Trojan Horses

Trojan Horses: Voices from the Opioid Crisis is an experimental creative nonfiction project. The book examines socioeconomic and racial inequity in the substance abuse treatment industry. This hybrid work uses mixed media graphics, clinical assessment materials, court records, and testimonials to chart the experiences of six opiate addicted individuals and the helping professionals tasked with serving them. These multiple forms release narrative clues outside of chronological order, so the reader gains insight into the characters' psychological underpinnings in a fragmented, piecemeal way, just as a therapist or client might within a clinical context. Each speaker is a composite synthesized from multiple consenting individuals the author worked with closely during her time as a clinician, including a professional baseball player, a black trans-woman mandated to a men's rehab, a 9/11 first responder, a middle-class college junior, and a teenaged MS-13 gang member. The voices contained within these pages speak to the paradox, hope, potential, loss, and magnified complexities of the human experience when confronted with addiction.