Tag Archives: pill head

Pill Chic–Cool Or Just Plain Messed Up?

Erin FlahertyApril 28, 2010 //

When it comes to fashion, I adore the subversive. Black leather and studs, gun print dresses, safety pins, you name it — I’ve worn it and loved it. So it’s perhaps hypocritical of me, but I have to draw the line at this “cheeky” pharmaceutical trend. Keep reading »

Writing About Pill Addiction Is The Latest Addiction

Kate Torgovnick/Kate-Book.comAugust 15, 2009 //

You know when you learn a new word, and, all of a sudden, you hear it everywhere? Well, I’m having a moment like that right now. A few months ago, the only people I’d heard of getting addicted to prescription pain killers were Rush Limbaugh, Paula Abdul, and Elvis. Then my friend and former co-worker Joshua Lyon told me that he was writing a memoir about how he’d been a prescription-pill junkie for years. His book Pill Head came out last month, and it’s both shocking and incredibly illuminating. I had no idea how much a few pills could run someone’s life. And then there was Michael Jackson’s death. Keep reading »

Q&A: Confessions Of A Pill Head

Kate Torgovnick/Kate-Book.comJuly 9, 2009 //

I vividly remember walking into the interview. I was a junior in college and had scored a meeting with Joshua Lyon, an editor at Jane Magazine, the publication I’d been dreaming of working for since the first issue had appeared on newsstands and I skipped school to read it cover-to-cover. The interview went well, and an hour later, I got the phone call that he had picked me to be his intern. I was elated.

Josh and I worked together for the next four years. Turns out that, for two of them, he was almost always high on prescription pain killers.

Josh has written a fascinating book, Pill Head, about the whole ordeal. It’s part memoir, and part sociological exploration of why so many people in the United States—48 million of them to be exact—have used prescription pills for non-medical purposes. After the jump, Josh tells us everything from how he got his hands on his first Vicodin to why prescription pain killers are especially popular with the ladies. Oh, and why you owe it to grandma not to try them. Keep reading »