Growing up in rural central Ohio, I lead a rather quiet and mostly uneventful childhood. I often likened the small town I grew up in to the one I saw in one of my grandma's favorite television shows: The Andy Griffith Show. To me, Ashville was like a more modern Mayberry and I grew up thinking about how nothing bad ever happened there and how peaceful it all was. I grew up living in that small town, with the small school, and the small local shops and I never once thought about the things I couldn't see.

As I got older I came to realize that there did seem to be an unsavory crowd of locals that I never remembered noticing before: people that shop lifted, and stole from their neighbors, people who walked and looked just like some sort of living zombie. After a while I was no longer surprised by these kinds of people because soon you would notice more and more every day. I realized that our county had an obvious drug problem, and I was genuinely surprised.

I didn't fully understand the opiate epidemic our country has been facing until my Intro to Pharmacy professor assigned a book for out of class reading: Dreamland by Sam Quinones. In his novel he carefully outlines the progression of our nation's struggle with opiate addiction. Much to my surprise, the "Dreamland" that the title refers to was actually once a community pool in Portsmouth, Ohio. What I found even more surprising though, was the role Ohio played in this epidemic. Between the budding of pharmaceutical advertising, the unintended sprout of pill mills, to the explosion of black tar heroin; Sam weaves this intricate timeline that shows all the connections nobody had completely put together before. It's a riveting tale with twists and turns and you're not exactly sure whats going to happen next. I'm not going to ruin the plot because I think everyone could use the clarity that results in finishing the book.

For so long we've pretended that this somewhat quiet disease hasn't been wreaking it's havoc. It's been much more easy for us to cast those struggling with addiction aside and pretend we're none the wiser. It's in our best interest One message that really stuck with me is that addiction is not just a moral failing, it's a real issue that we need to face.