Knox County Public Library invites the public to join Dr. Mark McGrail for a consideration of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy, Wednesday, July 24, noon-1:00 in the East Tennessee History Center auditorium at 601 South Gay Street.

"Dopesick expertly takes the reader on a journey through the opioid crisis, from first recognition to the devastation opioid addiction has inflicted upon too many families," McGrail said. "It is a story all too familiar to thousands of East Tennesseans and provokes critical conversations not only regarding the 'how and why did this happen' but also the 'what can we do about it' for our communities."

Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.In these politically fragmented times. Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse.

Dr. McGrail is board certified in both family medicine and addiction medicine and resides in Knoxville. He completed undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and medical school at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. McGrail performed a family medicine residency at Eisenhower Army Medical Center and a fellowship in primary care behavioral medicine at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, Knoxville. After his retirement from the U.S. Army in 2016, he assumed his current position as the Director of Addiction Medicine for Cherokee Health Systems in Knoxville and provides comprehensive outpatient treatment for patients suffering from substance use disorders.