…and walking the walk –

JANUARY 6, 2019 – Critics might accuse Hampton of hyperbole, but on these subjects he speaks with authority. In American Fix, Hampton writes with equal candor about his own experiences with addiction and recovery and the criminal failings of the treatment industry. Hampton didn’t spend his time on heroin under a bridge. As a political staffer in Washington, DC, he stood alongside some of the most powerful people in the United States. The book recounts a 2012 campaign fundraiser for Barack Obama where Hampton shook hands with the president and conversed with him for several minutes, all shortly after injecting himself with heroin. It’s an important anecdote because the opioid epidemic afflicts every race, class, and region of the country, but too often it is presented as a problem of the rural white or urban black poor. The story of the so-called “functional addict” that Hampton shares is one we need to hear more often…

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