AIRED: October 6, 2010– 11 am PST
www.VoiceAmericaNetwork.com
TITLE: “Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict”
SPECIAL GUEST: Joshua Lyon, Journalist and Author
Our guest, Joshua Lyons, shares with Allen and our audience his journey through chaos, loss, and gradual transformation toward a new life. Bringing together an addict’s mind and a journalist’s eye, his tenacious and candid memoir will resonate with anyone who is struggling with chemical dependence and looking for the courage and strength to heal. It’s one thing to want to give up an addiction to painkillers. It is quite another to succeed. Joshua is succeeding.
From politicians to entertainers the headlines are constantly filled with newsmakers entering rehab, getting into trouble, or overdosing. But the drug of choice is no longer just alcohol or heroin it is misuse and abuse of prescription drugs. From pain relievers and tranquilizers to ADD medicine and sleeping pills, users misperceptions of addiction and danger are staggering.
Generation Rx is among us. Did you know that:
- 48 million Americans have admitted to using prescription painkillers non-medically – that’s almost 20% of the population
- 9 million Americans are currently abusing prescription drugs
- 20 percent of high school kids abuse prescriptions drugs – that’s 1 in 5
- 40 percent of teens and an almost equal number of parents think abusing prescription painkillers is safer than abusing street drugs?
- More than 29 percent of teens in treatment are dependent on tranquilizers, sedatives, amphetamines, and other stimulants, which are all types of prescription drugs
- Emergency Room visits due to prescription overdoses jumped 111 percent over a five year period?
In PILL HEAD: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict (Hyperion; July 13, 2010; Trade Paperback; $14.99), national recognized journalist, Joshua Lyon, exposes the devastating epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse while laying bare his own addiction.
The Internet has made accessing prescription painkillers all too easy. When Joshua first bought Vicodin online with ease for an assignment at Jane magazine, he found himself becoming dependent on them. Rather than disposing of the pills after the assignment as per his editor’s instructions, he gave in to his curiosity and fell in love. PILL HEAD is the story of how he came to terms with painful truths and how he has begun to rebuild a life after rehab.
Joshua was not alone in his addiction. Interpolating memoir segments between interviews with experts and stories of Generation Rx abusers, he dares to blow open the cultural phenomenon of America’s newest pill-popping generation.
