WADENA — "Opioid Reckoning: Love, Loss and Redemption in the Rehab State," a book by Amy C. Sullivan is the featured book for this month's BookEnds Online Edition which will be held Saturday, May 14 at 11:30 a.m. via Zoom.
Minnesota's alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs have long been held up as the gold-standard, but the opioid epidemic has challenged its abstinence-only, morals-based model. The predominance of the Minnesota Model in the deeply siloed models of addiction care — Twelve Step, medication, and the newer Harm Reduction approach — has cost our society dearly. Professor Sullivan's book shows how Minnesota has the potential to be a national leader in ending the opioid epidemic, but only if we choose to confront stigma and increase compassion for people who use drugs, according to a Wadena County Historical Society news release.
Amy Sullivan is a history professor at Macalaster College. Her book, a 2022 Minnesota Book Award Finalist, began as an oral history project featuring more than sixty interviews with Minnesotans touched by or working to end the epidemic. A recording of this program will be available on the website www.WadenaCountyHistory.org .
