common moral problem for institutions: money received from vile people can do good; should it be turned down, and less good done, because of the source? There is no easy answer, I think.
11
@William Starr
Sure there is. Get the money out of the Sackler family's hands and do good with it. N.B., Shaw's introduction to "Major Barbara."
But ditch the name on the building if at all possible.
3
Finally, the class equality the US longs for via opiate addiction.
11
@Brad Steele So only poor people have a disease or disorder and only poor people deserve our compassion? I don’t think your problem with income inequality, which indeed exists, works here. It’s kind of sick to think that you feel gleeful about someone’s death, just because they are rich.
2
why would someone want to comment on such a depressing subject. there is way too much depression in the real world to read a book on depression! go outside, take a walk in the park, listen to the birds chirping.
2
@buskat I find bird chirping very depressing.
10
@buskat - I find walking through the park depressing. It seems everyone but me is skinny and has 6-pack abs and runs everywhere while I struggle to put one fat foot in front of the other.
7
"But her [Zimmerman's] powers of observation fail when it comes to Peter’s drug use."
Not exactly. Zimmerman says that when she went to Peter's house looking for him after he had overdosed that she noticed
"a few tissues in the bed, with spots of blood on them"
and
"a small bloody hole below Peter's elbow".
Those *observations* illustrate a common problem -- seeing a lot of evidence, but not being able to interpret it.
Indeed, Charles Darwin had to learn how to see a rock-strewn valley as evidence that a glacier had once filled the valley:
"Eleven years ago, I spent a whole day in the valley, where yesterday every thing but the Ice of the Glacier was palpably clear to me, and I then saw nothing but plain water, and bare Rock."
That's from "Charles Darwin, Geologist" (2005) by Sandra Herbert, which goes into more detail about how Darwin got his "glacial eye" (p. 283).
17
I have been haunted by Zimmerman's reaction to her husband's obvious addiction. I am not as charitable as the reviewer about Zimmerman's unwillingness to come to terms, in an adult and responsible way, with an extremely serious issue. If we are to think of drug addiction as a medical problem rather than a moral failing, then Zimmerman was derelict in her duty as spouse. Even after the divorce, her former husband remained the father of her children, and for that reason alone she should have intervened to at least try to save him. Perhaps the denial, and it is clinical denial, stemmed from the realization that she was allowing her children to go their father's home, at some level knowing that they might be exposed to drug use and even drug dealers. I realize that I am harshly critical and I realize that Zimmerman does not know about health care in the way that I do. But I would like to think that I would recognize the signs of addiction and that I would have staged an intervention, if only for the sake of my children.
4
@Moso I have not read this book, so can not comment fully, but the spouse (and ex-partners) can be caught in the web of co-dependence, enabling and denial. Please don't be so quick to condemn Ms. Zimmerman. Not sure which field of healthcare you work in, but it does not sound like you have a wide knowledge of addiction. Those who suffer in addiction/substance use disorders need help, but in order for real change to happen, they need to both fully acknowledge the addiction and have the desire to change.
15
@Moso
Wow, a bit harsh. Finding your husband unreliable would not automatically lead a spouse to think of drugs, especially if he is still productive at work and the husband has been extremely vigilant in keeping his addiction hidden. Moreover, the reviewer says it is yet unclear whether the drug addiction started before or after the divorce.
Zimmermann has done a brave thing here in alerting others to think of hidden addiction as a possible explanation for erratic behavior of a loved one.
23
@Moso I read her original article about this and the way she tells it she had no clue. Drugs were in locked safes. He was on a conference call the day he died. She even had a key to his house - they were divorced by then - and says she never saw a thing. That's her story anyway.
2
"At the time of his death Peter was making more than a million dollars a year as a partner in a San Diego law firm." WSGR was founded and has its largest office in Palo Alto, CA.
@Gene with an office in San Diego.
7
@Eric Yes, but even Zimmerman's own 2017 article calls WSGR "a prominent law firm based in Silicon Valley."
A well-written review intended, obviously, to steer you away from reading either book: in other words, a public service.
36
Men can get away with it at the workplace because they always get the benefit of the doubt. Women, not so much.
115
@KC
Want to bet the slack in the workplace left by these men is picked up by the competent and underpaid women working for them?
102
@KC
"Girl Walks Out of a Bar"
"How to Murder Your Life"
Both are memoirs of addiction and recovery written by working women, one a lawyer, the other a magazine editor.. There are others.
7
@Chickpea I'd say it's a 1 in 4 chance.
These rich people addiction stories neither enlighten nothing really the ease of access is so unrelatble. I went through addiction 7 years of pill addiction myself but am not white so definitely did not go to a doctor for my fix or had a job that was so great. This makes me want to tell my story.
21
@Angel Damn! That's the title of my new book, "Rich People Addiction Stories". My editor said it was a sure hit!
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@Angel
Please, consider doing just that!
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@Angel Start writing, and consider blog or vlog. I’ll read/listen to it.
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Peres says he took 60 Vicodin a day. That is 18 grams of Tylenol per day. The toxic dose of Tylenol is 7 to 10 grams. Maybe spreading it out over the course of a day may have spared his life, but hard to imagine chronic use at this level did not kill him. Not sure if this is a story of amazing physiology or an “amazing” story.
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@Ed Riley "Peres says he took 60 Vicodin a day. That is 18 grams of Tylenol per day. The toxic dose of Tylenol is 7 to 10 grams. "
Are you thinking of percocet? That has tylenol mixed in. Vicodin doesn't.
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@APS Incorrect. A Vicodin tablet does indeed contain 300 mg of acetaminophen (generic name for Tylenol.) And hepatoxicity/acute liver failure is a known risk of overconsumption of acetaminophen.
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@Ed Riley That was my first thought. 18 grams of acetaminophen every day is not vaguely credible. Even someone with an exceptionally high tolerance would have their liver glutathione reserves completely depleted very rapidly, with acute liver toxicity the inevitable outcome.
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interesting correlate to this in the lead character in "the goldfinch'
a movie I really liked
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sounds like an amazing book, need to pick it up. The number of "functional addicts" in the white collar world has exploded in recent years, especially in tech.
all too often a well paying white collar job comes at the cost of your self-worth and sanity
I find one commonality amoung many is being forced to be tied to a desk for 8 hours a day. For most I know (myself included) unless it's a deadline, 4-6 hours of the day are spent doing -nothing- [that couldn't be accomplished at home]. This is so demoralizing for workers, and turns work into a form of prison. I know many white collar workers who would JUMP on an opportunity to do blue collar work at the same pay rate they currently make, unfortunately this rarely exists.
I guess what I'm saying is, the current "hurry up and wait" environment of white collar work these days amounts to what could be considered the equivalent of psychological torture.
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@just - lol, "psychological torture". Try working a gay bar on a slow afternoon with only one customer who just sits there staring up into your eyes like they are the Hope Diamond or something. THAT is psychological torture at work.
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@just Even with internet?
i prefer memoirs by people who suffered and struggled and overcame hardship and didn't become addicts
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OMG. I broke my leg in my early 20s and a friend agreed to drive me to pick up my 30 Vicodin in exchange for 2 of them. Fair deal; while I waited at the pharmacy counter inside the supermarket, he grabbed us a six-pack of Busch tallboys to wash them down. God how I hated those pills and the unsettling feeling. Ultimately, I found the formula that would at least help me sleep through the night without pain: half a pill and two fingers of Scotch. I probably threw away the last 10.
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When McInerney writes that "It remains a bit of a mystery how the 28-year old Perez, who was working as a correspondent in Paris, got the head job at a major Condé Nast title..." it reveals loads about his own powers of observation or lack thereof.
The mystery he refers to is easily solved. Perez is white, privileged and male, a figure who is the social default, that unlike the rest of us, has an opportunity to fail upward over and over. Of course, McInerney is an example of the very same, so we shouldn't expect him to understand that.
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@Rob U. Agree, except the dig at McInerney. He's actually talented and has produced numerous books, including at least one classic.
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@Rob U. That's silly. What you say may well be true abut Perez, but it still does not answer McInerney's question because there are hundreds of thousands of privileged white males out there. Why keep this one on the payroll for fifteen years in such a highly, highly competitive industry?
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As a white (pseudo-privileged) male, can I be expected to understand this comment?
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As far as Zimmerman's story goes, denial is more than just a river in Egypt. It is a reflexive response that is extremely common among the loved ones of "functional" addicts for a good reason - as a coping strategy it allows for the ego/face preservation of everyone involved. It works, until the signs can't be explained by anything else any longer.
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With so many Americans "on the spectrum" of self-medication, it's not surprising that the people portrayed in these works were able to create and sustain an environment in which both the addict and the workplace quietly adhered to an unspoken but mutually beneficial state of denial.
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I am a chronic sufferer of back problems, that began as an innocent bike ride to my teaching job in he summer of 1992. Physical therapy did little to ease the pain, so surgery was indicated by four different doctors. But...anecdotally speaking...The body is NEVER the same after it is cut into. Morphine in the hospital, followed by Vicodin at home...1 pill 3x a day for a couple of weeks and that knocked me for a loop...One day hurting soooooo bad, I took two and that knocked me for a loop for about three days...I now maintain a small supply-prescribed, but use them so seldom that 3 a month is a lot.
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Until I retired a couple of years ago, I was that white collar professional. I was addicted to Vicodin and Norco for about 14 or 15 years. My husband didn't know until I stopped taking those "meds" that I was addicted to them.
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Both stories detail the denial of everyone surrounding the addicts. One was in a professional position and the surrounding workplace denied his obvious dysfunction. The other was a husband and father who's addiction was ignored by the family. Further, as a lawyer bringing home over $1M a year, his addiction was also ignored professionally. These stories do more to support the concept of institutional bigotry than any other recent publication I can think of.
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@MSC, this isn’t bigotry—it’s typical white male entitlement. If Zimmerman or Peres were African-American they 1) would never have gotten that far without tons of credentials, 2) would have been fired the minute they missed a meeting or even looked like letting others do their jobs for them.
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@MSC
I am a lawyer. Many lawyers who are top client generators can make $1million a year. Many of these people are terrible lawyers. You don’t know how law firms operate and you don’t know the real reason why he made $1 million a year.
Wow. Am I the first simply because everybody else is self-reflecting at this moment? Actually it's because I'm out of work. But seriously folks, as someone who's on the other side of second-guessing exactly how I ended up alone after 20 years and two children, and deeply regretting exactly how narcissistic tendencies can be when it comes to being unhappy in a marriage and willing to sacrifice your children for it or at least not how much more difficult it would be for our children, I would say that this review is spot-on with regards to insecurities and denial. I'm interested in reading both of these books. Maybe I'm getting over my own denial.
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Sixty Vicodin/day contains over ten times the maximum daily dose of Tylenol. No-one's liver could survive this. Hydrocodone, maybe, not Vicodin.
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Both memoirs focus on the addictions of upper-class people. Nothing wrong with telling those stories, and McInerny is uniquely qualified to review such tales. It'd be nice to know what portion of American addicts, and of what substances, are upper-class and what are working-class, whether it's more likely or not to get hooked in one class or another, and what happens to people who do, just as background.
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Yes excellent point. I watched the documentary Heroin: Cape Cod this morning (HBO). Middle class and lower getting hooked on heroin because of pain management. Half of those profiled died. And so young. Our addiction problem is everywhere and affects everyone.
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We had it all, the proverbial American Dream. Was it too good — three healthy children, the house with a pool, the career that my husband not only loved but also his abilities were acknowledged and appreciated by his peers? Then he got Vicodin any way he could, and died at thirty-nine. 1990.
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@BoycottBlather
That is heartbreaking. Thank you for that deeply personal and poignant comment. When I was reading the review I too thought of how people can seem to "have it all" ("making over a million dollars a year"! etc.) and yet still fall into depression or addition or both or struggle with other demons that make life hard or end life altogether. Your story succinctly says volumes.
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History will no doubt name the last few decades of The American experience as anesthetized. If you can be as well paid as these folks were yet pound opioids with abandon, it would seem that “success” mostly requires a type of blindness that its sober benefactors merely inhabit.
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@Pomeister
"pound opioids with abandon"
In addiction, my friend, there is no "abandon", there is no "wild freneticism". It is raw need which can quickly become desperation.
Don't comment on what you don't understand.
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We are living in an epidemic of addiction. The Sacklers knew this and poisoned the well. They made billions off diversion. Nobody cared when it was just Appalachia. Then, the chickens came home to roost.
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@thewiseking Nobody cared when it was just poor black people.*
Fixed that for ya.
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This opioid epidemic, engineered for profit, raged on because the early victims, working class Appalachian Whites, were both ignored and despised by all other segments of our society. It is interesting to ponder how it took Barack Obama over 7 years to even mention the opioid epidemic in public, virtually the exact amount of time it took Ronald Reagan to mention AIDS. Two epidemics which raged because the early victims were disenfranchised and held in contempt.
We ignored the early victims of this horrific opioid epidemic at our peril. We now find our nation ravaged, our productivity and life expectancy diminished and a demagogue propelled into the White House.
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@thewiseking
it is interesting how you don't consider how despised non-whites were when they were the primary victims of the drug wars, with families and lives already ruined but compounded by long prison sentences meted out for the same issue. In fact, the exact moment poor whites became the new victims of drug overdoses is the time when public concern began to be expressed. Or just exactly how much the industry owns public policy on the issue, to the point where any president in office doesn't really have the power to do much about the issue, mention or no. But nice concern trolling.
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